Turner Judy: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Turner Judy: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:623;Page:18325] 
9.  
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her statement in the House yesterday that “if we could get our rate of women’s participation in the paid workforce up to the level of the top Scandinavian economies our standard of living would lift”; if so does she view families’ standards of living in purely economic terms? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 The answer is yes to the first part of the question and no to the second. This Government is committed to women having real choices about their lives and that is why it is so important to be removing barriers for those who do want to be in the paid workforce. 
Judy Turner 
: What does the Prime Minister say to those men and women who have viewed her push to get both parents into paid employment as implying that staying at home to raise children is not considered to be work simply because their contribution does not register on clinical OECD indicators when they would argue that they do an invaluable job in nurturing our future citizens? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No one should take such an inference from anything that I have said. I believe that women should make choices the choice that is best for them and their families and we will support them in that choice. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Are we to take it from the Prime Minister’s speech on Tuesday that she views full-time parents at home who do not get paid and therefore do not contribute to our gross national product as something of a drag on society and the economy? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Most certainly not. Women are entitled to make choices like anybody else and I am surprised that a Green member of Parliament would imply that doing something about taking away the barriers for those who want to be in the workforce is a bad thing. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that most New Zealanders think that a family has a good standard of living if it is not forced to have both parents working out of sheer economic necessity; if so should not improving family incomes overall rather than workforce participation be top priority in recognition that the economy exists to sustain families and not the reverse? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Giving families real choices is exactly what the Working for Families package is about. Three hundred thousand low and modest income families will be substantially better off starting from 1 October last year with better early childhood care and education and subsidies and moving through to 1 April this year with substantial injections of income into their pockets. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the effects of the Working for Families package is to create disincentives for a significant proportion of families to send both parents out to work due to the high effect of marginal tax rates they will face at certain income levels; if so why is she now trying to encourage secondary employment? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I think the member just argued against herself. What I said in the House yesterday was that arguably Working for Families is a disincentive to people becoming second earners because it is very good for the single-income family.