Logie Jan: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionLogie Jan: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11831. Text is subject to correction.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to speak to this Part 2 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill brought forward by Sue Moroney. Others have spoken I think quite coherently about and demonstrated quite clearly the meanness of this Government in refusing to support this. So in this contribution I am actually going to try to dwell on the benefits of 6 months—of the 26 weeks as opposed to the 22. I am hoping the Chair is going to appreciate that effort.There are very significant reasons for the 6 months. The first one which was already mentioned by the sponsor of the bill is that the World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of a baby’s life. Anyone who listened to the submissions and anyone who has been in a family who has had a baby and who has tried to juggle work and the needs of their baby and breastfeeding will know that it is an exceptionally difficult thing to do. We certainly heard from people presenting to the Government Administration Committee about how they were unable to manage work and breastfeeding and their sanity so they left their jobs because they could not manage those things and they had to put their child first by continuing to breastfeed. That had a very significant financial cost to those families and it had career consequences for those women.It was a demonstration of a time when they were trying to juggle those things. The stress on them and their baby was unacceptable. That is ultimately what this bill is about—removing that stress and ensuring those babies and those families are supported by our employment laws to be able to work and maintain attachment to the workplace and have a family. You know that is how most people live. As a country we have a responsibility collectively to our children and our employment law is one way we can demonstrate that.Another reason for the 6 months—the 26 weeks—is that actually employers told us it would help them manage workflows and leave. It is much easier to find somebody to fill in for 6 months. When it is a shorter period they typically fill in and have other people cover that person’s job and it is actually much more difficult to manage. Also the other benefit of the 26 weeks is that when they employ somebody on a contract to fill in for those 6 months somebody else is getting access to the job market who was not in it earlier. There are so many benefits that kick in at 6 months and they do not kick in earlier.The Green Party’s policy is for 13 months and I do not think that is unreasonable when I consider that booming economies like the Czech Republic and Estonia somehow manage to offer 3 years of paid parental leave. It does just kind of grate a little bit to hear from this Government that it thinks 26 weeks is just too much of a stretch and out of our affordability range. I am personally more aspirational for New Zealand. I think we can do 6 months. I think that with the will of the people and with our economy—you know the resources we may have as a country—we can cover it.When we hear the arguments about the in-work tax credit and how that should be more of a priority—I absolutely believe we should extend the in-work tax credit to people. I do not think that it should be either/or; I think it should be both and that we will be better off as a country and that our children and babies will be better off if we do both. But strangely this Government has voted against both of those things repeatedly. So it is telling us that an argument against this is the in-work tax credit—hmm! Strangely it has a record of not supporting that either.