Mitchell MarkMARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): First of all I do want to acknowledge the member Sue Moroney the sponsor of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months' Paid Leave) Amendment Bill in this the third reading. There are a couple of issues that she raised. I do not have time to address all of them but I just want to say that actually it is true that this Government does feel that responsible fiscal management and balancing the books are important. Decisions should be driven—and that should be taken into consideration for any decisions that are made by a responsible Government. When we look around the world at the moment we are watching more and more political and economic instability and so it is even more important for us as a small trading nation to remain focused on some political stability some economic stability and some good decisions for us as a nation.In relation to the comments that were made around the National Party and the National Government not doing anything for families there is a whole raft of policies that have been implemented under this Government. It would take me an hour to go through them all but one thing that I will say is that for the first time since 1972—the first time since 1972 so even in 9 years of the previous Labour Government you did not make the decision to do this or implement a policy like this—we increased benefit rates by $25 a week for families—Jan Logie: No you didn't.MARK MITCHELL: —so when we talk about what we are doing for children—yes we did—that is going to have a tangible positive impact on an estimated 108000 families. They will benefit directly from that increase and again I will highlight the fact that it is the first time that increase has been made since 1972—I will challenge any speaker to get up and try to rebut that. It is going to affect 194000 children and they are going to benefit from that increase. Two-thirds of children in material hardship live in a benefit-supported family so that is a significant policy that this National Government has implemented in support of families.The National Government believes in and has increased paid parental leave. We have increased it in two increments from 14 weeks to 16 weeks and then to 18 weeks. We have been very clear about the fact that when we are able to—when the money is available—then of course we would look at increasing paid parental leave again. But we are going to continue to be responsible around the way we manage the Government's finances. It is not our money; it is the taxpayers' money so we have got a responsibility to use that prudently.The other thing that I would highlight is that I could never buy into the argument that just because a parent has got 18 weeks instead of 26 weeks for whatever reason they are not able to bond with their child.Hon Ruth Dyson: We never said that. We never said that and you know it.MARK MITCHELL: Well that is the argument that keeps getting put up. The argument is that because we are not supporting this bill parents are somehow not able to bond with their children or they are somehow not going to be able to look after their children as well as they could if they had an extension of paid parental leave. That is your argument not mine. I am just saying that I do not buy into that. I believe that probably most of us in this House bonded pretty well with our parents and that they did a very good job of raising us. And actually they did not have paid parental leave available to them. I did not have that available to me with my daughter but we seem to somehow have managed. But it is nice that we are in a position now where we are focused on being able to provide that type of support to parents.It was interesting in my time overseas. You know I just think that we are very lucky in New Zealand because I have observed in my time overseas mothers from Third World countries who had to leave their infant children to actually go away overseas and work sometimes for 12 months which was pretty tough to witness. [Interruption] You might laugh and think it is funny—this is the real world. This is the real world. They have to go overseas and work for 12 months away from their families to send money back to support them—and often their parents as well. I think we are lucky that we live in a country where we are actually able to have access to the types of support that we do have so I would like to—like I said there is a lot more that I would like to say. I have to take a reasonably short call but of course we do not support this bill. Thank you.