Belich CamillaCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to take a call on this member's bill the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill brought in the name of Nicola Willis and I thank the member for bringing this important issue to the House. Parental leave and the paid aspect of parental leave have been important aspects of consideration for this House over a number of years. In preparation for this speech I did actually go back and look at a lot of the history of paid parental leave and how it has been implemented within New Zealand. A common theme is that we actually started out in New Zealand with very very few rights for paid parental leave and for parents to actually take time off to take care of children. That's because we had for a very long time a different system where most likely the mother in most families would take a large amount of unpaid leave—maybe not entering the paid workforce at all—in order to take care of children. The advent of paid parental leave is relatively modern in New Zealand and a world context. We need to recognise the fact that these days a lot of carers—a lot of primary carers—also have a paid job and shouldn't have to sacrifice their career to be able to do that.There is a proud history in this House of the consistent increase of paid parental leave and entitlements. So when this bill came to our caucus—and I take the member's points in terms of her assumptions of the conversations that we had but I can assure her that this is a bill that we looked at really carefully and it does raise important issues which I think this House should take into account. It's something that needs attention in terms of not only the child in question but also the way that families do share and take care of their leave. I do think it is an important issue so I don't want to belittle the issue by saying that it isn't important. I'm not delaying saying how we'll vote on this for any anticipation means; we won't be supporting this bill. The reason that we won't be supporting this bill is because we see it taking away and having an impact on children and primary carers.Nicola Willis: Oh so you know best! Labour knows best!CAMILLA BELICH: If members opposite would allow me to elucidate some of the thoughts on that I would like to because I do think it's an important issue and I'm not trying to minimise the importance of it.The history of paid parental leave that I was able to ascertain started in 2001 with the Labour-Alliance Government. That was the introduction of 12 weeks' paid parental leave. Then we had an introduction of 14 weeks in 2005. Hon Scott Simpson: Shame on Labour!CAMILLA BELICH: These are hard-won wins by campaigns run by women mainly and also by trade unions and by parents to actually get these entitlements. If we talk about shame and talk about people knowing best and not wanting to support parents then we only have to look to 2015 when the majority of members of this House voted to increase paid parental leave to six months—26 weeks. And what happened then? We had a National Government in power we had Bill English lose his financial veto—Nicola Willis: Point of order Madam Speaker. Standing Orders require that members speak to the bill which is a very specific bill about allowing caregivers and parents to share their paid parental leave entitlements as they see fit. It is not about a previous bill many years ago and I would invite the member to speak to the bill. Simon Court: Madam Speaker speaking to the point of order. I'm a new MP here but I understood that points of order are to be heard in silence is that correct?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That is absolutely correct and can I just appeal to all members in the House: this is a robust debate; members who have spoken previously—there was no shouting down of the members. I would actually like as the Speaker sitting on this Chair to be able to hear the speech of the member Camilla Belich so can we please be respectful of each other.CAMILLA BELICH: Thank you Madam Speaker. So we did have that particular moment in the history of paid parental leave which I do believe is relevant to this particular bill as it seeks to in our view reduce the entitlement of the paid leave in terms of time which is important for children. In terms of time if this bill was introduced some children would receive less paid time available to their parents than they currently receive. So I do believe that the history of it and the hard-won fights that people on this side of the House myself included were involved with to try and get this entitlement put there in the first place are relevant.The 26 For Babies campaign which was the campaign that eventually—if I continue with my history—in 2017 increased paid parental leave to six months was a very very hard-fought campaign. It actually required changing the Government to get this put in place. I don't necessarily want to make a contribution about the various parties and what they've done wrong in the past; what I want to look at is what's best for children and for families.Erica Stanford: What if a mum's just had a caesarean and needs dad there? CAMILLA BELICH: I do think the issue that the member has brought up is an important one and people on the other side of the House are yelling at me but what I want to say to you is that I think what the member has raised is important. We did consider it very very seriously and the reason that we are not supporting it is we do not want to see a situation of reduction. We think if more support is needed for babies and for other parents who are not the primary carer then that should be looked at separately and not in a way that reduces entitlements. That is an important issue that should be looked at but this bill in our view is not the way to advance that. I just wanted to go through all of that history because it is really important and I did you know start my speech by commending the member for bringing this bill and raising this important issue. The member brought up two things: she said that this does not impact on anyone else just the family; she said it is at no cost. I disagree. This bill if passed would have an impact on children and on families in terms of the time that they have. We can look at the science behind that and the evidence on how important it is for children to be able to spend time with their families. So it does have an impact. It is not true to say that it has no impact. We know those first hundred days and that time that the children spend with their families are so important in their development and how they grow up as adults so it does have an impact—Nicola Willis: So mums should stay at home hey?CAMILLA BELICH: No absolutely not. It just does have an impact. It has an impact and it does have a cost because it reduces the time.So what I would like to conclude with is just to say that I do think that the support—Nicola Willis: You're standing here saying mums should stay at home—unbelievable!CAMILLA BELICH: I'm absolutely not saying that; I'm saying that the availability of time for primary carers should not be reduced and this bill would do that. It would reduce the time available for primary carers if they chose to do that. What is available for New Zealanders at the moment is that if they want to take unpaid leave if they want to take time out and if they want to take annual leave there are absolutely no restrictions on them doing that at the moment. What we're talking about is actual Government-provided paid parental leave and how that should be implemented.I've said that getting to where we are now with six months'—26-weeks'—paid parental leave was a huge fight for this country a huge achievement. We do not want to see the amount of time that families have reduced and we consider that this bill would do that. That's why sadly we cannot support this bill.