Lees-Galloway Iain: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1093. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):I appreciate the opportunity to address new clause 6 in the two Supplementary Order Papers and I thank the member Sue Moroney for explaining that there are two Supplementary Order Papers. I have not been particularly part of this debate and I realised I was looking at the old one not the new one so we have got Supplementary Order Paper 15 which amends Supplementary Order Paper 472. New clause 6 replaces “16 weeks” with “22 weeks” in the provisions that relate to a person who gives birth to either two or more children as a result of one pregnancy or where the child is born with an impairment that would entitle that person to a Government-funded disability support service. The first that I noticed is that the amendment is from 16 weeks to 22 weeks. I note that the legislation as it still is on Legislation.govt.nz still says 14 weeks. I appreciate that this is the transition that the Government has actually followed from 14 to 18 weeks but the 16 weeks do not kick in until July next year. I just want to check with the member that this is an appropriate amendment from 16 weeks to 22 weeks given that the current provision is for 14 weeks notwithstanding the fact that the Government has changed the law to 16 weeks. So that is just a matter of clarification. It would be useful to make sure that we are clear on that.I am also interested to know why the 22 weeks and the 26 weeks were chosen. I appreciate the rationale that the member has given given that the original intention was to shift to 26 weeks for all parents. But having a look around the world at overseas examples where there is extra provision given for multiple births there seems to be quite a range in different countries as to what additional amount of time is given to parents who do have multiple births. Actually I could not find a lot of evidence of extra time given to parents where the child is born with some form of impairment so I would be interested to know what the evidence was that the member used to land on 22 weeks in the case of new clause 6(1) and 26 weeks in the case of new clause 6(2). Obviously it is important if we are going to narrow the focus of this legislation down—which is what new clause 6 does; it is a narrowing of the bill down to a smaller number of parents—that that is being done with some kind of evidence base. I know that the member wanted to use a strong evidence base in the wider bill. I think it is important regardless of what the purpose of the narrowing is that clause 6 places upon the legislation that that is still done with an evidence base. From my very quick reading there seems to be quite a number of divergent views around the world about what an appropriate additional amount of time should be for people with multiple births.I also raise the question whether the provision for children who suffer an impairment that would entitle them to Government-funded disability support is broad enough. I think another member raised the question of foetal alcohol syndrome. There is a range of impairments that will require much more additional attention from parents for those children who are not necessarily covered by legislation. I appreciate this is probably a matter of definition. It is a matter of having a clause here that is easy to define and that has a narrow scope. I appreciate a lot of this has to do with the narrowing of the scope to reduce the cost of the legislation but I do wonder whether the member took that into consideration and whether there was any consideration for those impairments that fall outside of that very narrow scope.There is also the question of 37 weeks’ gestation. I have not heard yet an explanation as to why that number of 37 weeks was chosen. I am sure there are good reasons for it but that again is a specific number that has been chosen. There are examples of children who have been born viable after 37 weeks but still come with the challenges of being premature.