Gudgeon Bill: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Gudgeon Bill: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 I need to express openly that New Zealand First is very disappointed in the Government’s decision not to consider self-employed people in this legislation. When I spoke on this bill during the first reading debate there were people on the Government’s side of the House who were saying that they would look at our amendments. Now they are not present. Now that this decision has come to the fore my colleague Peter Brown and I are not even given the opportunity to have our submissions heard. 
I will just make a point here by referring to the Marquis de Condorcet in an essay that was written over 200 years ago the title of which translates as “The Future Progress of the Human Mind”. Condorcet foresaw the agricultural revolution gigantic steps in labour productivity a reduced working week the consumer society a dramatic rise in the average lifespan medical breakthroughs cures for common disease and an explosion in the world’s population. These things have occurred in this world in the last 200 years. Now we have people who are saying that women are not being treated fairly—especially those who are self-employed such as our farmers. We are not treating the citizens of this country fairly. 
Why is it that a section of the community in the population of New Zealand is not given the same opportunity as everybody else? Why has the Government turned against the self-employed? That question needs to be asked and we need an answer. If people think that this issue will come up later on I ask how many years later that will be. Self-employed people will still be struggling and the farmers’ wives will still be having children with no rewards at all for their efforts. Thank goodness that they are the backbone of the country and are able to do these things without even whimpering a word about it. 
The question I need to ask is: would the Government go back to whoever made this decision and really consider the submissions that we have put forward about self-employed people? If teachers can move around and still be given this benefit why is there a sector of the community that contributes to our tax in this country works very hard for long hours and pays by ACC levies if anything goes wrong but is denied the opportunity and privilege of paid parental leave? This is all I have to say but members should listen to what the Marquis de Condorcet had to say. 
In addition to that millions of Americans Europeans and Asians were emancipated from the drudgery of all-day work by miraculous technological advances in telecommunications agriculture transportation energy and medicine. The self-employed people have contributed to the state of the world that we live in today and are being denied the opportunity of having the same privileges that other people are getting today. The Government needs to think about that. Economists use a statistic to measure what national output could exist under conditions of full employment which is called the potential GDP. Do these people not contribute to the potential GDP of this country? I ask the Minister to answer the question. This needs to happen. Are the self-employed contributing to the GDP of this country? 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Take a call. 
BILL GUDGEON 
: Yes the Minister needs to take a call. This needs to be really seriously taken into consideration. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: The Minister needs to listen. 
BILL GUDGEON 
: The Minister needs to listen to what I have just said.