Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Congratulations Mr Deputy Speaker on your appointment and—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Assistant Speaker.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —sorry Assistant Speaker—and congratulations to all of the new members who have been elected to this House and in particular the new parents who are here in this House. I think it will be an interesting challenge to take on your role as new parents as well as being new parliamentarians. But I am very confident that with the approach of the new Speaker to make Parliament even more family-friendly we can lead by example and hopefully extend that out into the rest of New Zealand.I'm so thrilled. This is the first speech I'm giving in this House as part of this new progressive Government between the Labour Party New Zealand First and the Green Party and I'm really excited about what we're going to be able to achieve together. I think it's a fantastic opportunity finally in New Zealand to really achieve the full benefits of MMP where multiple parties can work together constructively to represent the views of a wider range of New Zealanders. And having won of course the majority of the votes I think New Zealanders are going to be pleasantly surprised at how much of what progresses through the House during this term of Government actually appeals and represents what is a consensus to most people in New Zealand. So I am absolutely thrilled to be speaking on this bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill as my first speech as Minister for Women as was referred to by the previous speaker the Hon Louise Upston who has previously been the Minister for Women. The Green Party believes that parenting is one of the hardest and most important jobs that one will ever do and as a country I think we have to recognise that we all benefit when we support parents to give their kids the love and attention they deserve early on in their lives.As the previous speaker raised the issue of the Green Party I think I will address that first before I speak to the bill which is that the Green Party has at times been critical of the use—not so much the use—the abuse of urgency which was particularly prevalent in the first term of the last National Government. I suppose that those members might not remember especially those who weren't there for 2008 to 2011 but in fact the National Government in their first term absolutely abused the urgency process time and time again to curtail a select committee process to pass through legislation that had not already been through a select committee process when in fact this bill—although it may have confused the Hon Louise Upston because the title is different and the dates are different in fact it is the very same legislation that progressed twice through this House with the majority support of members in the previous term of Government but was then vetoed by the then National Government who now claim to have campaigned on this legislation as policy. So it's a little bit disingenuous to hear the faux outrage from the Opposition who must be terribly frustrated to find themselves in the position of Opposition but it is really disingenuous to be criticising this process when in fact we had two full select committee processes on this very legislation with over 6000 submissions—Hon Michael Woodhouse: It was years ago.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —last year with 99 percent in support of the legislation. So I think that people have had their say in fact. Thousands of people had their say on this legislation and why would this new Government waste any time particularly when the Opposition is supporting the bill—and you know finally it caught on and campaigned on it a little bit too late—after nine years of not having implemented it. But look there is clearly majority support for this legislation in the House. We have heard from the public. There has been a very long campaign. And I want to acknowledge all of those people and organisations that have consistently and tirelessly pushed successive Governments to adopt better paid parental leave: 26 for Babies; the Council of Trade Unions; Sue Moroney who was a tireless champion of this; the National Council of Women; Playcentre; Plunket; Tick for Kids; UNICEF; and going even further back to when we were originally campaigning for 12 weeks' parental leave the Hon Laila Harré who helped bring that to New Zealand in the first place. I want to acknowledge—this has been a long campaign. It's continually building. What it is about is a change of paradigm of how we understand work in our society. I think this is something the Opposition should pay a little bit of attention to because during their nine years in Government I don't know if they ever really got to grips with the fact that there is a whole lot of unpaid work that makes this society work and happen—like nothing would happen. The paid economy which they pay so much attention to could not exist without the contribution and care of people like parents—and mothers in particular—who are not paid for their work yet that care and support of children is the very work that enables our society to flourish.Paid parental leave is also a critical part of closing the gender pay gap something that I am particularly committed to and will on behalf of the Green Party ensure is progressed in this term of Government—closing the gender pay gap in the core Public Service. And of course we'll be working to close it in the wider Public Service and in the private sector. The gender pay gap is particularly pronounced for Māori and Pacific women and I think they need to be acknowledged. There are many women in our society who are not being paid fairly for their contribution and there are even more women who are doing this unpaid caring work and that is what paid parental leave does. It is the Government recognising that to us as a society there is a value to paying parents to look after their babies in the first few months of their lives.Finally I note that some members in the Opposition have raised the issue of whether or not there are sufficient incentives for fathers and other parents to take the benefit of paid parental leave. I do think this is something this Government will be investigating. We would like to incentivise more fathers to take advantage of paid parental leave but in fact we don't need to wait for that. We can work on this with potentially future extensions to paid parental leave which we can be working towards. In fact the longer the parental leave is the easier it is for both parents to take part in it because there is an obvious need for women to spend time breastfeeding their babies. That is part of the reason why the 26 weeks' leave is recommended. It is because of that benefit to the child of the first few months of bonding with the mother in breastfeeding but the longer we have paid parental leave the more fathers are able to take part in that and help contribute to parenting.So I'm thrilled as part of the Green Party and as part of this new very positive very progressive Government to be speaking in favour and voting in favour of this legislation tonight. I think it's a wonderful sign of what the next three years will bring for Aotearoa.