Goodhew Jo: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Goodhew Jo: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2618] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I rise very keen to support the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill but I take issue with the suggestion that I might support it for reasons similar to those of the Government. This measure is belated recognition of a gross oversight—that is excluding self-employed persons from the opportunity to benefit from paid parental leave. Why would they have been excluded? Let us look at the history. This bill was not the brainchild of the Labour Government. Laila Harré proposed this idea and at the time—wait for it—Helen Clark the Prime Minister said: “Over my dead body!”. That is exactly what she said. But it seems that times they are a changing. 
So when this legislation was introduced it was to support new parents with a policy that would give them some income replacement for a short period of time. As my esteemed colleague Wayne Mapp has said we in the National Party are of course philosophically opposed to extending welfare benefits to people who would much rather have had a tax cut. That would have served them just as well instead of their having to line up for something they could well call a benefit. Already far too many people are receiving benefits and being dependent upon this Government for income when in fact they are very hard-working people who would just like to keep the money they earned in the first place. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Working for Families. 
JO GOODHEW 
: The Working for Families package as my colleague has indicated is a great example of that. So National would have preferred tax cuts as a form of supporting new parents and we would prefer to have less of the bureaucracy associated with all the machinations of how this measure will be determined. 
However when the original bill was passed that excluded self-employed parents we saw the injustice that it presented. Small businesses make up 95 percent of businesses in New Zealand and many of those small businesses comprise couples—those many many couples involved in small businesses that keep this economy going—and they have the same rights to income replacement and to support as new parents. However arbitrary it might seem self-employed parents were excluded in the original bill. But no it was probably not arbitrary; it was probably just an example of the clear bias amongst Government members towards employees and away from the self-employed. That is the union leaning coming out again I suspect. 
Hon Members 
: Oh ha ha! 
JO GOODHEW 
: Well that woke them up did it not? They do not like being called unionists. Thank goodness this amendment to the bill addresses that—I am so relieved that they are awake! 
How many people might benefit from this amendment? Well 66412 women of fertile age in New Zealand are self-employed. That was quite a stunning number I thought—66412 women of fertile age. Of course whilst those women are the people who will bear the children there will be fathers involved—the other side of the parenting equation. It has been estimated that 2173 self-employed parents will apply for paid parental leave each year. It is not too bad really but it is still an injustice that those people were going to be excluded prior to the amending of the original bill. 
It is clear that this amendment like the original bill in the option it introduced to benefit families will be taken up mainly by women. Of note amongst the 19 submitters to the bill at the select committee were the largely women’s organisations. Those groups included the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women the New Zealand College of Midwives the New Zealand Nurses Organisation the National Council of Women of New Zealand the Family Planning Association and Rural Women New Zealand. 
It is very important that this bill acknowledges the different challenges faced by self-employed parents compared with those who are employed. This bill allows self-employed people to continue to maintain a level of oversight of their businesses and to perform occasional administrative tasks. Why is that important? That is very very important. Although they will cease from the physical side of their self-employment it is important they will still have the opportunity to undertake that oversight of their businesses. The investment on the part of those who are self-employed is not only monetary; it is an investment in terms of time and in terms of passion—an enormous amount of passion goes into those 95 percent of New Zealand businesses those small mum and dad businesses those young parent businesses. No black and white rules should preclude the aforementioned—that is the level of oversight of their businesses and their ability to perform occasional administrative tasks. 
The last point I wish to make is in regard to the importance of this amendment bill to the people of my electorate Aoraki because it is largely a rural provincial electorate. Many young families working on farms and many young couples particularly in our burgeoning dairy industry need this assistance. They are self-employed—75 percent of those working in the agriculture sector are self-employed or close to it—and those farming families were certainly screaming loud and clear that it was not fair to discriminate against the self-employed and that they too should have the opportunity for assistance and support as young parents. 
Federated Farmers Vice President Don Nicholson expressed his delight when this bill went to the select committee and described it as removing “a gross inequity that has been in place since taxpayer-funded paid parental leave for employees was introduced in 2002.” Certainly the farmer organisations were vociferous at that time in their condemnation of the exclusion of self-employed people. Those hard-working young parents often with low incomes felt extremely hard-done-by when they were excluded. I am very happy that they will now find they are amongst the lucky New Zealanders who will have this assistance when they have babies. 
In the submission presented by Rural Women New Zealand its representatives were very concerned about the possible bureaucracies of this system. I can tell members that their concern was warranted. They would rather have had a lump sum payment—we would say some tax relief to leave the money where it started—and said that such a payment would be useful because there would not be all the machinations of working out how those people were actually going to take the benefit from paid parental leave. 
In summing up I want to say that yes National is very supportive of the bill and our philosophy has not changed. It does not matter what the Government says; we have not changed our philosophy. We saw inequity and this Opposition party is very keen to address that inequity and support this bill because it was simply not fair if the Government bias towards employees which excluded the self-employed was allowed to be perpetuated. I am therefore pleased to support this bill.