Nash Stuart: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Employment Standards Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9457. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): It is a pleasure to stand and talk about this bill and I have not said that recently for a number of bills that have gone through this House because I think this bill makes a real difference to a number of people in society who need a little bit of a help up every now and again—not a handout but a help up. I take my hat off to Sue Moroney because she has championed this tirelessly against the odds and we are nearly there. We are not quite where we need to be at 26 hours.Hon Members: Weeks.STUART NASH: Sorry—26 weeks. We are not even close to where they are in Germany which has 156 weeks but we are slowly slowly getting there.One of the things I do like about the bill is the meaning of “primary carer”. I think well gone are the days now when the primary carer was thought of as the mother. It was the mother’s responsibility to do this that and everything else and the father did whatever fathers do like go out to work—that is an outdated model of my parents’ generation. I think now in this day and age when men and women are treated equally and there are a number of men and a number of women who play a very important role in a child’s upbringing it should not be primarily left to the mother. It has to be a discussion that is had within the family and whatever decision the family makes it is good to see that it is respected by law.The other thing I also like about this bill is it is not talking just about the mother and the mother’s partner or the mother’s spouse. Again we are talking about the 21st century reality where often aunties take the role of primary carer or grandparents and so they are also entitled to the leave under this bill which I think is good to see actually—it is good to see.I would like to talk about the keeping-in-touch days. The one thing I have just a slight concern about—I mean I understand it but I always have a slight concern and I will raise it here just as a point. In clause 55 subsection (2) of new section 71CE “Keeping-in-touch days” says: “An employee may perform 1 or more hours of paid work for his or her employer on a keeping-in-touch day …” if there is an agreement between the employee and the employer. What I would be loath to see is any pressure being put on an employee by an employer because it says in legislation that this is allowed to happen. I know there is no such word as “must” or anything like that; it is all about “may” and what is possible. In one respect it is good to cover off these situations in a bill to make sure there is no ambiguity—i.e. if a primary carer does go back to work for 1 day or a week or something like this then that does provide ambiguity if it is not dealt with in the bill—but conversely what it can do is it can set an expectation that an employee may feel pressured to have to meet.I just want to put that out there but again I think it is good to clarify this because it does deal with 21st century reality. I know that when my wife had my last two children she found this quite frustrating because although she obviously loved the children to death there were times when she did want to keep in touch but under the previous terms and conditions there was a lot of ambiguity that made it difficult to understand. I am pleased that that is there but I just do signal that—there is no doubt about that.Another thing that I am pleased to see—this is clause 68 new section 71N “Annual adjustment of parental leave payment rates”. What it does—which again is very important—is it outlines what will happen in terms of rate movements. What it says is that at 1 July—well there will be a percentage movement on which an adjustment is based. I quote from section 71N(2)(a): “the percentage movement on which the adjustment is based must be the annual percentage movement in the February average ordinary time weekly earnings (employees) immediately before the 1 July date …” butthe thing I do really like about this is that paragraph (b) says: “if … there is a downward percentage movement in average ordinary time weekly earnings … [then] no adjustment takes effect …”.In essence what it is saying is that if for some unknown reason the average employee earnings drop then we will not see a corresponding drop in the rates that caregivers on the 18 weeks’ leave will receive. I think that is really important because when you are planning to have a baby as many of us with families know it is quite an exhaustive process. It is not just about what we are going to do who is going to look after it; it is also about trying to budget. This is why I think this clause is most important. Thank you.