Moroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionMoroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11824. Text is subject to correction.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure finally to rise to speak to Part 2 of the bill. This is the part that brings in 26 weeks’ paid parental leave and it brings it in on 1 April 2018. So for all of those members who debated the bill without having read it naming different dates that are completely wrong can I encourage them please to read the bill. It is 1 April 2018 when this bill proposes that New Zealanders should be able to embrace 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. And why 26 weeks’ paid parental leave? Well it is not just a figure plucked out of the air; it is not just a figure that is an excuse for trying to filibuster a bill. It is a number that is based on—Hon Member: Politicise—politicise.SUE MORONEY: No no it is not politicising the issue of children and their families as the Government is so interested in doing. It is based on what the World Health Organization says actually. So I would like Government members to listen up to that. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding to 6 months. It recommends this not because it is its personal view but because of the research and evidence that says that if as a country we can support women to be able to achieve that—and I acknowledge that not everyone can; but where we can we should—that will reduce the amount of money the rest of us have to pay on hospital admissions.Even if we were to be completely selfish about this that would be a good enough reason in itself. But I am not prepared to be completely selfish about this because it is also about the health of that child—the health and well-being of that child throughout their entire life from the age of 26 weeks right through their adolescence right through their adulthood—and the ability for them to lead the most fulfilling life possible. Is that not what we should all be embracing? Is that not what we here in this Parliament should be dedicating our time towards? I certainly believe that is what we should be doing.So 26 weeks has not been plucked out of the air and yes there are arguments as it becomes affordable to this country to look to extend it further at other times. But that is not the argument that Labour Party members are mounting at this point in time. We are saying right here right now that in fact in 2012—right there right then—it was affordable and it still is today. How do I know this? How ironic is it that we are having this debate here today on the very same day that the Government has plucked a figure of $20 billion out of the air for defence? Here we have the Government MPs today saying that 26 weeks’ paid parental leave is unaffordable but on the very same day $20 billion is magically plucked out of the air for defence—well that is affordable. I think that tells us everything we need to know about the Government’s priorities: defence spending over children. Is that not what we expect to see from a National Government? And it has been played out again today.I want to put on the table the agreed figures—not the made-up figures not the trumped-up exaggerated ones that the Government MPs have been using tonight but the figures given to us by officials and agreed to by the Government Administration Committee. Around that select committee table we were able to get rid of the politics for that nanosecond of time and focus on the things that mattered and here is what we agreed to:we agreed that to reach 26 weeks’ paid parental leave in the next financial year—that is financial year 2016-17—it would be $12.7 million. In the Budget year 2017-18 it would be $65.4 million additional. At full implementation in the year 2018-19 it would reach $107 million. That sounds like a lot of money when you are working on your household budget but here is the other element: we also agreed—because officials gave us research and evidence and data that supported it—that on full implementation there will be around $30 million worth of immediate savings. That is not even going near the big cost savings out in future years which all the experts tell us are where the big cost savings are to be had. That is on day one—on day one—of implementing 26 weeks’ paid parental leave which Part 2 brings into law. Then we would save in the order of $30 million every year.We need to think about this in context because these are big numbers. What does it mean in the context of Government spending? For next year it would mean just 0.7 percent of the additional money that the Government has already committed in the Budget. That is not of the entire amount that the Government is spending—that is such a small decimal point I cannot even get my head around it—but just of the additional spending the $1.8 billion of additional spending this Government did without raising anyone’s taxes and without causing any major drama; 0.7 percent of that amount is what this bill would cost in that year. Let us go to the 2017-18 Budget year. It would be 3.6 percent of the additional spending that the Government is planning for that year. Then as I said before finally we would get to the gross amount of $107 million.People might wonder why there is a bit of disagreement going on between the National Government and this side about what the costings are. There should not be any room for disagreement because the officials’ figures are the official figures. But here is the game that the Government is playing. What it is doing is it is adding all of those years up together for 5 years and then it is adding a bit on the top as well. That is what it is doing because I heard several of those members say $500 million dollars.Brett Hudson: It’s $466 million.SUE MORONEY: It is not even $466 million either Mr Hudson.Brett Hudson: Yes it is.SUE MORONEY: No it is not. What we have agreed in the select committee is to work on the return to work assumptions. What this means is that not everyone is going to take—Paul Foster-Bell: Assumption. It’s a word.SUE MORONEY: No they are—well they are not assumptions because they are based on what actually happens right now. It is based on what actually happens right now. Not every single woman—when they take their 18 weeks’ paid parental leave they do not all take 18 weeks. They do not all take the 18 weeks. So it is based on real-life data—what we know. I am surprised that members who were on the select committee do not understand this because we went through it and dotted the i’s and crossed all the t’s on it. We had a lot of debate about it and they still do not seem to get it.What we know is that 2 months before the paid parental leave provision runs out around about 5 percent of women will return to work. Why will they return to work? Well there are a number of different reasons. More and more frequently it is because the payment for paid parental leave is nothing near their ordinary wage which means that they cannot afford to stay off work for any longer. As that Government keeps putting housing costs up all the time they are struggling to pay the rent. They are struggling to pay the mortgage. They are never going to be able save to get into their first home. So people are returning to work sooner and 5 percent of them will come back in the fourth month. A further 10 percent of them we know will come back at the fifth month. By the time we get to the sixth month—the 26 weeks—another 15 percent of them will have already returned to work.Those are the figures that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) used—“MoBIE” sorry; I should call it by its correct name. “MoBIE” used those figures to inform the select committee. Now that Government is using other figures to try to trump it up to make it sound like it is more expensive than it actually will be. What is its motivation? What could possibly be its motivation? It is trying to give some sort of bizarre justification to a financial veto. That is why it is using trumped-up figures. It is disrespectful to families it is disrespectful to the select committee process it is disrespectful to all of the submitters who came and talked to us and asked us to make sure that we got it costed properly and it is disrespectful to the officials who worked hard on providing this information for the select committee.I urgeGovernment MPs not to continue to play politics with this bill not to continue to exaggerate the figures when they know the truth of the cost and not to try to give themselves an excuse for the embarrassment that they are now bringing upon themselves to suffer of putting a veto against the democratic process in this Parliament. That is the position they are putting themselves in. They are arguing against the majority of New Zealanders. They are arguing against the majority of MPs. I want to say to those MPs who are taking this seriously who are giving it the due respect and the scrutiny that it deserves that those MPs have made this decision after giving full scrutiny to the research and evidence and to the financial information looking at the broader picture and saying yes this is affordable for New Zealand now. Not only is it affordable but also if we do not do it then we are choosing a future that is not good for New Zealand.