Turner Judy: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental  Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental  Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill 2005. Like other parties United Future is very pleased to see the advent of this bill. We congratulate the Minister on taking the necessary steps to advance the development of this legislation and we look forward to assisting its passage in whatever way we can.  
The bill does four main things. The first obviously is to extend the provisions of parental leave to the self-employed. Second it allows for that leave to be shared or transferred and I think that that is important when we start to understand that there are families for whom fathers may be the most suitable to provide parental care in those essential first few weeks. Third the bill also clarifies eligibility particularly for the self-employed and allows them to maintain some sort of business oversight while still qualifying for help. Fourth it establishes clearly what that rate of payment will be. We have known for a long time that self-employed parents who actually do face the same difficulties as employed parents in combining work with childcare are the same people who have not received parental leave payments despite the fact that they have helped to fund the scheme through their tax payments. So the advent of this bill is long overdue and we welcome it.  
It is so interesting that just within the last week or so the Hon Peter Dunne received from one of his constituents an email asking for the time frame in anticipation. She said: “I struggle to understand why self-employed mothers who work just as hard as anyone else and pay their taxes are not entitled to parental leave. Both my husband and I work extremely hard and are both self-employed. We have struggled with how we could possibly have a baby as it will require me to take time out from my demanding business. I am a one-man band and will still need to employ someone to run the business while I have time out thus putting a huge financial strain on us and we were giving up hope that we could possibly do it.” So is it not exciting that so close to receiving that email we are now doing the first reading of this bill? I agree and I am thrilled.  
One of the great things about the presence of the Maori Party in this House is that it is another party I think that celebrates parenthood as we do. For myself of all the things I have achieved in my life the thing that most fills me with pride is the fact that I have been the mother of three children. It supersedes any other achievement that I have ever had and the most precious 11 years of my life were spent focusing on that job. We have to face the fact that it is very difficult for families now to get ahead own a home and pay off student loans on a single income as was possible though difficult even a few years ago when I was parenting our three children at home as an unpaid mother.  
I believe that beyond even this legislation we need to have Parliament think very carefully about the expectations we put on parents who can survive only by having two incomes. That debate will have to happen on another day but that is why United Future still advocates income splitting. That is an opportunity for families with two parents to think carefully about how they manage the parenting of their children. Currently people in business are already income splitting but in relation to the tax system it is an opportunity to actually make some choices available to parents regarding the parenting arrangements for their children. We would like to see in many ways that reversed out to the employed so they were able to have those kinds of options as well. But as I said that is a debate for another day.  
Right now we are thrilled to think that for the nearly 66500 women of fertile age who are currently self-employed this new opportunity is before them. It is interesting that it is estimated by officials that about 2173 self-employed parents will be applying for this paid parental leave each year. That is an interesting statistic and it is good to see that the Government is seeing this as a priority.  
I am also very interested in the Bills Digest on the bill which refers specifically to farming families because that is also my background. I was raised in a farming family and unlike a lot of situations today my mother would probably never have called herself a farmer. I think she tried it for a couple of weeks after she got married to my father but after she took out a concrete strainer post that he had spent a lot of time putting into the ground I think she retired to domestic duties and voluntary work in the community. I think he was quite relieved. But I do know that many women in our rural community spent a huge number of hours at the cowshed and helping on the farm and that that was the way their farms survived. They did it at great cost and at great risk to be quite honest—knowing that there were often young children at home unsupervised while mum was down helping milk the cows. That situation which we would now consider appalling was the way those families survived and made their farms pay. So it is very exciting to see specific reference in the Bills Digest to farming families who I do believe face particular challenges in that regard. It is going to be pretty exciting to see provisions rolled out to them as well.  
I also reiterate my interest in and will be interested to see what submissions come in on the issue of transferability of parental leave payments and the sharing of leave. As dads start to take a much more proactive role in parenting their children—which I think is an exciting development—that gives again a whole series of new choices to families about that important period of time. It will be very interesting to see what the uptake of that is and it will also be very interesting to see what submitters make of that and whether there are any additional suggestions in that regard that need to be considered. I think that this is an exciting addition and I am looking forward to hearing what comes up in the select committee on that matter and what submissions are made on it.  
The other thing I would like to pick up on is a suggestion just made by the Maori Party that we need to look very carefully at people in multiple employment situations who may fall through the cracks of the provisions in the bill. I think that that needs to be seriously looked at. Maybe we need to add together the hours they work in jobs on a regular basis and if together the hours make up over 10 hours those provisions could be extended. That is something again that the committee might want to look at amending through the select committee process and United Future would be very keen to see that work continued.  
I think that probably everything that needs to be said on this bill has been said. We look forward very much to seeing its passage progress with speed and to hearing from the community on this matter to see if any other areas where this important provision could be extended can be identified. I thank the Minister again for the work she has done in advancing this legislation and I also express my gratitude to all parties in this House for being so positive about this bill.