Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair. It really is a privilege to be able to stand for my second time in this House and speak. Let me just start by congratulating you on the position that you have as the Deputy Speaker of this House and as Madam Chair taking us through this important committee stage of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill which is a Government bill in the name of the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway. Congratulations to the Minister on his new appointment.I have a few comments and I've been thinking about some names that we could call this bill because without the Government supporting Amy Adams' very well thought through Supplementary Order Paper which would allow both parents to be able to take parental leave at the same time I thought of some new names that we could call this bill. The first one: we could just get rid of the al" at the end of "Parental". We could call it the "Parent Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill". I'm not sure what members think about that but I'd ask the Minister while he's writing his Christmas cards to consider that one.Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank-you cards actually—campaign thank-you cards.SIMEON BROWN: Oh thank you. The second one would be the "One Parent Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill". That's another idea because at the end of the day it's only one parent who'll be allowed to take leave at any one time being the mother. So why don't we call it the "Mother Parent Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill.Hon Tracey Martin: Why do you assume it's the mother? What's that about? Unconscious bias.SIMEON BROWN: I'm just giving alternative names for the bill. We could also call it the "Government Knows Best Which Parent Bill". What about that name—the "Government Knows Best Which Parental Leave and Employment Amendment Bill"?Hon Shane Jones: Relevance—relevance!SIMEON BROWN: This is relevant to the title of the bill and these titles would actually give a far better reflection of what this Government has done to the bill in ensuring that only the mother is able to take parental leave. And look we're in support of ensuring this legislation—this was the policy that the National Party went into this election with in extending parental leave. But this bill I guess could also be called the "1960s Back to the Future Parental Leave Bill". So there's a whole range of different names.Hon Tracey Martin: What about the "2016 Didn't Do It When We Could Parental Leave Bill"?SIMEON BROWN: Well I guess we're still not doing this. It's still not being done so I think the "1960s Back to the Future Parental Leave Bill" would be a good one.Let me just get on to the second point which is regarding the commencement. This point has been discussed a number of times but this bill won't be coming into force until 1 July next year. Now I mean that's a long time—we know a week's a long time in politics but that's 7½ months until this legislation is coming into place. I don't know about you but I've been getting a number of calls from constituents and emails coming through regarding this. Why can't we let parents actually have their say and put forward their own thoughts and actually let them say what—because when I was on the campaign trail listening to people talking to parents there was a lot of discussion on this issue and they thought that our policy which would allow both parents to be able to take leave concurrently or separately was a good policy.So I think these issues could have been dealt with far better if the bill had gone to select committee. I'm disappointed that this Government has voted down leave for that to have been done twice today. I'm disappointed to see that they have chosen to push this through rather than to allow the proper select committee process to go through on such important legislation so that it could be well thought through and so that we could get better outcomes for the parents because ultimately it's about parents and their children and making sure that this legislation is done in the best interests of them.So thank you very much Madam Chair. It's been a privilege to be able to speak on this bill and I hope that the Minister will take into account my suggestions for the name. I've given him a number of options. They're all very well thought through and I really look forward to consideration by the Government benches. Thank you very much."