Tremain Chris: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Tremain Chris: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:631;Page:2848] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill and to say as we have said on a number of occasions that National supports this legislation. I particularly want to speak to section 1A inserted by clause 6 and to clause 7(2). Section 1A(c) in clause 6 focuses on where this legislation is actually going to. It states that certain employees and in particular self-employed persons are entitled to up to 14 weeks of paid parental leave. That is the important part of this legislation. 
My first question though is whether this bill will actually help to lift economic growth. One of the key reasons for National supporting this legislation is that it is one of the few bills that have come through the House in the last 6 or 7 years that actually do something to assist those people. Why is that? In a small way it will assist self-employed parents the small-business owners who are responsible for the majority of innovation entrepreneurialism and risk-taking which are things that are necessary to take this country forward and indeed to deliver on Dr Cullen’s goal of getting us into the top half of the OECD. It is those families who are very important. 
One has to ask oneself why that particular provision was left out of the legislation in the first instance. I was not part of the Government at that particular time but from what I hear it was just that self-employed people were not considered important enough.  
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That’s right. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: I ask Dr Mapp whether there were some other reasons at the time and what they were. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Prejudice. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: Anything else? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Bias. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: There were a number of things. The fact is that self-employed parents are critical for two really important reasons that I want to focus on. The first is that parents assist their children to do things that they themselves are good at. I take as an example sportspeople and families who are interested in sports. Their children tend to be successful at sport. Families who have a musical background and are part of the arts tend to encourage their children to learn to play musical instruments and to be successful in the arts. Is that a fair comment? It is the same with children from violent homes. They tend to find it difficult to break the cycle of family violence. 
 The point I am making here is that children from families with self-employed parents who are business owners tend to end up in business. They are led down that track because their parents have been involved in business. They are predisposed to being entrepreneurs themselves. They are predisposed to being risk-takers. These are the children we need to be encouraging into business because they are the next generation. They are the kids who will get into business and help take this country up the OECD rankings. We need to make sure that mothers who are self-employed are supported. So there is a very key reason for this legislation to be supported. 
The second point is that self-employed mothers and fathers—parents—face much larger difficulties when taking time out of the workforce than do employees. Obviously employers are very aware of when somebody is having a child and know they will have to plan for it but they are not in the same position as an employee who can just take time off. Employees can apply for 6 weeks’ leave and take time out. An employer or a self-employed person has significant difficulty in taking time out of the workforce. That is just a fact. Business does not stop particularly if the self-employed person is a one-man band and there are plenty of examples of those in the workforce. It is extremely difficult for such people to take time out. So in that respect we definitely support this legislation. 
I move on to clause 7(2) where there is the definition: “self-employed means working in 1 or more of the following other than as an employee:”. It further defines in paragraph (a): “ providing goods or services for hire or reward under a contract for services:” and in paragraph (b) “carrying on a business …”. So this is defining the very fact that this legislation will deliver for the self-employed. With that small-business hat on I want to focus on the importance of the self-employed in this legislation.