White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the Employment Relations (Protection for Kiwisaver Members) Amendment Bill.I too have had the thrill of having a bill come out of that biscuit tin so I absolutely congratulate Dr Tracey McLellan for having had her bill drawn. It's a really wonderful experience for a backbencher to be able to bring something through to the Parliament which is often their why"; it is often something that's really important to them personally. I'm sorry that she's not here today to be able to go through this particular experience but I look forward to her future contributions with regard to this bill.I'd also like to thank the National Party for actually supporting this bill because it's a significant thing when you look at a bill like this—which is about something so important—and that should probably rise above politics in some ways. It's so critical that people in this country can save for their retirement. It's a really big deal and it's an area where there should be in my view way more common ground than there is because it's so absolutely critical and it's a future forward situation.There are a few things that we can tweak in our worlds which are very significant to people. One is tax settings and the other is employment relations I think. Those things really really impact people's lives in a very fundamental way and empower them. I can see that this bill combines the two because it looks at the employment relations settings and it tweaks them—and not I don't think in any overbearing way; in a way that will encourage more investment and more investment in an area of people's lives that will give them greater empowerment and security at a really important time in their lives.I've got to say I'm one of those wayward people who didn't have a lot of KiwiSaver. I was working for myself and I had every excuse in the book. I was paying down my mortgage. I had all sorts of reasons why I didn't quite have to get around to doing anything more than the minimum contribution. Then I went on the Finance and Expenditure Committee and I got quite a shock at the information that was coming through to me about how low our savings are. And they're particularly low of course for women. So it's incredibly important that there is as little pressure in an employment situation as possible to opt out of a KiwiSaver arrangement; as much encouragement as possible for employers to let people into those schemes and to see them as a fait accompli. That's incredibly important to women in this country.I just want to dwell on that for a minute because I don't think a lot of New Zealanders understand just how low the level of saving is in comparison to what they should be saving. I read that the savings for a 40-year-old are $36000 for an average but $43000 for men and $32000 for women. That's quite a difference you can see between women and men in that space. That's going to go out and be much much worse by the time they get older. Somebody with that level of average savings is going to end up about $400 short of what they need when they reach retirement age. That's a significant amount. So it's really really important New Zealanders save and we encourage them to do so but it's also really important we recognise things like gender inequity in this area.I'm really proud of some other work that has happened on this side of the House which is related to making sure this happens. That is the promise that there'll be a top-up for women or people on parental leave so that they're actually bringing up those incomes. Because as a previous speaker said just a little difference in saving—a few months nine months—extrapolates out by the time you reach retirement age. So it's incredibly important that we recognise the value that women in particular—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member. Your time has expired."