Martin Tracey: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Martin Tracey: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3953. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of this bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill but for reasons that are somewhat different from those that have been expressed to this point in the House. I want to pick up on a couple of things that have been said—firstly on whangai. Having come from a family who have benefited from whangai through my mother and my nanny I absolutely believe that this is part of a conversation that needs to take place. I believe that by bringing this bill to the House Ms Moroney may actually have accidentally provided a platform for that conversation to take place. That would be one of the reasons why New Zealand First believes that this bill needs to go to the select committee. The country needs to have a conversation. We need to talk about what is not in the current bill and how we can improve it and however this bill comes out the other side of this select committee process that is exactly what the select committee process is for. 
We also with all due respect to the National-led Government do not happen to believe your numbers. We would like to see them. We had to base this on the numbers we have been given to date such as our class size numbers and we cannot get any numbers around our bonus scheme. So we would like to go through the select committee process so that New Zealand First can actually get some hard data from the officials here about how much this may or may not cost the country. 
Maggie Barry 
: Ask the reference library. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: Nobody in this House disagrees—not the National Party not Maggie Barry not Labour not anybody else—that mothers and fathers are important to children. None of us disagree on that. This is not a conversation about whether that is important or not but this is a conversation that needs to take place and that is why we believe that the bill should go to the select committee and we will continue to support it to that stage. 
I do want to say one thing though to Ms Upston— 
Louise Upston 
: Mrs. I’m Mrs. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: Mrs. I beg your pardon. Thank you. It always needs to be clarified. I want to say that I was a proud non-paid and technically unemployed mother for 15 years. I am proud to have been that just as much as you are proud to be a working mother. There should be no conversation between the two of us about which one of those is a better thing because there is no better thing; they are both worthy. Part of the conversation that needs to take place is about—and I believe that it was Ms Goodhew who said it—value in the workplace. I would like to see some of the extended conversation take place at the select committee about value in the home. 
This is about priorities. This is not about other countries—what other countries do how many weeks they do it in and how often they do it—this is about New Zealand and the things we prioritise and the things we value. We all say that we value children. We all say—and we all believe it—that we value those early years in that relationship with their parents. All that New Zealand First is suggesting to the Government is that it was arrogant it was paternalistic and it was dictatorial to come out before a conversation took place where the public of New Zealand could participate and say that it would veto this bill. We suggest that you change your mind. We suggest that if Ms Goodhew is right and the New Zealand public identifies the fiscal conditions that we are in then they will come they will present to us and they will say: “Yes it’s important but we think it can wait.” If Ms Goodhew believes that of the New Zealand public give them a chance to make that statement. 
New Zealand First supports this bill to select committee and we will continue to do so.