Chadwick Steve: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental  Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental  Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:598] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on this bill.  
There is a totally different sense in the House tonight than there was in 2002. I just want to recap for the benefit of new members in the House that the debate at the time Ruth Dyson submitted the original bill to the House was simply appalling. I remember Katherine Rich putting her head in her hands in shame at the stance that the National Party took. She was appalled and there simply were not enough women in the House to support her at that time. I also remember the member Judith Collins making absolutely outlandish statements and I am on record as saying that I would take them back to every women’s group every midwife and every group in the country that I could possibly get the opportunity to talk to. She said that paid parental leave was not required and not needed. She voted against it. She said that people needed to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps get on with their lives and not expect help from the Government. That was appalling and we did go out there and talk.  
I welcome the new women MPs. They have added something to the Opposition that has changed the whole tenor of the House tonight. Women now make up 32 percent of the members in the House and it was Labour women originally with the support of our then Minister of Women’s Affairs who introduced the bill.  
Another feature of the bill which I think is very significant is that it extends paid parental leave to self-employed people. We knew at the time that the lack of such a provision in the original legislation was inequitable. Also at the time the Minister said that over time we would introduce an affordable regime—and it is affordable—and we would address the situation of self-employed women so that they came under the same protections. We are here tonight and I congratulate her on that; it has not even been a long gestation.  
Another significant aspect to this bill is that paid parental leave increased in December to 14 weeks. Now why is 14 weeks’ leave significant? As a midwife I will tell people why. Women breastfeed their babies exclusively for 12 weeks—that is a great goal which will help with obesity and diabetes in later life—but at 12 weeks that infant demands a lot more milk and goes through a bit of a growth surge. Where women were having to go back to work at 13 weeks many were deciding to stop breastfeeding. They would have had to cope with bottles if they went back to work so they gave up breastfeeding and that was terribly sad. Our national statistics for the exclusive breastfeeding of children were becoming something that we were very concerned about. By extending that leave to 14 weeks women get over that hurdle. As women also realise that all the protections that have gone into making workplaces friendly for breastfeeding—the fact that they can go and express in rooms not toilet cubicles; that they can store the milk in fridges; and that the infant can actually come into the workplace to be fed—are part of the norm of a working woman’s existence we will see an increase in breastfeeding in this country.  
I congratulate the Minister on this bill and I will give the Minister another challenge. I remember the Prime Minister saying through the Speech from the Throne that we needed to look at the Scandinavian model and that the gold-plated parental leave would be 6 months. I look forward to the day when we can slowly and incrementally increase parental leave provisions as they become affordable up to 6 months. Then we really will be working for women men children and families in New Zealand. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.referred to Transport and Industrial Relations Committee