Turner Judy: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Turner Judy: Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to support the third reading of this bill. We support the extension of parental leave because it values the time that a family spends together when a child is first born. 
Despite the controversy the bill attracted before it was introduced in 2002 paid parental leave went out to 18000 people in its first year at a cost of over $51 million. About 3900 people receive paid parental leave at any given time and 98 percent of those take the full 12-week payment so that they can stay at home. An initial evaluation of the scheme by the Department of Labour found that parents considered it highly beneficial. As well as having more money to cover bills new mothers were able to stay at home longer with their babies. It was also thought to have a positive impact on the number of mothers able to breastfeed. Paid parental leave also acknowledges that being a mother—or a father for that matter—is important. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
JUDY TURNER 
: Before the House rose for tea I was referring to the fact that paid parental leave acknowledges the fact that being a mother or father is important. Whereas previous generations of women fought for the right to have a career it is getting to the point with this generation that women have to fight for the option of being a parent at the same time as having a career. 
According to a recent study by a Waikato demographer Janet Sceats parents are increasingly choosing to send their kids to day care at much younger ages because they cannot afford to stay with them at home. Whereas 22 percent of women born in the 1940s returned to work before their children were 2 years old by the 1970s it was up to 64 percent. The concern for our population growth is that women faced with juggling work and family commitments will opt not to have children and that is supported by our current falling fertility rates particularly in urban areas such as central Auckland and Wellington. 
Parental leave seems to play an important role in easing some of these issues but it is by no means a silver bullet. Although this bill extends the scheme from 12 to 14 weeks it is of fairly limited assistance for those who would like to stay at home with their children for the first few years of their lives. Our point is not that every parent should do that or that the State should pay for it but we are concerned that that option is no longer a real choice. Rather I want to quote the word “luxury” which the Hon Steve Maharey labelled it on the radio earlier this year. Whether it is motivated by feminism or the need to realise all labour resources in the light of skill shortages the Government has been focused on subsidising childcare so that both parents can return to work as soon as possible after a child is born. But the same kind of assistance is not available to those who choose to stay at home to look after their children. We are saying that we should at least level the playing field so that families face a reasonably balanced choice between whether one parent stays at home or both return to work. 
To the extent that paid parental leave is only ever enough to subsidise a very temporary break from the workforce United Future believes that income splitting would help to create a more level playing field by recognising that the main income earner is not only supporting a child but is also supporting another adult who takes the main role in caring for that child. Paid parental leave is also limited by the fact that it does not extend to the self-employed. For some time the Government has said that it is looking at extending the scheme to self-employed parents but to date very little has been forthcoming. According to a letter that the Minister wrote to the select committee: “Policy development relating to the self-employed is a very high priority for me and I am committed to progressing this issue further in the near future to include self-employed parents as far as practicable.” 
Submitters to the select committee were also very keen to see this issue advanced. It was reported in the  
Sunday Star-Times  
in February this year that Margaret Wilson was recommending to Cabinet that the self-employed be covered by paid parental leave and apparently Cabinet has discussed the matter but was not happy with the proposals put forward by the Minister. So the question that United Future has is: why could this bill not have waited until a solution is found for self-employed parents? Why is the Government able to levy the self-employed for accident compensation levies and assess them for tax purposes yet is not able to come up with a way of paying them with paid parental leave? Or is the issue here the Government’s unwillingness to let its policy-making be guided by anything other than the myth of a class struggle between downtrodden workers and exploitative bosses. We prefer to take the view that the common element here is the family and that that is why the self-employed should be covered by this bill. 
However our support for this bill is based on this idea: if we in this room could imagine 10 women representing a cross-section of women in New Zealand we can assume that five of those women already qualify for paid parental leave that after this bill three more will qualify for paid parental leave and that the remaining two represent those women yet to receive an acknowledgment by this Government that they are also entitled to paid parental leave. My challenge to New Zealand First is: why vote against this bill because of who it excludes rather than support it because of who it now brings in under that umbrella? United Future is happy to support the bill on that basis but is very keen though to advance the cause that New Zealand First put forward its amendments on—that paid parental leave be extended to self-employed women. We are very happy to see that extension at a later date but not to support this bill when we would exclude another group of women from coming under its provisions which is a very sad thing for parties that are posturing to care about families. 
People opposing this bill need to be seriously questioned about that. United Future is very happy to support this bill for that reason.