Blumsky Mark: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Blumsky Mark: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 I thank our whip for the opportunity to partake in the Committee stage debate. I am one of the few who has been and will be speaking who was not on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and has not been part of the process to date. 
It is nice to be part of the National Party in supporting this bill. This is the second time I have had the pleasure of actually supporting a bill that the Labour-led Government has brought forward. I put it on record that I will not often personally be doing this. In fact there is a bill coming up soon about microchipping dogs and I can assure members now that I will not be standing and supporting that bill during its Committee stage. I did note when I did my reading on this bill that 19 submissions were made on it. I can assure members that there will be a helluva lot more than 19 submissions on the dog microchipping bill that is coming before this House very shortly. 
The member beside me Paula Bennett raised something I have some real sympathy with. I remind members that I did not sit on the select committee but I have been privileged to have worked very closely with a business partner who was self-employed is still self-employed and had the joy of having a fantastic boy not that long ago. If I look at her case I know for a fact because of the conversations we had in the process that the $357.50 that we are supporting as the leave payment would make a real difference to her situation. But I have to say—and it is specific to her situation—that she wanted her mother-in-law to move in while she was— 
Paula Bennett 
: Mother-in-law? 
MARK BLUMSKY 
: Yes. She has a really nice mother-in-law—not like the mothers-in-law they may have on the other side of the Chamber. The biggest problem for her was that they had just spent money on doing up the baby’s room. Her husband had spent considerable capital on making sure that in their new house they had a baby’s room. They did not have any money to do the third room in the house which they could well have put a lump sum towards to make that room habitable for the mother-in-law to live in. That mother-in-law living in their house giving support to the new mother would have made a real difference as she could then go to work and take the pressure off in her self-employment role. 
In regard to the purpose of the bill after reading the documents I just add that there is a provision that I do like being included and that is the new provision that explicitly provides that an employee or self-employed person can apply to the Employment Relations Authority for a review of the decision made by the Department of Labour about his or her eligibility for the parental leave payment. I think it is handy to have the opportunity for that debate if there is a question mark over eligibility. 
The thing most close to my heart when I read the purpose of this bill was the magic words “self-employed persons”. I congratulate the Labour-led Government on the fact that it is finally acknowledging the role and the importance of those who are self-employed. 
David Bennett 
: It took them long enough. 
MARK BLUMSKY 
: Yes. It has been a 4-year process—2002 to the year 2006—and I suggest that many self-employed people have been hugely disadvantaged by the fact that the Government has taken far too long to get this bill before Parliament. But I do think it is fantastic. In the time I have been here I have very rarely heard members on the other side of the Chamber talk so positively about those who are other than employees. Too often in this Chamber one would think that the only people who cared and mattered and had a heart and a life were those who were employees not those who were employers or as in this case self-employed. We have to take our hats off to those who have the courage to be self-employed. We have to take our hats off to those who pick up the challenge and give it a go. 
 Today was a glorious typical Wellington day. I sat out in the beautiful sunshine having a quiet lunch with a friend and I told her I was to have this wonderful opportunity to speak on this bill. I talked about being self-employed and she raised a very good point with me. She said it was sad that too many of her friends were saying to her that benefit day was pay day. Benefit day is not pay day; benefit day is a privilege. The benefit is not one’s pay. I stress again that I congratulate the Labour-led Government and its partners on the fact that they are finally recognising the value of those people in the workforce who are not just employees.