Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Mr Assistant Speaker thank you for the opportunity to speak. May I begin by congratulating you on your ascension to the Chair. It's a pleasure to be able to speak under you in this debate. It's very pleasing that there seems to be wide support for this bill. It's a bill whose time has come after many many long years of struggle and campaigning and it's good to see that wide support across the House. But the support at some times does seem to have been a bit confused in the course of debate this evening and I wanted to devote just a couple of minutes to some of that confusion that has arisen.It really started with the first contribution from the Opposition this evening when the Hon Amy Adams in high-brow high dudgeon as only she can carry off spent 8½ minutes of her speech railing against the constitutional outrage apparently of the debate that we're having tonight under urgency to achieve something good for the working families of this country. She spent 8½ minutes of her speech telling us how terrible that was but then told us that she'd vote for it anyway. That was the first part of the confusion that we saw tonight.We heard from Ms Adams but also from many of the other speakers high levels of outrage apparently about the process that we're going through in the course of this bill—high levels of outrage that people will not have the opportunity to submit on paid parental leave conveniently forgetting that twice members of the public have had the opportunity to submit on this bill that twice they have submitted overwhelmingly in favour of exactly what the Government is proposing here tonight and then on the second time when 1600 New Zealanders submitted on this bill it was the last National Government who ignored the submitters and who ignored the people by arrogantly vetoing that bill after 99 percent of those submitters had said Yes we want this to happen." So please don't come here—the National Party—tonight and talk to this Government about process and ignoring the submissions of New Zealanders because that is exactly what you have done and that is exactly why we are standing here to get something done on this issue when we could have had it done at least a year ago.We heard concern from the Opposition about the future career of Sue Moroney. Well I can tell you that we are grateful for the work she has done on this issue. She's doing outstanding things and will continue to work for the working people of New Zealand. But I was confused and concerned that there was not similar concern about the future career prospects of Mr Paul Foster-Bell from the National Party. I can tell those members that I saw him in the Thorndon New World last week and he is doing very very well indeed and I'm a bit surprised they didn't ask after him.The confusion continued from the previous speaker the National Party list MP Parmjeet Parmar from Bucklands Beach who believes that the National Party has always supported paid parental leave. Well fortunately as I was preparing for this debate I had a little look at the 2004 amendments to paid parental leave which reminded me that the National Party full of energy and full of vim and vigour opposed the initial introduction of paid parental leave and then opposed the very first extension to 14 weeks of paid parental leave. Here is the Hon Katherine Rich speaking in that debate and the Hon Judith Collins introduced Katherine Rich to this debate of course—I imagine the Hon Judith Collins and the Rt Hon Bill English also contributed to this debate and probably opposed it at the time as well. Here's Katherine Rich: "I think that when discussing this bill [which increased paid parental leave from 12 to 14 week] we will … see [quite] a marked difference between Labour and National. One party thinks the future direction of this country comes from making the middle classes dependent on welfare. The other party thinks it is better to create a situation whereby people can be independent". There we see the very hard-right core of opposition to paid parental leave that still sits there within certain sectors of the National Party and I think that's at the heart of some of the confusion that we are seeing tonight. We heard it in Mr English's speech earlier today when any move by the Government to collectively secure the rights and the dignity of New Zealanders was sort of seen as the creeping red hand of communism. That is absolute rubbish. New Zealanders do not accept that. This Government will take whatever steps it needs to do—David Seymour: No one's telling it like it is.MICHAEL WOOD: —I know that David Seymour thinks that as well—to make sure that Kiwi families have the very best start in life.The confusion continued later on when we heard about fiscal responsibility. Well let me tell you this: after this bill having been to the House twice and after it having been through select committee twice it might be good for the National Party Opposition to know that this place costs $200 a minute to run and that this Government which has heard from submitters and which has heard from New Zealanders is ready to take action. It is time for more paid parental leave for the parents of New Zealand. We're not going to stand around we're not going to dilly-dally and we're not going to veto the bill like that party did. We're going to act and we would love your support but either way this bill is going to pass and New Zealanders will be all the better for it. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."