Collins Judith: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13364] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Having listened to the speaker from United Future I wonder how he managed to have four children aged under 5 when obviously he spent so much time sitting on the fence. I would have thought that that would do him a lot of damage. I think the member from United Future was calling for home detention for mothers rather than for the freedom of choice that most mothers expect to have in their lives. 
I rise for the National Party to speak against this legislation for several reasons. When people decide to become parents—or do not decide but do become parents—they do so in the full knowledge that they will be responsible for their actions and for their children. People do not decide on the basis that they expect to be paid for the role they undertake as mothers and fathers. Being a mother or father is the payment itself. 
Speaking from my personal experience when my husband and I decided to become parents I became self-employed so that I would never have to ask anyone else’s permission—and of course I never did—to take my child to Plunket. I did take my child to Plunket and he was a good Plunket baby. In addition as a self-employed lawyer at that time I employed other women and men—but mostly other women. I found that as a self-employed person it would have been really nice to have the benefit of parental leave and employment protection. 
Of course under this legislation I would not have been able to get that benefit. However while I might be heavily pregnant and have to struggle through work I would have to keep open the jobs for my employees and watch them being paid while I had to pay for someone else to do my job. One of the problems for self-employed people is that when they become mothers they have to find someone else to replace them at work plus they do not get the income they would have been earning. 
So in many ways this legislation is a double whammy for the self-employed. This is just another example of preference being given to employees and of no acknowledgment being given to the fact that employers are not some sort of group out there who have nothing to do with reality. They are mums and dads too and they see their taxes being taken off them to support other people in their life choices. 
National values motherhood and fatherhood. We value responsibility. People should not become mothers or fathers unless they are responsible for their children and themselves. If they cannot be responsible for themselves and their children they should not be parents. That does not mean we do not like to see any help being given to parents whenever it can be given and whenever necessary. But the Government takes from one parent—solely on the basis that that parent has mortgaged his or her house put in capital put his or her life on the line and got into a position where he or she could go bankrupt if it all did not go well—to give to another who has security of employment and who knows that his or her job will be remain open whether or not the employer can necessarily afford that. That is not right. It is not fair and it is another example of this Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes—and it will have to win a lot more yet! 
As I have said employers are parents just like everyone else and this is just another slap in the face. Today I have been in Christchurch where I was around a lot of self-employed people. I can tell members that I do not think there was one person there who was not a National Party supporter. Those people told me they were sick of the legislation this Government is bringing in sick of people telling them what they can and cannot do and sick of being told that they would have to pay for people who cannot take responsibility for themselves. 
I was very interested to hear the United Future member talk about income splitting. I took it from what he said that United Future is promising that income splitting will be in tomorrow’s Budget because it would not be supporting the Budget otherwise. United Future members told us tonight that that was the deal. Certainly they implied that that was the deal and that it was absolutely central to their thinking about parents and about being a mother or father. They felt that that was only right. 
In many ways one can see their logic. After all with many farmers both husband and wife are working in the same business. Often they are in partnership and one of the reasons—apart from the fact that they both milk the cows and shear the sheep—is that they can income split. Certainly it is good to hear that United Future will prevail tomorrow and allow income splitting to come in. I can see Mr Alexander has gone to sleep. 
In essence National believes that this legislation is unfair. We will not support it to a select committee. We believe that it is biased against the self-employed; that it is another example of the Government telling people not to bother taking responsibility for their actions and not to bother planning ahead because it will get the taxpayers—the other employed and self-employed people—to pay more taxes than they need to so that people do not have to think and plan ahead. The Government is saying that it will not help people to plan ahead and think for themselves; it will help them not to. The one thing this country does not need is more parents who do not think ahead and do not take responsibility. If there is one thing that we have a lot of at the moment it is people who are not prepared to be the parents that their own parents necessarily were.