Nash Stuart: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:686. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):To be honest I would never be able to give a speech like that because I do not know what it is like to have nine children—quite celebratory.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No but the challenge to the member is to be relevant to the clause.STUART NASH: But what I would like to talk about is clause 5(3) which adds new section 71J(c). There are some words in here that we have to be aware of.There are a couple of questions I would like to ask the member in the chair and the first one is why is this staggered in the way that it is—why is it staggered at 18 weeks why is it staggered at 22 weeks and why is it staggered at 26 weeks?But the one word here that I think we have got to be aware of is that it says a “maximum of 18 weeks” it says a “maximum of 22 weeks” and it says a “maximum of 26 weeks”. The thing about this is that that does not mean that everyone who gives birth to a child is going to take that maximum. In fact there are around about 60000 babies born every year give or take one or two and there are about 26000 parents taking parental leave so at this point only about 43 percent of parents take paid parental leave anyway.So when we look at the financials of this and when the bill says at “26 weeks” that does not mean that every single mother is going to take 26 weeks’ leave. Obviously when this bill goes through the dates are going to have to be adjusted. Well I assume I say to the member in the chair that you are going to adjust them or if we are going to go straight to 26 weeks in 2014—I am not too sure; maybe you could help me with that one.Hon Ruth Dyson: It’d be hard to do in April 2014.STUART NASH: I know. It would be hard to do in April 2014 because it would be retrospective. But you know the cost of this is actually not as large as it looks from new section 71J(c) in clause 5(3). At a staggered amount at 18 weeks it adds only $6 million and that is assuming that nearly every single mother takes—well I suppose this is paid parental leave so it could be paternity leave as well as maternity leave. The other thing is that at 22 weeks it adds only an extra $40 million and again you are not going to get—not you Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Certainly not me.STUART NASH: Not at this stage—well you never know.Chris Hipkins: Amazing what biology can do.STUART NASH: Ha ha! I have lost my train of thought. My wife and I have found this ourselves; we have got two very young children—a mother or a father gets only about 80 percent of their salary anyway so often what happens is that mothers or fathers have to return to work earlier than this out of economic necessity.So I think when we look at this and say that the cost is going to be an extra $63.9 million because every mother is now going to take 26 weeks’ leave we are not dealing with the reality of the situation that we find ourselves in in 21st century New Zealand. I suspect that the reason why a lot of mothers do not take 26 weeks’ leave and the reason why it is a maximum—you know we are not going to impose 26 weeks’ leave—is that some mothers have to return to work out of economic necessity.So what this is actually doing is giving parents choice. If a parent wants to stay at home for 26 weeks they have the choice to be able to do that but it does not mean they have to and it does not mean that every single parent is going to cost society that much. So that is actually quite an important word. If we look at the other subclauses subclauses (1) and (2) it is pretty difficult to know what they are because they are just sort of stuck in there so that is all I really wanted to say.But I do have a couple of questions for the member in the chair: why has it been staggered out this way and is there an amendment to actually change the dates because it has been so long? Thank you very much.