Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Madam Chair. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a great pleasure to rise and speak on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. Of course I have to start by saying on behalf of the Green Party I am very proud to be supporting a Government that has so clearly signalled their priorities by making the first piece of legislation to pass in this House—when it does—an extension to paid parental leave that families have been waiting for for such a long time.In Part 1 which extends it to 22 weeks I want to address the issues raised both around the urgency and around the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that was proposed by Amy Adams—so Supplementary Order Paper 3. But let's just state right up front that it's clear what this Government's priorities are: it's looking after families in Aotearoa; it's ensuring that we're investing in enabling families. Moreover the policy objective which is very relevant is extending the amount of time that a parent any parent is able to spend with the baby to maximise the amount of time that babies during their development will eventually have—first 22 weeks and then 26 weeks—with one of their primary parents whoever that is. That's a policy objective.I know that the Opposition struggles with this because it was never clear that they thought that Governments should be trying to achieve things for people in New Zealand. They certainly questioned the ability of Government to deliver. But there's a clear policy objective here which is maximising the amount of time that babies have with their primary caregivers any of them. So what is addressed in the Supplementary Order Paper 2 proposed by Sarah Dowie I think is excellent. It was a great contribution and I think the Government has shown clearly that when there's a good suggestion and it can be incorporated we will support that.When it comes to the Supplementary Order Paper raised by Amy Adams I think it's an interesting proposal. I think that as Minister for Women and with a primary goal of closing the gender pay gap it is incredibly important that we find ways to incentivise fathers and other parents taking more of the parental leave. But we don't want to do that at the expense of the time that babies have with the caregiver and of course if two people are taking paid parental leave at the same time then it reduces the amount of time that babies have with one of their primary caregivers at home.I think that the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway explained very clearly why this is out of scope this particular Supplementary Order Paper and I do think that it's a bit disingenuous for Opposition members to suddenly claim to be so passionate about this when they had nine years to do it and obviously they didn't. So this Government is getting on with it. We're not going to allow our ambitious agenda for Aotearoa to be hampered by slowing down something that's already been through select committee twice. We can go ahead and pass the bill because we know that most New Zealanders support it. It's a good bill. It extends parental leave and that's what we care about.I think Opposition members should not worry because this is just the beginning—it's just the beginning. We've got heaps of time to introduce more and better policies and I for one as Minister for Women welcome the National Party coming out in a strong campaign for extending parental leave to 13 months including incentives for fathers and other parents. I'm really looking forward to hearing that from the National Party during this term of Government. You could join the Green Party in campaigning for extensions to paid parental leave to 13 months because clearly they're very supportive of such a thing.So thank you Madam Chair—very happy to be supporting this bill tonight and one of the SOPs proposed by the National Party members. We look forward to further contributions from the National Party Opposition to policy making throughout this term of Government and beyond.