Moroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:663. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):It is a good time to be talking about this bill because—indeed my colleague Jacinda Ardern is correct—it is Multiple Birth Awareness week this week. They say that timing is everything and I hope that that will certainly be something that the Government will take into account when it considers this bill because the member Jacinda Ardern is absolutely right. Clause 4 is the purpose clause of this bill so this is the really meaty part of the bill I guess. I know that there has been an adjournment in this debate and people might not recall it but I think that last time round there was a lot happening in the discussion around this clause. There was a lot of talking from the Government benches about what they thought about paid parental leave and I hope that will continue tonight—Chris Bishop: Very important issue.SUE MORONEY: —because it is a very important issue Mr Bishop and I am looking forward to the many contributions from the Government benches again tonight on this issue. Yes it is the Labour Party’s firm view and my firm view as the promoter of this bill that 26 weeks for all families that are eligible for paid parental leave is absolutely what we should have in this country. And we know that because other OECD countries have at least that and as we stand at the moment we are languishing at the bottom of the OECD when it comes to duration of paid parental leave. If you combine that also with the level of payment that is afforded in other countries the weekly payment for paid parental leave then we are looking even worse on that front. This clause in this bill does not attempt to address the payment part of it but it does attempt to address the duration part.The purpose—and I outlined a little bit of this at question time today—is simply this: the research and evidence is overwhelming about what we would gain as a society if we were to invest in those early months of a child’s life not see it as a cost. That is where the smart money is. That is what internationally we now know: that if we invest a little bit in ways such as extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks we can make a huge difference in the outcome of those children’s lives. That is because the research and evidence tell us that getting the bonding and attachment right between parent and child in those early months is critical to that child’s brain development and critical to the course of the rest of its life. So there is evidence that supports that and tells us that if we get it right at the beginning that child is less likely to need taxpayer money spent on remedial education for example. They are much less likely to have anything to do with our youth justice system. They are much less likely to have the sorts of costs that our society bears when things go wrong and that is what this is really about. This is about building a society where we have children who are well supported from day one.We also know—and again the research and evidence is overwhelming on this issue—that if we can support exclusive breastfeeding through to 6 months of age that child is much less likely to end up with health problems. That is a good outcome—that they do not suffer the health problems. It is a good outcome for them and their family but it is actually a good outcome for the rest of us as well because we do not end up putting taxpayer funding into hospital and health services to support issues that we did not get right in those early months. That is what this is about. This is a forward-looking bill that is actually progressive in terms of saying that a little bit of investment at the beginning would save ourselves not only a lot of heartache but a lot of cost as a country further on down the track. And do we not all want to live beside well-nurtured well-rounded productive citizens? Because all the research and evidence says that if we can extend paid parental leave ideally to 12 months—but we in the Labour Party believe that right now it is affordable to in a staggered way get to 26 weeks and that is what should be afforded to all families. But it has become clear over the course of I would say 2 years—Hon Ruth Dyson: Two years 3 months.SUE MORONEY: For 2 years and 3 months—thank you—we have been debating this issue because this bill was drawn from the ballot in Easter 2012 and here we are in the Committee stage. This is where the rubber starts to hit the road. It has become absolutely apparent in those 2 years and 3 months that the Government just has no interest in supporting families in this way and that it has no interest in supporting and actually prioritising families in order to get 26 weeks’ paid parental leave.Yes this brave little bill has actually had some success because it has forced the Government to extend paid parental leave initially to 16 weeks—which we are yet to see but it should be happening next year—and then to 18 weeks but what the Government did was have a political solution to what is a human problem. It has found what it thinks is a political solution to it but that political solution does not address the research and evidence that I have already alluded to. It does not support exclusive breastfeeding to 6 months. It does not work to make sure that that bonding and attachment is well developed in that critical first 6 months. It does not do those things that we know make the critical difference. So I am acknowledging that. I am acknowledging that the Government now has the numbers to completely kill this bill and kill off the hopes and aspirations and dreams of those who are parents now those who are pregnant now and about to become parents and those who will become parents in the future. It is not only that group of people though. It is the grandparents who I actually find are often the most passionate about this issue because they want to see their grandchildren get this benefit and grow up in this way.I have acknowledged that and I have brought forward a new proposal because I said right from the outset that I would be determined to do the very best that we could for families. My idea is this. Families where there is a multiple birth families where there is a premature birth families where there is a child born with a disability—those are the families most in need. My proposal is that the 26 weeks’ paid parental leave be made available to those families in two staggered stages because it is those families I think who suffer the largest amount of financial pressure. They therefore suffer the most pressure to get back to work and earn money in order to support their families at a time when it may not be the best thing for them. That is the proposal that I have brought to the Committee for the Government to consider today.I want to thank all the support parties who have already indicated to me that they will support that course of action because for the parties who have supported this bill all the way through its passage this is not their ideal outcome and I think we all know that but we want to try to secure something that will make a difference for families—families who are in high levels of need. I became convinced of this upon hearing the many many submissions that we heard through the Government Administration Committee. I think we had just under 4000 submissions. Not all of them were oral but 99.6 percent of those submissions were in favour of 26 weeks’ paid parental leave for all not just for this narrower albeit very well deserving group that I am now proposing this bill cover.One of the submissions that really sticks in my mind—it stayed in my mind throughout this journey—has been the submission made in Auckland by a woman by the name of Danielle Ballinger Taylor who told us her story about having her twins. I am probably going to run out of time to tell her story so I am going to share that with you a little bit later on but let me say this because I think this probably says it all. When I looked around the room that day when she made her submission I am pretty sure there was not a dry eye in the room—and I believe that included the officials and that takes some doing. Her story is indicative of about 2800 families every year who face the same scenario. So that is what my amendment is aiming to do. I hope that the Government will think about this seriously because it is a genuine attempt to make better the lives of a group of people in our society who really do need that support. We will all benefit when they benefit and I hope the Government will take heed of that.