Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to also take a call in this third reading of the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). It took a little while due to a variety of circumstances but I am very pleased to be standing here taking a call and being able to extend my congratulations to my colleague from our class of 2017 on her very first member's bill going through the House today and I'm looking forward to some celebrations afterwards as well.Now Ginny Andersen in her speech said that her bill makes workers' rights and rights for women stronger. That is a really important point to emphasise as well. At the moment the way that the current situation is of course is that the current bereavement leave provisions as they are now can lead to disputes between the employer and the employees regarding any potential entitlement to bereavement leave. And of course at a time when people are at their most stressed and in situations that they didn't foresee that is the last thing people should be ending up having to do—negotiating if they should be taking either their sick leave or their holidays. Neither of those are fit to be taken in these circumstances. So it is a really important issue here strengthening the rights for workers and for women to know what their entitlements are.Now I know that employment lawyer Kathryn Dalziel wrote a media article in August 2018 and I'd just like to quote her from that media article. She said Women and their partners who are denied miscarriage bereavement leave can raise an employment relations problem and ask to go to mediation to discuss the matter with their employer. They can also refer the matter to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to see if they might talk to the employer about the meaning of the word 'child' ". Now just listening to all of that you can understand that arguing about leave entitlements at a time like this only exacerbates any stress that the people are dealing with and exacerbates any grief that they are trying to deal with at such a difficult time. So a statutory employment right clearly stipulated in law would provide that much-needed clarity on what currently is obviously a very uncertain process.Now I know that Kathryn van Beek has already been mentioned by a previous speaker but I would also like to pay some acknowledgment to Kathryn being a driving force behind this issue as well as our former colleague Clare Curran who as a local MP drove this issue through. And as well it is really great to see the cross-party support that this really important issue has. And again that cross-party support really emphasises how important this particular issue is.A lot of mention has been made by the previous speakers on the work that the Education and Workforce Committee did on this bill. I was part of that select committee. We received 37 often very heartfelt submissions on this particular topic. As a result of those submissions and the discussions that took place our select committee made several changes and I might just take a little bit of time to run through some of that background as to why we did that. But I think it is also important to mention that several of these submissions spoke about the discrimination and the stigma that we still see surrounding the issue of miscarriage. People also said to us that an ability to be able to take leave to actually deal with the grief would also be an acknowledgment of all those people who have suffered in silence and who have gone through a lot of grief—that would be an acknowledgment of that grief.Now I mentioned our select committee hearing many heartfelt very personal stories from workers who often had to rely on the goodwill of the employer to allow them time off. As the previous speaker mentioned many times with good employers that is no issue at all but it has been and that was very clear from some of the stories that we heard. We also heard from several unions that there are employers who require workers to use their sick leave rather than bereavement leave. And of course at a time that people are in when they experience such a stressful time the last thing they need to do is negotiate with an employer because it only adds further stress. I would like to quote from one of the submissions from E tū: "During this time of mourning families should not have to go through the pain and anguish of having to convince an employer that they should be allowed bereavement leave to enable them to grieve this acute loss."But it is also not just a matter of paid leave; this also goes to the essence of job security and that was a point that the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions really pointed out as well. And as is obvious from the submissions people will also be made more comfortable to talk about pregnancy loss. I talked about the discrimination and the stigma earlier the taboo of the issue. The New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA) women's network provided our committee with the following submission: "the fact that we do not accept miscarriage as a common place example of a bereavement means people like me who have suffered them feel almost odd comparing them to the bereavement of another type of close family member (which are recognised in employment law)." So again people are feeling uncomfortable to even have to bring this up as a valid bereavement due to the uncertainty in the law.Family Planning stated "Like other areas of sexual and reproductive health it is important that we work to eliminate stigma shame and silence surrounding miscarriage." And then lastly from the New Zealand College of Midwives: "Taking time to initiate recovery from a traumatic event such as miscarriage or stillbirth will support future mental health and wellbeing." So again the submissions that we received made it really clear that the bill would remove the stress of negotiating leave with employers at a time of grief and people coming to terms with what they have just experienced.Now this is also important to consider in light of the growth of people in precarious work situations in New Zealand. So we have a higher proportion of Māori and Pacific workers in casual and seasonal work and that means that they do need better protection when it comes to their employment rights and protection of their statutory minimum employment rights as it is.We did hear from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions that there are plenty of places that are already providing over-and-above bereavement leave provisions in their collectives. So for example the Ministry for the Environment Crown Law the Ministry of Education and the Christchurch City Council are amongst workplaces where the PSA has negotiated bereavement leave for miscarriage into the collectives for their union members. Now our select committee made several changes to this bill; we have heard a lot about those. There is one in particular that I think is important to note. I asked the member in charge of the bill about this actually in the committee of the whole House stage of the bill and that was in regards to "confirmed pregnancy". Now the word "confirmed" could be confusing. It could also maybe imply that there is a proof of requirement needed which we absolutely didn't believe should be the case and there are already existing obligations between employers and employees when it comes to good-faith provisions—so open and honest communication and doing nothing that could potentially mislead. So these already apply under those circumstances. As the previous speaker Barbara Kuriger already mentioned we also talked about the people that are eligible for bereavement leave because partners as well as the person themselves suffering the loss need time to grieve and come to terms with what they have just gone through.So again just to wrap it all up: this bill will reduce the stress around a very difficult time by ensuring bereavement leave is available to assist those grieving with coming to terms with what is a really difficult time for them and also they don't have to worry about their job about their wages about job security—and you know just know what their rights are during a very unexpected time when they have to take time off work. So it is an absolute pleasure. I see unfortunately my time has run out. I could have done another 10 minutes but here we are. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I commend this bill to the House."