Bradford Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental  Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental  Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:590] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I would like to say how pleased we are that this bill is finally before the House. We will definitely be supporting this legislation right through to its third reading as we have advocated strongly over the last 6 years for the ability of self-employed parents to get paid parental leave. I remember as I am sure other Opposition members do the promise made by the Minister during discussions on the last paid parental leave amendment bill in 2004 when she pledged that policy development relating to the self-employed was a very high priority for the Government. It is great to see that Ruth Dyson has been able to keep this promise with the support of her own party the Greens and other parties in this House.  
Over recent weeks I have heard concerns from some women that they have planned their pregnancies so that the birth of their baby will coincide with the implementation of this legislation on 1 July next year. I dare say it is a risky business to organise one’s pregnancy on the basis of a Government’s declared intentions. I have been a bit nervous about this in relation to the progress of the legislation as have those women but sometimes people do seem to believe what Governments tell them. I just hope that we will be able to progress this bill quickly enough so that those particular self-employed parents who have aligned the birth of their child with the timing of this bill’s passage into law will not be disappointed. I believe that there are plans for this bill to be heard with some urgency at the select committee. That will be necessary or there will be some very sad parents out there.  
As we all realise a large number of potential mothers are in this category. About 66000 women of childbearing age in the self-employed workforce are not able to access the existing system of paid parental leave. I remember well as my colleague Katherine Rich has just said that when we heard the submissions at the select committee for the first paid parental leave bill we heard some very telling advocacy from groups of self-employed business people in the urban areas and from rural women about the inequity of our passing legislation that would give something to parents working for an employer which was to be denied to those in self-employment.  
There has never been any rationale on equity grounds to grant paid parental leave to one lot of parents and not to another when both are in the workforce and both have equal need of the many benefits that up to 14 weeks’ paid parental leave can provide. 
 All employed and self-employed parents deserve the opportunity to plan ahead for the births of their children in the knowledge that they will be eligible to receive up to 14 weeks’ pay to help compensate for their loss of income during that period. Whether a mother is working as a sharemilker a self-employed management consultant a farmer a shop owner or in any other form of self-employment she deserves the same chances as other mothers-to-be in the employed workforce. This new extension of paid parental leave to the self-employed will also carry with it the opportunity for the transfer of payments by a self-employed mother to her eligible partner whether that partner is self-employed or an employee himself or herself.  
Although paid parental leave is only one part of a much bigger picture when it comes to providing more and better support for parents and children it is a critical component. Paid parental leave of 14 weeks is at least a bare minimum which gives parents time to have a breathing space away from work to focus their full attention on their new child and their growing family and allows them to build those early bonds and to recover from childbirth.  
One of the main reasons that the self-employed were not included within the paid parental leave framework earlier was because the Government found it difficult to sort out suitable eligibility criteria and a workable methodology. I could never understand why this was so hard when the Accident Compensation Corporation already has elaborate systems for providing various forms of cover for the self-employed. I am glad that the Government has now broken through its self-imposed fiscal and administrative impediments so that an estimated 2000-plus self-employed parents a year will receive eligibility from 2006 onwards.  
Although applauding the Government for keeping its promises on this one I will say in finishing that we in Aotearoa New Zealand still have a long way to go. We are way behind a number of other countries in this area particularly the UK and Europe. Just to give one example in February this year the UK Government announced plans to extend paid maternity leave from 6 months to 9 months by April 2007 with the aim of taking it out to a full year in its next term of Parliament. The British Labour Party is certainly giving its New Zealand counterparts something to aim for.