Ardern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3948. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I want to come back to a member of this House who has a true focus on women on children and on families—I want to pay tribute to Sue Moroney. This would be one of the first occasions I have stood up in this House and felt truly proud to speak to a bill and a policy that I think will contribute to children and to the betterment of their families and I thank Sue for being the champion of the bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I think she demonstrates her and Labour’s belief in and focus on children. Our vision is that New Zealand not only be the best place in the world for children to grow up but also the best place in the world to be a child and that is key to our vision. 
What did we hear from that side of the House from the Minister of Women’s Affairs? Her vision during Sue Moroney’s speech amounted to her yelling across the House “Will you mine?”. That was the interjection we heard from the Minister of Women’s Affairs: “Will you mine?”. The Minister of Women’s Affairs is essentially asking us the question coal or children? Well I have an answer for that Minister and my answer is this: stop subsidising heavy polluters and we can back kids; build one less road of national significance that we do not need and we can help kids and their families. This Government has proven that its priority is not children. It has proven it time and time again. To hear the Minister of Women’s Affairs stand up and justify the Government’s position that it will not invest in children was absolutely appalling. It was shallow to say the least. 
According to the OECD New Zealand spends roughly 50 percent of the OECD average on kids. Primarily that is because of the money that goes unspent on the early years. Changing our paid parental leave would go a long way to addressing that deficit. But it is not just about investing in paid parental leave because that is what families have told us they want; it is also about the evidence. Sue spoke strongly to that evidence but I just want to reiterate it. The first 6 months are known to be the most crucial period of a child’s development that we could possibly invest in. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You don’t say! 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: Tau Henare points out “You don’t say!”. Do something about it is what I say to the Government. You have got the evidence. Listen to your own Chief Science Advisor and do something about it. The WHO has told us that it is not only about necessity trying to encourage and assist women to breastfeed but also about attachment. We have seen more and more that attachment disorder is something that we as taxpayers are picking up later on in service provision. We have heard that conduct disorder in itself costs up to a million dollars across the course of a child’s life. Those first 6 months are crucial. 
This policy is about investing to save so you would have thought we would hear something about it in the policies of the Minister for Social Development on the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. Well one thing that you do not hear the Minister talk about is the fact that in reality all children are by default vulnerable particularly in their very very early stages and that some universal policies pay extraordinary dividends. Paid parental leave is in that boat and so is early childhood education and the Minister of Women’s Affairs feels content to talk about the importance of that even though that Government cut early childhood education spending—blatantly. Now it refuses to budge on this. They tell me that that is investment in children in their critical years. Well all of the evidence sits counter to that.  
John Key himself has acknowledged that we are no longer giving families the choices about caring for their own children. We are in a race to the bottom in New Zealand for our families. We have a chance to turn that round. In fact the evidence that has come out of the Growing Up in New Zealand survey demonstrates that 87.4 percent of women took paid parental leave when they had their newborn. After that they then started taking other mixtures of leave—unpaid leave holiday leave sick leave—because it was so important to them that they be able to stay at home with their child in those early months.  
There is a better way. Sue Moroney and Labour have presented that to the House today. The fact that that Government will not support it shows its vision for children and shows that Labour will put children at the heart of its policy.