Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Kia ora Madam Chair. Thank you very much. I appreciate the contribution by the Hon Judith Collins. It's always a joy to listen to the Hon Judith Collins because very often she makes sense. Sometimes she's outrageous but very often she makes sense. But you do have to be wary of the National Party using the word choice". It actually makes one prick up one's ears.Can I say there absolutely is some validity to the Supplementary Order Paper that the Hon Amy Adams has put forward. Unfortunately New Zealand First will not be supporting it at this time. We would like to revisit this in the future because we understand that there are some complexities that should actually go through select committee. I would have welcomed the opportunity for this to go through select committee when the National Party actually put through their paid parental leave legislation in 2016. I'm not quite sure where this epiphany from the Hon Amy Adams suddenly came from—that she can put the Supplementary Order Paper forward only now. But we would like to revisit this sometime in the future because from a New Zealand First perspective we would like to traverse the opportunity in the future of fathers having a tagged set of funding and a tagged set of time in the future so that they can be part of and have a higher pick-up—say 25 percent of pick-up—going forward. So we can appreciate Amy Adams' idea. Also having had a sister with twins I certainly can appreciate that the Hon Judith Collins has traversed some of the other ways that families might need to support each other going forward—but as we say not at this time because there are complexities that need to be worked through.However I have good news for Ms Dowie. With regard to Ms Dowie's Supplementary Order Paper—again it's a shame it hasn't been here since 2016 when that party had an opportunity to just put it straight into their legislation without it having to be a Supplementary Order Paper—New Zealand First will actually be supporting Ms Dowie's Supplementary Order Paper. We recognise that keeping-in-touch provisions—that's proportionality as we actually extend paid parental leave—is a very sensible practical solution and we all know that New Zealand First is a very sensible and practical party. So we will be supporting that particular Supplementary Order Paper.Overall we will be supporting the bill. We will be making sure that this bill passes through as quickly as possible so that our parents and our families can go forward with some certainty as of 1 July 2018. We think it's wonderful that we've finally got to this place after some years of listening to the National Party say that it was unaffordable and so on and so forth. It's really lovely to have the National Party finally recognise that this is not only affordable; it's of great value to the nation with regard to the opportunity for us to extend the amount of time that parents can be at home with their newborns and I do think that allowing women—predominantly—to be able to stay in touch with their workplaces is a very good idea.So overall apart from Ms Adams Supplementary Order Paper which we hope we'll be able to revisit at some time in the future—and we would look forward to the National Party's support for any opportunity to revisit this in the future based on their arguments that I'm sure we're about to hear again and again and again tonight—that would be New Zealand First's contribution. We will support the bill we will support Ms Dowie's Supplementary Order Paper but unfortunately not Ms Adams' at this time."