Ardern Jacinda: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17966. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to speak in the Committee stage of this Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill which as my colleagues have pointed out in their previous addresses yes Labour is supporting. How could we not support the bill? It slowly inches ever so slightly towards the ultimate goal that we have always put forward before this House which is that paid parental leave should be extended to 26 weeks. How could we not support—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s not the ultimate goal; that’s a decent interim position.JACINDA ARDERN: My colleague is absolutely right. Twenty-six weeks is what we were putting forward before the House—Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s fiscally responsible.JACINDA ARDERN: —as a fiscally responsible point that we could reach within budget whilst returning to surplus. We had mapped out how that could be done. Our ultimate goal based on research evidence and feedback from parents was 1 year. But we said that at this point of the game we cannot see how we are able to manage that yet. It remains a goal for us but 26 weeks is where we believe we can get to. So having the Government stand before us today and say that it wants to go to 18 weeks’ parental leave—of course we were going to support that. But we certainly have some pointers for the Government on how it could have improved the bill.We are speaking today during the first part of the Committee stage on Part 1 of the bill. Before I go into some of the detail which essentially is around stepping through the time line for the extension I want to clarify some questions around the overall cost of the elements of the package—the phasing in from 14 to 18 weeks.The Government has set out the implication in the first and second reading that we simply cannot afford to do any more than that. That is absolutely false. As even the evidence and advice provided by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has set out and as Peter Gluckman the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor has pointed out we cannot afford not to move to 26 weeks. Not only is it about the outcomes for mother and baby around breastfeeding; it is around issues like resilience for the child and attachment issues. We know that if a child experiences attachment disorder the consequences of that down the track can cost a significant amount to the taxpayer.Infometrics in fact carried out some research into the issue of poor outcomes for children particularly looking at the effects of child poverty. It found that it costs the New Zealand taxpayer up to $6 billion per annum as a consequence of poor investment in a child’s early years. I do not use the words “poor investment” lightly. We under-invest in New Zealand in our children’s earliest years. That is based on OECD comparisons of the amount that OECD nations—developed nations—invest in children aged 0 to 5 years. New Zealand on average spends roughly half that and I do not mean parents; this is as a State. We spend roughly half what other OECD nations spend—roughly $20000 versus $40000—half. That picks up a bit once you get beyond the early years and once you get into the period where a child enters State education.One of the biggest defining features as to why New Zealand spends less than other countries is our poor paid parental leave. Most nations have recognised the benefit of investing in paid parental leave and have rightly invested in those early months of a child’s life.There is perhaps no better evidence than what you see coming out of groups like the Brainwave Trust. The Brainwave Trust is not a political organisation. It does not purport to represent any particular ideology. It is simply based on science. It emerged inthe 1990s around the period when we started being able to base more of our policies around the fact that in health we could see now what was going on and learn what was happening with the brain not just from doing scans and work once has someone had passed on. We were able to do analysis whilst someone was alive. CAT scans etc. and the ability to analyse neurological function provide a wealth of evidence about what the most important stages of development are.The most telling thing of all is that we learnt that the first 3 years of a child’s life is the most critical period of development and in particular that first year. Not only from a physiological development perspective do you see the brain grow the most in that period but you start moving beyond just the functionary stuff around the cortex to actually what goes on in your frontal lobe development—judgment trust; all of those important things that we need for a child to be able to respond to the world around it.If you are a child who is deprived of decent attachment and the ability to build trust with a parent or a caregiver that then flows on to your ability to even concentrate when you are in school the ability to trust that your next meal is going to come your way and whether or not you revert to fight or flight. The Brainwave Trust tells us that frontal lobe development is optimal—it is optimal.I hear members on the other side of the Chamber laughing at what the evidence tells us. I find that particularly interesting from a member who belongs to a trust that is involved in a child’s early years—the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters in particular. I am sure Dame Lesley Max would be very interested to hear that Sam Lotu-Iiga is laughing about the evidence around a child’s early years of development. All of that evidence points to us making sure that no child is deprived in their earliest years and yet we know from the Child Poverty Monitor that the time when a child spends the most continuous period in poverty is when they are under 4 years old. That is why Best Start extends to the most deprived families for 3 years because we know that that is where we can make the biggest difference.Part 1 sets out the phasing for paid parental leave moving from 14 weeks to 18 weeks. I want to compare that with the phasing that we would have had under Labour’s Best Start policy—Sue Moroney: Will have when we’re elected.JACINDA ARDERN: —absolutely; as my colleague points out which we will have come September—instead of having this 14 to 18 weeks phased in from 2016. If the Government had not vetoed Sue Moroney’s bill as it clearly intends to do by what it is doing today we would move from 14 to 18 weeks from July 2014.From July 2014 we propose that we would have exactly what the Government is proposing to do in a couple of years from now. We would then move to 22 weeks from July 2015 and to 26 weeks from July 2017. The Government says we cannot afford that. The Government I must point out has spent $40 million on private schools. Private schools have got $40 million out of this Government and yet it is telling us that we cannot afford to invest a little bit more in children and babies and invest to save. I heard Tracey Martin saying this as well. This is about investing to save further down the track.I have already talked about the Infometrics report which is predominantly based on the amount we save from for instance preventable hospitalisations remedial education etc. But what about the simple fact that we spend $19000 on imprisoning someone in any given year? An amount of $19000 per year is what we spend on imprisoning someone. Some may say to me: “Well what’s the link between that and a child’s start in life?”. Well there is the fact that 90 percent of our prison population has literacy issues and an estimated 60 percent has contact with Child Youth and Family. Of all of the things that we are spending a ridiculous amount of wasted taxpayers’ dollars on youcould spend a tiny tiny proportion on a child’s early years on supporting families and on early childhood education where if you invest $1 you save $11. All of these areas are about investing to save.The Government’s argument that we cannot afford to do it is absolutely untrue. We cannot afford not to do it. These are the areas where we can really make a critical difference—not only to a child’s potential and a family’s well-being but so that we ultimately save every single taxpayer money down the track.I want to speak in my next address—I have every intention of speaking at least in total for an hour on this bill. I look forward to Simon Bridges making at least that kind of contribution. In fact I challenge him to match me call for call.