Upston Louise: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Upston Louise: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3949. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Kaiwhakawa. Me mihi au ki te Whare nei. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Speaker. My acknowledgments to this House. 
] 
I am pleased to stand in opposition to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I want to go through it with some quite clear reasons. I do want to be very clear from the outset of this debate that this is not a debate about the merits of paid parental leave. This is not a debate about whether this Government has children at the heart of its interests. This is not a debate about our commitment to children—it is absolutely not. I want to go through that in quite a lot of detail. 
It is kind of interesting that the member who has had this bill drawn from the ballot has been a member of Parliament for 7 years now—3 of those in Government. So if this bill was so important if it was her one sole purpose for being I am highly surprised that it has become such a priority now 7 years later when Labour is in Opposition. But you know I think that is part of existence on “Planet Labour”. Labour does the most important things when it is in Opposition—or at least it can promise them because it does not have to pay for them. That is what happens on “Planet Labour” because money grows on trees. 
National is focused on responsibly managing the Government’s finances. We have children at the heart of our interests. One of the things we are committed to not doing is leaving our children and grandchildren with mountains and mountains and generations of debt which is what that side of the House is happy to do. This side of the House has more interest in making sure that we do have an economy that is managed responsibly. 
Given that a previous speaker made some comparisons with other countries I thought it was worth touching on where the other countries sit with this currently. There are countries that have longer paid parental leave entitlements than New Zealand’s. Portugal has 17 weeks Italy has 5 months Greece has 17 weeks and Spain has 16 weeks. I think those countries would be familiar to more than a few of us in the House and those listening and the disastrous economies that they are running currently. It is an example of some of the Governments’ spending that is not sustainable. There are actually some countries that are currently looking at cutting their paid parental leave—they are looking at cutting their paid parental leave. This Government is protecting the existing entitlements. Even Germany which is one of the stronger economies in Europe has had to make savings in its paid parental leave entitlements. So it is not something that is unique for us. 
We have been protecting the interests of parents in New Zealand. The Minister of Women’s Affairs the Hon Jo Goodhew spoke about the array of things that this Government is doing in terms of investing in children. That side of the House might not be interested in listening but there is a significant amount of work that we have done. I do not think that it should be belittled that in these difficult economic times we should be protecting entitlements. I want to give you an example. When paid parental leave was introduced in 2002 the uptake exceeded predictions. Some would say that is a good thing—absolutely. But the difficulty is it is yet another example of a spending programme that Labour introduced with no reality in terms of what the financial cost would be. It increased 175 percent between 2003 and 2010. So there was a 175 percent increase and only 14 percent more babies. 
I am proud to be a working mother. I was staggered to hear Labour member Mr Prasad in a debate last week basically imply that mothers were not capable of doing two things at once. In the debate on the social security bill that member suggested it was too difficult for mothers to work and that it was hard on their children. Well this side of the House believes that women are capable of doing more. The Minister of Women’s Affairs has given you our record and so I am more than proud to say that we are opposing this piece of legislation. We are managing the economy in a strong and sensible way. We are protecting our children supporting our families and making our communities stronger. Thank you.