Lees-Galloway Iain: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Recommittal Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — Recommittal Third Reading[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1948. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): There has been a lot of waffle and distraction from the National Party members in this debate. Let us cut to the chase. If it was not for Sue Moroney and if it was not for her bill absolutely nothing would be being done about paid parental leave. That Government would not have done a thing to extend paid parental leave if it had not been for Sue Moroney.Let us talk about the facts. Some background—the fifth Labour Government introduced paid parental leave. National voted against it. The fifth Labour Government extended paid parental leave. National voted against it. In the last term of Parliament Sue Moroney introduced this legislation and at its first reading National voted against it. If it really believed in this issue it would have taken the bill to a select committee. It would have voted for it to go to a select committee and it would have worked with the Opposition parties to get it right and to reach a compromise. But no it voted against it. But the bill went to the Government Administration Committee anyway. It went to select committee and the support for it from the public was absolutely overwhelming. National started to understand that it was out of touch that it was on the wrong side of this debate and that things had to change. It started negotiating with Sue Moroney. Sue Moroney thought that maybe there was going to be a deal done with the National Party and that it might agree to support her bill if she reduced the extension of paid parental leave. And then the National Party—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The paid parental leave bill got to select committee and that is where the National Party realised that it was completely offside and completely out of touch with public opinion. So National members came to Sue Moroney and they indicated that they actually wanted to move from their previous position where they had consistently voted against paid parental leave to actually being prepared to extend it. Sue Moroney wanting to see the best in all people thought that the National Party wanted to make a compromise and work with her on this legislation. But that was unfortunately incorrect. What the National Party wanted to do was to play politics on this and to block Sue Moroney’s bill and then introduce a weaker version of it of its own.So the bill came back from the select committee and to the Committee of the whole House. That is where the filibuster began. That is where the National Party MPs stood up in the Chamber and put the brakes on this legislation because of course National was in the minority on this issue. But they just thought that if they could hold the bill up until they got to the election Parliament might change and they might be able to get a majority and block the bill properly. Sadly they were successful and that is exactly what happened. When we came back from the election National used its majority with the ACT Party to gut this bill to actually put this bill into the position that it is in now where it actually has no substance in it. I have heard National MPs talking about the fact that the bill now has no substance in it. The reason is that the National Party voted to remove all the substance from it.The National Party has at every turn from when paid parental leave was first introduced by the fifth Labour Government voted against it and moved to block it. The only reason National is going to introduce legislation of its own is that Sue Moroney has championed this issue and National members have belatedly realised after a decade that they are on the wrong side of this issue and they have to do something to appear to be in touch with ordinary New Zealand voters. That is the only reason National has been prepared to do this.Then today we get this bizarre situation where David Seymour tries to strong-arm the Government and now what is going to happen is that the compromise position that Sue Moroney tried to get agreement on with the National Party which it still voted against—National is now going to do that through its own legislation as well. I am fascinated to know what the libertarian argument is for extending paid parental leave. I would love to hear David Seymour tell us about that. Maybe it is something the Athenians were into—I do not know. But we got into this interesting situation where the National Party is now going to move. It is not going far enough. It is slow off the mark. But thank you Sue Moroney for your advocacy. Thank you Sue Moroney for standing up for parents. It is only because of Sue Moroney that anything is going to happen at all.