Moroney Sue: Reports — Inquiry into Improving Child Health Outcomes and Preventing Child Abuse with a Focus from Preconception Until Three Years of Age (Volumes 1 and 2)Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Reports — Inquiry into Improving Child Health Outcomes and Preventing Child Abuse with a Focus from Preconception Until Three Years of Age (Volumes 1 and 2)[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15460. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is indeed an honour to rise and speak in this debate on the excellent report from the Health Committee into improving child health outcomes. I particularly want to congratulate Dr Paul Hutchison on spearheading this very comprehensive approach and leading a multiparty approach to dealing with the issue that we should all be very concerned about in this country: improving child health outcomes. I want to recognise and acknowledge all the members of the select committee. I was not on the select committee but certainly through our Labour team of Annette King Iain Lees-Galloway and Louisa Wall I was able to have input into this report through the very good consultation that they undertook with Labour colleagues on the issue.It will be no surprise to anyone in this debating chamber that the part of this report that I want to spend a few minutes talking about is in fact the part that talks about paid parental leave because I do believe that this is an important factor for New Zealand children. Certainly the will of this Parliament and the will of the New Zealand public is that we make progress on extending paid parental leave. I want to acknowledge—and Ithink that this report from the Health Committee probably has something to do with it—the approach that I had yesterday from the National Party. It offered to extend the report-back date of my bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Rate of Parental Leave Payment) Regulations Bill and to extend paid parental leave to 6 months to enable discussions to take place about how we might move forward on that issue. I think that really is in the spirit in which this health report was brought together as well—that we can work in a multiparty way to make progress on issues that are of importance to children and their families. So I welcome that.I note that this report also looked into the issue of paid parental leave and did not quite come out with the recommendation around extending paid parental leave to 6 or 12 months. But it certainly did acknowledge that it had many submissions asking for exactly that. I think it is important for that to be acknowledged in the report. The recommendation of the report is in fact that the Government considers the possibility of providing more support for vulnerable women in the post-natal period to allow more opportunity for mothers to bond with their babies.I applaud the select committee for that because I think that that was right and proper. In the section of this report called “Social economic determinant of health and wellbeing”—and I think that that is the right place the exact right place to discuss paid parental leave—it chose to focus on the parents who are most vulnerable. It also correctly identified—and this is an issue that is close to my heart as well—that under our current paid parental leave laws some of the most vulnerable families miss out on eligibility. Those in seasonal and temporary employment are often the most vulnerable families and our current paid parental leave laws do not extend coverage for paid parental leave to those families. I certainly want to work with the Government to make progress on that issue alongside working with the Government on making progress on extending paid parental leave to 6 months.I note that there was a submission from the Ministry of Health and advice from the Ministry of Health about breastfeeding and whether extending paid parental leave had anything at all to do with extending exclusive breastfeeding rates. I am not surprised to see that the Ministry of Health does not see a link because it has told another select committee that I am sitting on exactly the same thing. However how does the Ministry of Health explain the figures that it has not even bothered to gather itself? It relies on the figures that have been gathered by Plunket. Plunket is of course an organisation with a very fine reputation and I am very happy to rely on its data—the Ministry of Health does also. But the figures show that since the year 2000 the 3-month exclusive breastfeeding rate has been increasing by roughly 1 percent per year. Then suddenly in the year 2003 it leaps by 3.2 percent—three times more the increase in breastfeeding rates in the year 2003.Iain Lees-Galloway: What happened in 2003?SUE MORONEY: Ask ourselves: what happened just prior to 2003? The Labour Government introduced paid parental leave at 12 weeks. That is what happened in 2002. Of course the exclusive breastfeeding rate increased by three times the amount in the following year. I ask the Ministry of Health whether that is not evidence enough. But I will leave that for a debate on another day because I do believe that what the Health Committee has done is absolutely moving in the right direction. I would be a little more challenging of the Ministry of Health on its assertion that breastfeeding rates are not affected by extending paid parental leave to 6 months. But again I reserve my right to discuss that at length on another occasion. Thank you.