Dyson Ruth: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11287. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is a great pleasure for me to stand once again in this House and support the proposal to extend paid parental leave for New Zealand parents. I want to give some members opposing this bill some facts because they seem to have been lacking and I think that is a very sad thing in a debate that is as important as this.This is about extending our existing scheme by 8 weeks. It has got some faults and I do not think we should ignore that fact but this is about extending what we currently have. It would cost about $12.7 million in tomorrow’s Budget which is less than 1 percent of the $1.6 billion that the Prime Minister has announced will be in the Budget tomorrow. This is an affordable proposal that we know would benefit new parents and their new babies and I do not see why we should not have that as a priority. My colleague Jacinda Ardern has just given very good financial reasons. The Government Administration Committee heard overwhelming social and community-based reasons as well.The “Brains Trust” from the ACT Party talked about the difference between the number of new mothers and the number of people who applied for paid parental leave. He may not realise that the criteria restricts eligibility. He was not in the House when the legislation was originally introduced in 2002 and became the law when we first ventured into paid parental leave. He should read the criteria and understand that a whole lot of new parents are not eligible for it. He should also know that a number of new fathers will not apply for this because the paid parental leave payment is so darn low that a lot of men miss out on having that time with their newborn baby because they just cannot afford that drop in salary. So there are some deficiencies and there are some reasons why some people are not eligible and there are some reasons why some people do not apply. But he should argue on the basis of fact not on the basis of made-up Epsom logic which does not translate into facts at all.In 2002 when we first introduced paid parental leave in New Zealand members of the National Party said that the measure would create dependence on the State in new parents so it voted against it despite the fact that every other civilised developed country that we would like to compare ourselves favourably with has paid parental leave and says it is one of the best investments for maintaining a connection to the paid workforce and for ensuring that new babies have the best possible start in life. In 2006 we were one of the first countries—perhaps the first country; it is debatable—to extend entitlement to paid parental leave for self-employed new parents and I think that is one of the best things we can do. We know that a large percentage of the labour market in New Zealand is self-employed—we are innovative; that is what we do—so an entitlement for paid parental leave will make so much difference for those people.But we are still stuck at a time that is not considered best practice in terms of health outcomes. Too many women—and it is mostly women who get paid parental leave much to my disappointment—still go back into their paid job far too early. We need to offer more financial support and this bill says we should give another 8 weeks. It is sensibly tranched so that we do not blow the Budget—less than 1 percent of the new spend in tomorrow’s Budget. Remember when you are clapping your Minister of Finance that this bill could have gone through at less than 1 percent of the new spend and we could have had an additional 8 weeks of paid parental leave.I want to conclude by saying that I was absolutely disgusted at the response that Alfred Ngaro gave to over 6500 submitters on this bill. I had the privilege of chairing the select committee that received those submissions. They were accepted as submissions by a unanimous decision of that committee—6821 submissions and 6817 of those submissions supported the proposal to extend paid parental leave. That is 99.94 percent of submissions that supported this bill. I think that is a very clear message and I hope it is a message that the National Government will get.This is a move that New Zealand is ready for. It is one of the best investments we can make to support new parents and their new babies and it is about time we progressed it.