Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and to move—[Member moves seat]—with some dynamism into this debate. I rise again very happily to speak for the second time this evening in favour of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. I think this is going to be a very happy night because by the end of this evening's proceedings we're going to substantially advance towards the biggest improvement in paid parental leave provisions for the working families of New Zealand since the introduction of paid parental leave by the fifth Labour Government back in 2002 with strong support in the House.In my reasonably brief call I just want to touch on a couple of matters that have come up in the course of the debate. The first one relates to the information to hand around the fiscal cost of this policy. This is really important actually because of course we would have had paid parental leave of 26 weeks in place for working families in New Zealand were it not for the financial veto that was issued last year. That financial veto was issued on the basis of a claim that Labour's policy would cost $280 million per year to implement. That was a claim that has been repeated in debate by members of the Opposition tonight. That of course was an entirely incorrect claim—an entirely incorrect claim—that none other than the Rt Hon Bill English had to recant on several months ago. He claimed it would cost $280 million. When inquiries were put in around this by Sue Moroney and by the media he replied and I quote from a Radio New Zealand press piece at the time that he did so because he confused the $280 million over four years with $280 million a year." So he issued that veto which meant that we didn't get paid parental leave of 26 weeks in place on the basis of overestimating the cost by 400 percent. Now it's no particular surprise because of course he sits next to Mr Joyce and we know that he's had problems with the numbers this year so possibly that's the source of the confusion there. But I just want to correct that and put that on the record—that the policy does not cost $280 million a year as was erroneously claimed by Bill English when he issued the veto.The other thing I just wanted to touch on in the course of my brief comments was to refer back to some of the submissions that we received in the previous two submission processes. You know this has become a bit of a theme over the course of the debate that we have had tonight. I do just want to reiterate that there has been a wide-ranging and high-quality submission process twice—twice—in respect of exactly the content of this bill and what it will seek to achieve. Submissions were received from thousands of ordinary New Zealanders working mums and dads and families who supported this policy. And 99.4 percent of them supported it which by my maths will also have 99.4 percent of MPs in the House tonight voting in favour of this bill so it's perfectly proportional in that sense.We received submissions from groups like the New Zealand Breastfeeding Alliance. They noted that at the moment there is a huge drop-off in breastfeeding rates after three months—coincidentally about the same level at which we currently have a paid parental leave provision. And it's very clear to anyone who looks at this that if we provide those people those families those mothers with a bit more time it is going to give them greater facility to be able to continue breastfeeding their babies.I want to make a really important point in this regard. There is an inequity at the moment that this bill addresses. There is an inequity in which we do have some workplaces in which it is possible for mums to have their bubs with them to be able to breastfeed them and care for them. Many mothers have that in enlightened workplaces and it's wonderful to see that Parliament is opening up to that reality. This bill means it doesn't matter which workplace you're in. Any mum will have that ability to be able to bond to be able to connect with their newborn baby.There is strong support for this bill from across the House. I commend it to members and look forward to the vote. Thank you very much."