Roche Denise: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11274. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take the first call for the Greens on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill. Firstly I want to just acknowledge the previous speaker Mark Mitchell and his remarkable contribution of mansplaining. I found it quite interesting. But more seriously I want to congratulate our colleague across the House Sue Moroney on her hard work and her persistence and her patience with this bill and also on her luck. It is quite unusual for a member to have one bill drawn out of the ballot—like a lucky dip—but it is very unusual to have two. So here we are again.Carmel Sepuloni: Phil Twyford’s had five.DENISE ROCHE: Five bills! Well this is the second one on the same issue around paid parental leave and here we are again voting on and debating another bill around paid parental leave.I am disappointed because actually we could have passed this bill in 2014 the last time it came up. Actually the fact that the National Government did not support it then means that thousands and thousands of New Zealand babies and their mums and families have missed out on extended paid parental leave. So this is an opportunity I think for National to be on the right side of history. We have seen National do its usual adoption of an Opposition policy and do it half-heartedly by raising paid parental leave last year first from 16 weeks to 18 weeks. Actually 18 weeks is better than 16 weeks but 26 weeks is better than all of that.As with the last time this bill received near unanimous support from the public submissions and the wider public. I filled in for my colleague Mojo Mathers on the Government Administration Committee and was part of the proceedings. I want to thank both the committee and the chair the Hon Ruth Dyson for having me on the committee. It was very interesting. This bill received 6755 submissions which as others have said is twice the number that were received on the last paid parental leave bill in Sue Moroney’s name.The submissions were actually really well received and the evidence was of a very high standard. They were all calling for 6 months or longer. I acknowledge the submissions made by quite a wide variety of groups—from the Council of Trade Unions Family First the University of Auckland and the New Zealand Police Association for example. The diversity of groups that support the bill indicates that this is something that lots of families are crying out for.This bill is an example of smart investment in our families that will make a practical difference for many working families. As I said in my speech in the first reading of this bill it is actually really crucial that we invest in our young people. It is cost-effective. The return on the benefits of investing in our young people between the ages of zero and 3 years old is something like between $1.80 and $17 per dollar invested. The investment that we make now gives a return further down the track in savings.We are also supporting this bill because we know that policies that enable women to participate in the workplace unsurprisingly help to address the pay gap between men and women. The reality for many women in New Zealand is that the pay gap is between 11.8 percent and 14 percent and women are still facing barriers in the workplace—not just in the pay gap but also with leadership in both the public and the private sector. The recent report from the Ministry for Women said that only 43.4 percent of women are in senior positions at board level in the public sector and in the private sector it is only around 14 percent.I think we also need to acknowledge that there is a lot more that we could be doing to support families and the most vulnerable in our society. Our policy is for 13 months’ paid parental leave and it was nice to hear that side of the House mentioning that this is the recommendation from a 2007 Families Commission report. Thirteen months would certainly be better for the family but we also need to look at other things aside from paid parental leave that we could be providing.I want to acknowledge the submissions from the Child Poverty Action Group and the Children’s Commissioner who both said that parents of 30000 babies—nearly half of all babies born annually—will not be eligible for the paid parental leave benefit because it depends on sustained labour force attachment as the criteria for eligibility for the scheme. So that means that some of our most vulnerable babies are still being born into households where they are unable to access any kind of support and they need our help too.We could be doing more. We could strengthen the power of workers in this country to bargain collectively so that there are higher wages and frequently that leads to higher productivity. We could invest in high-quality housing stock so that we do not have babies and families living in cold damp and unhealthy housing. We could invest in the smart Green economy with integrated transport with clean energy and with liveable cities. We could be making things better.For those who say that we cannot afford to increase paid parental leave to 26 weeks which as others have said is only $107 million—to those who say we cannot afford it I say to them that that is what the opposition said when we wanted equal pay for women and that is what slave owners said when we abolished slavery. I think the time is right for this Government to show its support for families and to approve this bill and vote for it.