Bradford Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Bradford Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16564] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has supported and will continue to support any moves to extend paid parental leave to more working mothers and fathers in New Zealand and we will be voting for this bill today. We are pleased that the Government did not feel that it needed to wait until after the next election before starting to expand on the 2002 Act and that today we are increasing entitlements up to 14 weeks albeit gradually and extending eligibility to employees with between 6 and 12 months’ service with one employer. 
However I have to say that like many union submitters we do not think that this bill goes far enough towards meeting the demands and needs of working women in particular or our theoretical obligations under ILO Convention 183 Concerning the Revision of the Maternity Protection Convention. But we accept alas that there are budgetary constraints under which the Minister and the department must operate. In particular we would have liked to see more groups of precarious workers become eligible for paid parental leave by removing the minimum weekly hours threshold by extending eligibility to those employed by more than one employer in the previous 12 months and by redefining continuous employment to allow breaks of employment of up to 3 months. 
The Green Party is also keen to inspire this Government—eventually anyway—to implement a legislative right to breastfeeding breaks and to do more to encourage employers to create a positive and enabling environment for breastfeeding mothers in the workplace. We would have liked to move an amendment to this bill in that direction but unfortunately we were informed that breastfeeding is outside its scope. Personally I can see a very direct connection between the issue of paid parental leave and the ability or otherwise of new mothers to return to work after a mere 12 or 14 weeks. But alas that is far too sensible for the system of how we create law in this country. 
Turning to another matter like some of my Labour colleagues I have been somewhat astonished by the ferocious input by National ACT and New Zealand First on the question of paid parental leave for the self-employed. Although those parties have voted—so far at least—against the bill itself I do not get that the parties of the right are saying that only the self-employed should get paid parental leave. I do not understand what sense it makes to oppose paid parental leave for employed workers while advocating passionately for the same right for the self-employed. That is a patently ridiculous proposition. However where I do agree with those members and indeed with Labour members on the select committee as well is that paid parental leave should be extended to the self-employed at the soonest possible opportunity. 
As I would have pointed out in the Committee stage of this debate yesterday afternoon had the Chair permitted discussion on the amendments dealing with the issue the Green Party would have voted for the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by Bill Gudgeon from New Zealand First which rendered self-employed people eligible for paid parental leave. However not only was a fiscal veto placed on Mr Gudgeon’s amendment but on top of that the Chair refused to allow any direct discussion of his Supplementary Order Paper—which I found quite extraordinary. It is quite incredible that we cannot debate an amendment—even one with a fiscal veto on it—during the relevant Committee stage of a bill especially when the matter under discussion is also referred to extensively in the commentary prepared by the select committee that a number of us here in the House tonight sat on. We all know that the question of paid parental leave for the self-employed was an integral part of our discussions on this bill. 
As I have said in this House and elsewhere since the introduction of the first bill the Green Party believes that the self-employed should be able to access paid parental leave subject to the development of suitable eligibility criteria and a methodology that allows for a system equitable to those in paid employment. I have never quite understood why given that the Accident Compensation Corporation has managed to find ways of providing cover for the self-employed as part of its equally convoluted mechanisms the Government has found it so hard to do the same with paid parental leave. On top of that the Department of Labour itself in its own 2003 review and evaluation of the paid parental leave scheme found that extending the scheme to the self-employed was in fact one of the three most frequently mentioned suggestions for improvement. This was backed up by a range of submissions from groups as diverse as trade unions and farmers to the select committee during the course of both paid parental leave bills. 
However during our discussions on this issue during the Social Services Committee process this time round the Government advised us that the Department of Labour had not yet had sufficient time to work out how extending paid parental leave to self-employed people could be made to work given other legislative and policy priorities. The Green Party pressed the Government on this matter and we were heartened as the commentary on the bill reports to receive a letter from the Minister advising us formally that: “Policy development relating to the self-employed is a very high priority for me and I am committed to progressing this issue further in the near future to include self-employed parents as far as practicable.” The statement forms part of the official commentary on the bill. 
Peter Brown 
: What is the “near future”? 
SUE BRADFORD 
: I say to Mr Brown that I believe that the task for all of us inside and outside the House who support this particular extension of paid parental leave is to ensure that we help keep the Minister to her word over the coming year. Although the Green Party would have voted for the New Zealand First amendment on the Table yesterday if it had not been subject to a fiscal veto we also know that in reality it will take time and a lot of work to develop the framework by designing eligibility criteria and a payment structure for applying the scheme to the self-employed as the Minister indeed notes in her letter to the committee. 
We were also pleased to see other amendments made to the bill by the Minister yesterday particularly those that mean paid parental leave will now be extended to doctors who work for example for more than one district health board over brief periods as is common practice as part of their training. It made no sense that teachers who move schools were to be covered while doctors who moved hospitals as for example surgical trainees were not. Women doctors in particular suffer from a huge student loan debt which is only exacerbated when they are excluded from paid parental leave coverage simply because they are required to move from district health board to district health board as part of their professional training requirements. I am pleased that the Government has been flexible enough to acknowledge the reality and the inequity of this situation and even though the improvements will impact on very few women in practice they are women who deserve all the help they can get at this critical point in their careers. 
In conclusion I would just like to thank and congratulate all of those who have taken part in writing and considering the bill including the Minister and all the submitters from whatever perspective they came. I am glad we are taking a few more steps towards paid parental leave today for more women and men even if we continue to lag well behind some other comparable countries. I will finish by noting a report released just a few weeks ago from PricewaterhouseCoopers in the UK proposing that paid parental leave should be paid for 12 months: 6 weeks at 90 percent of earnings and the rest at the national minimum wage. On top of that they suggest a home-care allowance to be paid to parents who choose to stay at home to look after their children aged 12 to 24 months with reduced rates for part-time workers. If only!