Moroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 20 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16190. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]8.SUE MORONEY (Labour) to theMinister of Finance: Is it still his intention to use a financial veto against my Bill which proposes to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Government has not made a final decision but quite possibly.Sue Moroney: Does he think a financial veto would be justified for a bill supporting families that would cost just $36 million in the forthcoming 2014-15 financial year?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government will take into account a number of factors including the fact that the cost rises pretty quickly after that. Another factor is that the focus of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill excludes a significant number of families in much more difficult and challenging circumstances with much lower incomes who may be more deserving of Government support.Sue Moroney: What does the Minister of Finance propose to do for the families that he has just spoken of who miss out on paid parental leave?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It would be a very long answer if I went through the wide range of ways in which the Government is endeavouring to help those families. They range from extensive investment through the investment approach—for instance to get sole parent families out of welfare dependency and into work because when they do not have a job but they could have one they are not eligible for paid parental leave at all. So that is just one measure and there are many others.Sue Moroney: Does he agree with the Prime Minister when he said in reference to the Tīwai Point subsidy that $30 million is not a major outlay and does this cause him to reconsider his threatened use of the financial veto when it comes to a similar amount for families in this forthcoming financial year?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I think the member may have picked up over the last year or two the Government is less focused on spending large amounts of money to try to show it cares—that is other people’s money—and more focused on actually supporting the people who need it to change the course of their lives which is what taxpayers expect us to do. So in that sense the amount of money is less important than the impact of the intervention and we believe that there are other groups that are a higher priority for very necessary support from the Government to bring some order and aspiration to lives that may be chaotic and lacking hope. The old Labour Party used to be interested in those families. The new Labour Party is not.Sue Moroney: What assurances can he give women like Nicola whom I spoke of on Tuesday in the House whose twins are due on 9 July 2014—that is this year—that there will more than 14 weeks’ paid parental leave available for her and her babies?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We can give her the assurance that because of sound fiscal management over the last 5 years 14 weeks of paid parental leave is sustainable and she can certainly expect that. We can assure her that we will be making every effort to work with her to have her twins immunised and there is the availability of early childhood education the prospect of work if she wants it—Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The answer from the Minister was interesting but he has failed to answer the question which was will there be more than 14 weeks’ paid parental—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That was not the question that was asked. The question was what assurances could the Minister give to Nicola etc. and the Minister was adequately addressing what assurances he could give to Nicola.