Moroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 23 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19377. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):I want to make a contribution on clause 4 because it is the purpose clause of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill that we are about to debate and I hope that members will stick to that. Also I want to take a call because I think that those watching may be a little tired of the moralising and the judgmental-type calls that are coming from the National Party members about what good parenting is and what good parenting is not. I think I would rather bring the debate back to making sure that there are choices for all families. Opportunity and choice—Mike Sabin: Rights and responsibilities—where does the measure lie?SUE MORONEY: —are what this bill is about Mr Sabin. It is actually about choices for families. It is not about requiring families to take paid parental leave. It is not requiring families to have one of the parents in paid employment.But the reality is that for most families these days unless they are very very wealthy there is a need for both parents to be in paid employment. There is a range of other things that we need to maybe address in our society. We need higher wages for example. That would be a good outcome would it not if we actually got the National Party members to agree that higher wages were something that would be good to resolve this issue? But no they are actually spending their time making judgmental-type contributions about parenting and what makes good parenting and what does not.This bill is about choices. It is about choices for families. It is about the ability for this country as a collective society to actually say that we want to invest in the future of our society that investing in children is a priority and certainly within the Labour Party that is what we believe—that investing in children is a priority. We want the best well-rounded citizens of this country because we know that will actually give the brighter future that the National Party members used to talk about. They have stopped it now but they once talked about a brighter future. This bill is a practical measure to bring about that brighter future that the National Party once believed in.It is very sad to hear the National members’ speeches because I think that people will hear them protesting far too loudly—far too loudly—that they do really actually quite like children. Of course they like children! But if they really wanted to prioritise families and children then they would be supporting this bill; they would not be speaking to try to stop it from having its votes. I agree with Tracey Martin that if the Government really was going to be honest and authentic in its debate about this bill it would stop this silly nonsense of the filibuster and would let the bill pass and then use its financial veto. If Government members really believe they have a justified case for saying it was unaffordable then I ask them to use the financial veto. That is what it is there for. I firmly believe that the Government has done this and gone through all these twists and turns to not use the financial veto because it knows that there is not the financial justification for using it. The Government members know that in their heart of hearts and that is why they will not go down that track.I want to remind some of the speakers who have spoken on the previous clauses that the bill does have public support. I say to Mr Macindoe that we know that because 96.4 percent of the submitters on this bill—and there were 3800 of them—Tim Macindoe: That is not a mandate.SUE MORONEY: “It’s not a mandate.” says Mr Macindoe. He is just running down the whole system of democracy in this country. The select committee process brought forward about 3809 submitters I think and 96.4 percent of them agreed with this bill as did a poll. The poll was not done by a political party. It was done I think by one of the TV channels. It was of 1000 people and it showed that even when the question was put to them that it was going to cost $500 million which it is not by the way—even then with that amount of money being put into that loaded question 63 percent of New Zealanders said they wanted it. So this bill—and I know the National Party does not want to hear this—does have wide public support in New Zealand. It has parliamentary support. The only thing standing between families and 26 weeks’ paid parental leave is the National Party.