Willis NicolaPARENTAL LEAVE AND EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION (SHARED LEAVE) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingNICOLA WILLIS (National): Oh happy day. This is one of those days in Parliament where we have the opportunity—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! My apologies; if you could move your bill please.NICOLA WILLIS: Yes I move that this House introduce the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): If the member could just read it. Thank you.NICOLA WILLIS: I'm going to be very precise about this. Thank you Madam Speaker. I move That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.Oh happy day. Now that we have introduced this member's bill in my name I want to make some pre-emptory celebration because I think that this is an opportunity for Parliament to work in the way that so many New Zealanders ask us to make it work but that is often not the case. And that is we can use this time to make a pragmatic modernising change to a piece of legislation that has become out of step with modern families but to which we together as parliamentarians free from ideology or political partisanship can make a good change that will make a difference to parents and caregivers across the country. I hope that all political parties will support this bill.What this bill does is it modernises paid parental leave rules by giving parents more flexibility to share their leave entitlements. In New Zealand we have paid parental leave for caregivers. While parents and caregivers can nominate who receives that entitlement there are currently rigidities around how they use it. What I want to see is those rules being loosened so that parents have more flexibility about the choices they make in their caregiving arrangements during those first few weeks of parental leave with a new baby. This bill modernises the outdated existing rules by allowing parents to divide their paid leave between themselves in the way they think best so it allows them to take it at the same time to take it one after the other or to take it in overlapping instalments. It frees up parents to make exactly the choices that best suit their personal circumstances.Whether you're a dad wanting to support mum in the first few weeks after birth and take your paid leave at the same time as her right now our archaic law will not allow that. This bill will make it possible. Whether you wish to share your paid parental leave between two primary caregivers in overlapping instalments right now the law will not allow you to do that. This bill will let you do that. It recognises that the choice belongs to families and shouldn't belong to a rule book bound up in a Government department. As we stand here today outdated Government rules are getting in the way of families doing what they think is in the best interests of their own babies.I think about how much things have improved in terms of the way we view those early weeks with a baby in terms of the ways we view the need for support and in the way that we recognise that people would arrange the care arrangements not according necessarily to gender or traditional roles but according to the circumstances of their own families. This bill seems an absolutely sensible and pragmatic evolution along that path. It's a good thing when you can make a practical change that makes a difference without creating any extra cost for the taxpayer and that is the case with this bill. What it doesn't do is increase the overall leave entitlement that is available to parents; it simply says Here's your bucket of entitlement; divide it between yourselves as you wish. If you want to do six weeks together go ahead. If you want to do it in overlapping bits go ahead." All of those choices can be made without any impact on Government funding and without any impact on the choices available to Government.The only people those choices impact are the parents and the child in that home. Anyone opposing this kind of modernisation I think would be inserting themselves into families and saying that Government knows better than they do about how they should use the entitlements they are given. I believe it would be unconscionable for anyone in this House in 2023 to take that stance.I'm feeling a little bit nervous I'm noticing interjections from across the House I'm seeing furrowed brows on the faces of Labour backbenchers and I think we may have a situation team. I think we may genuinely be in a situation where members opposite—out of partisan petty politics—may oppose this bill.Hon Member: Oh say it's not so!NICOLA WILLIS: I sincerely hope it's not so. If it's not the case I apologise for impugning you in that way because surely—surely—that would not be possible. Surely a modern Labour Party that says that it wants to represent the best interests of families and children would not neglect the opportunity to modernise this outdated piece of law. To do so would be unconscionable. It would be out of step with modern families. It would be out of step with modern parents.As I look around this House I think of all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle and on that side of the aisle who themselves have had babies and who have had them in such different circumstances. We've had babies to all sorts of caregiving arrangements with dads and mums married couples unmarried couples mums as primary caregivers dads as primary caregivers and adopted dads as primary caregivers. In my world all of that is great because what matters is the love a parent or a caregiver shows for their child. In my world what doesn't matter is outdated rules telling you how you should do it best. The idea—the idea—that Government rules would stand there and say "Well actually the way that we think it should happen is one parent at a time. We disagree with the idea that two parents should take it at the same time." Well you know what? It's none of Government's business. I believe that parents and caregivers are best placed to make the choices for their babies and their kids about how they raise them. What matters is the love that they give them and the care and stability that they give them. This bill is a logical progression in support of that philosophy.So as I stand here I make this plea: sometimes my fellow Labour colleagues a member's bill comes to your caucus and you might have someone stand up—a Minister—and say "Oh look we'll oppose this because it's a National bill; we'll oppose this because we don't want Nicola Willis to get a win." Well I would plead to you when it comes to something this simple that comes at no cost to anyone don't stand on the priggish side of partisan politics; do what's right.Hon Dr Deborah Russell: Ha ha!NICOLA WILLIS: Don't laugh when actually there are mums and dads and parents who this affects who have written to me and said "Why is the law this way? Why is it stopping my family doing it?" Don't laugh at this change which is exactly what Parliament is meant to do. It's meant to take the statute book and say "What's in keeping with our modern communities? What's out of step? How do we keep the law reflecting the values and ideals which we as a society wish to progress?" Don't be MPs who stand in the way of that because someone in your caucus meeting said that politics is more important at this time in the political cycle.I welcome this opportunity to bring a bill to the House that will bring New Zealand's paid parental leave rules in line with the expectations of modern families. I want to pay tribute to Amy Adams who first brought this bill to Parliament. I want to pay tribute to all of those men and women who through the years have made pragmatic changes to ensure that parents in those first such important days of children's lives are able to make the arrangements that provide them the stability and the choice that allows them to be good mums dads and caregivers. And I want to once again put it to you that parties who oppose bills in this House that come at no cost to anyone—except for the political pride of those who oppose them—are parties who are out of step with what really matters.I think back to the time with my young babies. I admit I look on it nostalgically now because probably at the time I was completely exhausted and stressed and all of those things—I understand that—but I look back on that time and it is one of the most special and momentous times in anyone's life to be doing that job of bringing a child into the world of giving them your love and of raising them as well as you can. And if we in this House can step one step closer to making that profound experience a little more practical then that's exactly what we should do. So I appeal to your better selves members opposite. Do what's right; don't do what's political.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The question is that the motion be agreed to."