Foster-Bell Paul: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11840. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Kaiwhakahaere tēnā koe. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to take this call on the title and commencement clauses of the bill. This bill in Sue Moroney’s name is called the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. It is quite a mouthful and it does to some extent I suppose do what it says on the label: it is about paid parental leave. It is about protecting the employment of those workers who are on parental leave so that they have work to come back to. But where I take some I suppose contention with the proposed title is the “6 Months’ Paid Leave”. That is not actually what the bill does—not initially anyway.When this bill was first looked at at the Government Administration Committee it came in three tranches. There were the parts of the bill that were supposed to come into force on 1 April 2016. Of course those were overtaken by events and we have amended the bill accordingly. Although there was no agreement in the select committee on the bill as a whole we did agree it would be patently ludicrous to have a commencement of some clauses that had been overtaken by events. There had already been an increase delivered by this Government in paid parental leave duration but also the work contact hours although not under that name—the staying in touch provisions to allow parents on parental leave to keep in touch with the workplace to keep up to date without losing their entitlement—had already effectively been enacted by this Government.In the bill as it stands now when it comes into force there will not be 6 months’ paid parental leave—or 26 weeks as it is described in the bill. Initially when the bill first comes into force as of 1 April 2017 there will be 22 weeks of paid parental leave. This does not then increase to the 26 weeks so the extra 4 weeks is added on on 1 January 2018. In my view this is not an entirely accurate description of what this bill does.The bill should perhaps be called the “Parental Leave and Employment Protection (First 22 Weeks Next Year and then 26 Weeks the Year After That) Amendment Bill” because that would be I think a more accurate description of what it actually does. I know it does not exactly roll off the tongue but it would at least portray this bill in a faithful manner. I think that is something that we should consider in this Committee stage so that it is fully understood that as of the moment it is signed into law by the Governor-General it will not deliver 6 months’ paid parental leave—that is something that is coming down the track.When one gives it seems little consideration to the fiscal impact of what one is doing one does wonder why you would simply stop at 6 months when you are in the position of the Opposition of being able to promise very much and not consider too much what else has to be sacrificed to pay for those promises. One does wonder why you would simply stop at that 6 months or 26 weeks and why you would not keep on going. But anyway that is my suggestion—that we bring some accuracy to the naming of this bill and make it very clear to the New Zealand public that it is in fact not 6 months’ paid parental leave that they will be entitled to from the commencement of this bill on 1 January 2017.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I just check: did the member move an amendment then?PAUL FOSTER-BELL: No.