Hudson Brett: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionHudson Brett: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (6 Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11811. Text is subject to correction.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise to speak on Part 1 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill. It will be a relief when we do eventually get on to clause 1 and can talk about a different title—a slightly shorter one—for this bill. But the main points that we have traversed in Part 1 have been around cost so I would like to raise just a few items. One is the cost that the member sponsoring the bill raised and then some consideration of cost and affordability which a previous Opposition speaker Ms Ardern raised.Ms Moroneywhen she was having her first call on this bill pointed out that in the first year the cost impact of Part 1 would be $10 million—I think that was what she said. That is not quite right for one reason and is very very wrong for another. The reason it is not quite right is that the latest edition of figures from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) actually says it is about $12 million through until the end of the current financial year—so until the end of June this year. The reason for that which is relevant to the cost consideration as Ms Moroney put it is that officials of course had to give advice on the bill as it was introduced to the Government Administration Committee and not on the amendments or the recommendations that we finally arrived at.Originally what was going to happen was the first increase in weeks of paid parental leave was going to take place in the past—they were going to take place a couple of months ago in this year. Of course officials made some estimates based on the remainder of the current financial year before then projecting forecasting costs into the future. The bill as has been reported back to the House which is under consideration in this the Committee of the whole House has actually shifted the start date from 2016 to a full year up to April 2017. What will happen in that year of course is that when it does come into force on 1 April 2017 should it pass—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is in the commencement provisions of the bill. We are on Part 1. You will get a chance to talk about the preliminary clauses that come into force on 1 April 2017 later on but I just ask you to focus on Part 1.BRETT HUDSON: The implication of Part 1—of moving to 22 weeks—will see an increase in costs of about $12 million from 1 April 2017 through until the end of June 2017. From that point on each year of paid leave at 22 weeks doing a rough mental calculation—because MBIE rated the total costs of the full bill across 5 years plus the few starting months to be $466 million. Very roughly if it was only at 22 weeks—which of course is all that Part 1 does—then fundamentally half is going to be in the order of around an additional $230 million over that period of time. The Government’s point has always been—and this did not seem to be grasped by the submitters at the select committee—that it is not one additional dollar of paid parental leave that is necessarily the problem but the total cost.In the course of the consideration of both this particular bill as drawn and the previous iterations of bills in a similar vein the Government has taken steps to increase paid parental leave. It has increased it from 14 to 18 weeks—Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member appears to be straying into other pieces of legislation not Part 1 of this bill.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am listening very closely. In fact I have Part 1 in my hand. Being able to refer back is OK so long as one does not dwell on it. I am listening very carefully. I have the bill in front of me and I ask the member to concentrate on Part 1.BRETT HUDSON: Thank you Mr Chair. Exactly the point being made is that the Government’s position has been that it is the complete cost of the change that is the issue. The Government has made the affordable steps already. The most recent Budget of course in which the Government has not made a further extension shows that within the current fiscal envelope there is not the headroom right now to increase paid parental leave further—that the Government has many responsibilities above and beyond simply paid parental leave. We have got schools’ infrastructure we have got additional money—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!BRETT HUDSON: We have got issues that the Government spends money on that mean that if we are expending money in certain areas then that money is not available to be expended in this coming year on an extension to paid parental leave. So the position for the coming financial year still remains and is very clearly evidenced by that current fiscal position that a move to 22 weeks is not affordable.Another member opposite Ms Ardern made a point about large surpluses. They are actually a future consideration. They are not relevant to Part 1 but she did get to talk to them so I just want to cover them. Her point was simply this: if in an answer to a question in the House today we can talk about spending a sizable amount of money on defence then we can spend that amount of money on paid parental leave. The point is that the forecast of those large surpluses will not see them realised and growing in size for about another 2 financial years and then a further 2 years beyond that. That is well outside the scope of Part 1.What the member was trying to do is spend money we have not yet earned on something that would cost us money in the next 12 months. It is not exactly unusual for the Opposition to do that—in fact it is pretty much what it always campaigns on—but what it is not is evidence of money available today to put into force the effect of Part 1 which would be to add a further 4 weeks of paid parental leave. To claim that statements made in the Budget or that answers to questions in the House today are somehow evidence of affordability could not be further removed from the actual situation. It may be—and I am not going to speculate on what our Minister of Finance would do in that position—that with those surpluses in the future there could be headroom to change but it is not in this coming financial year.I just want to mention—and I will not dwell upon this—another reason for the overall picture that we would take which has an impact on our position on Part 1 and why we oppose it. Care and support for families with newborns can take a number of different forms. This bill would propose simply extending additional weeks of paid leave. But what the Government has done and still looks at doing further is actually broaden the eligibility for the level of paid parental leave that exists today. We look at seasonal workers employees with more than one employer different family caring arrangements like whāngai parents or grandparents caring for children—family and care arrangements that are relevant and meaningful for the parents but that previously would not have been eligible under a paid parental leave scheme. The Government is expending finances to deliver those services and to broaden the eligibility but a dollar spent in doing that is in effect a dollar that is not therefore spent on Part 1—on an additional 4 weeks.When we look at this and say “Are we prepared to make this extension?” it is important that we look at the additional expenditure in the area of paid parental leave—not just in the number of weeks but in the different eligibility broadening. It is important that we look at the total cost rather than just look at very simplistic things like how many weeks and the total number of weeks. I think this Government has very clearly expended a great deal extra as I have said in moving to 18 weeks from 14 weeks and also broadening the eligibility. So we take the position that we show care and support for young families—we are putting the things in place to help them get the best start—for a broader section of the community in fact than this bill would give that to because this bill does not have anything to do with other care arrangements or anything to do with employment arrangements. It is simply about a number of weeks. If it had not been for the measures the Government is looking to put in place this bill would not apply to those people; it would actually leave them out in the cold so to speak.We take the view that there are a couple of ways you can address the whole issue of caring for young families: you can simply take a simplistic approach of increasing the number of weeks or you can do it via other means. We have been doing it through a balance of both—increasing the number of weeks of support but also broadening the eligibility. On the whole our view is that that gives a far better outcome across a broader group and is affordable in our current fiscal conditions whereas to accept Part 1 as it stands would simply be to put in place something that is not affordable in the coming year or the coming couple of years given the projected surpluses.Even if we were to consider it further in our forecast surpluses I would caution the House that a Government has more responsibilities than simply the services or the costs under this bill. When we do look at larger surpluses in the future we have to think about the other pressing needs across society around the services and the infrastructure that a Government is duly responsible to deliver and make sensible and pragmatic decisions about that are relevant to all of those factors. Right at the moment our position remains that to support Part 1 and to increase paid parental leave by this amount so soon is unaffordable and it is something that we cannot and will notsupport.