Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you Madam Chair Tolley. I take another call like with Part 1 in opposition to Part 2 but in support of the fabulous amendment put forward by Amy Adams. And the exclusion of this amendment as the Government decided to vote against it in Part 1 is illiberal. The liberal thing to do—that I would have expected many members on the Government side of the House to believe in—is to continue their tradition and continue the process of breaking down the walls and barriers between the different roles that an individual can play in the world. And I'm sure that that great liberal Iain Lees-Galloway is sitting there thinking Bugger. If only I had thought of Amy Adams' amendment that would allow two parents to share the paid parental leave and come to their own arrangement about how they look after children under the provisions of this bill." Now I think this is a terrible and hopeless bill altogether but if one thing could make it better it would be a little touch of liberalism and allowing families and individuals to come to their own arrangements about how they look after their children.I can see Michael Wood over there and he's looking and he's nodding internally—in fact he's trying not to nod physically—because he knows and he agrees that the Labour Party should be in alignment with its long held traditions supporting Amy Adams' amendment. But the other argument that I was starting to develop in my previous contribution—that I hope that I'll be able to develop this time—is that many people on this side of the House want pay equity amongst genders. If you go to the best scholars in the world the best labour economists like Claudia Goldin from Harvard University who have crunched the data on a major scale to investigate why there remains a stubborn difference between pay for men and women—if you were to take Goldin's paper her final chapter in a grand convergence between genders—then the answer is actually ultimately pretty simple: that with traditional gender roles in place men find themselves doing more work because it's harder for them to enter the home and women find themselves struggling to advance their careers because those rigid traditional gender roles remain in place and it's harder for them to get men to take a wider role in the home. That is the academic forefront from the best labour economists in the world right now. And what this amendment from Amy Adams would do—allowing different people within a relationship to make up their own way of sharing the labour of going out to earn market income in the workplace and staying home to look after children is the most powerful thing that this committee could do tonight to close the gender pay gap.So that's my challenge to this side of the House: if you really believe in a more liberal more equal society where men and women and people involved in every kind of relationship bringing up children have the flexibility to chart their own course—to actually make us a more equal people—then swallow your pride accept that Amy Adams thought of it first and vote for her amendment which would allow two people in a relationship to decide how they share out the paid parental leave that this bill provides for. And if you're not prepared to do that not only are you failing to advance gender equity when it comes to payment and employment—not only are you failing to make this a more liberal and equal society but the other side of the House are telling us something else about what sort of Government they are. They're telling us that they are the kind of Government who are not prepared to put the better interests of New Zealanders ahead and who are not prepared to say "We're sorry we didn't think of this but we welcome good ideas from wherever they come." They are saying "We will be a group of partisan hacks and if an idea doesn't have our name on it then it's not good enough." What a shame.Hon Phil Twyford: That hurt!DAVID SEYMOUR: What a shame. Phil Twyford is saying it hurt and he's trying to jest but he knows it's true. On the other hand members on this side of the House could come forward and make a positive statement for the future of this country by supporting Amy Adams' amendment."