Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Deputy Speaker thank you. I will take a call in this second reading—not very long of course after the first reading speech but I have found it useful to listen to some of the contributions in the House. The challenge that we lay down on this side of the House to the Government was not one of the intention behind the bill or wanting to extend paid parental leave because as we have said all the way through and as the Minister has just acknowledged it has been the policy of the National Party to continue to extend paid parental leave as we did from 14 to 16 weeks as we did from 16 to 18 weeks as we indicated after this election that we would do if we had the pleasure of being in Government to 22 weeks and as we indicated we would continue to do if circumstances allowed. So we've never had an issue with the extending of paid parental leave but we have raised concerns about the fact that this bill could have been improved through a select committee process and in fact I find myself agreeing with the now Leader of the House when he commented that There are very few bills I have seen progress through this House that cannot be improved by a select committee process."Now he was making that comment in respect of a bill that had a 24-hour necessity to come into force because of the operation of certain events which I won't waste this House's time on at the moment but I can certainly tell anyone who is interested. This is a bill that takes effect on 1 July next year so we're not saying that there aren't good reasons from time to time to use urgency. We aren't saying that there aren't situations where it's warranted. We aren't saying that it would change the opinion of this House or many submitters on the need and the desirability of extending paid parental leave. What we are saying is that it is quite arrogant to assume that when there is time available there aren't useful suggestions that may have come out. The Minister himself has quite rightly just acknowledged that Sarah Dowie has raised a very sensible suggestion which was in our policy; it's not new. The Minister if he was so willing to work with other parties could have seen it himself and included it.I also in my first reading speech mentioned another of the policies in our document which is ensuring that the paid parental leave is more flexible which again I'm sure that members of the public submitting could well have been interested to have a look at whether we could include. There is a missed opportunity there because as I say we're not saying that people are going to suddenly not support 26 weeks who previously have but we are saying this bill could have been improved and the public could well have had things that they wanted to say about it. I don't think it's enough to say "We don't have to worry about that because we've had conversations about paid parental leave before so we can just consider that ticked." This is a different bill. This is not the same bill and there are opportunities to improve it that have been missed and there's no good reason. And it's all very well for the Government to say "Well you used urgency too." The point we're making is that it's amazing how quickly the principles that were espoused by Labour in Opposition have suddenly become mere hindrances.I raised in the first contribution to this debate the point that there is very little information in front of this House. Now I take the responsibility of being a lawmaker in this House seriously. We're in new roles now as Opposition and part of that role of Opposition as those members well know is for us to properly scrutinise legislation and ensure that the debate in this House is well informed and those watching on television or reading Hansard or looking back in time have seen the issues teased out and given consideration. When the critical information like the fiscal cost of a policy is not included I'm sorry but that doesn't give the kind of respect to this House that it should be afforded.Now the Minister Iain Lees-Galloway in his second reading contribution just sort of said—with a hint of pique that he was being asked to explain it—that the fiscal cost was over $300 million - odd. This is not a small project; it is a $300 million figure. Now clearly he had that number and yet in the bill in the information in the first reading none of that has been provided. He mentioned it in passing because we had the audacity to say "Where is the number?" He had it he didn't previously give it to the House and now he has and now he's tabled it. I can't see any reason why that information couldn't have been before the House as it should have been with the bill with the bill information to move forward.I just want to reflect on the fact there's been a lot of discussion in the House tonight and I think a lot of it absolutely correct around the importance of supporting parents—not just young mothers but parents—with the newborns in those early months of their life. And it is an incredibly hard time. I don't think there was a period that was more stressful on my relationships with my husband and our family as there was when we were trying to understand what the heck you did with this beautiful gorgeous completely bewildering little package that you got sent home from the hospital with which for some reason slept beautifully in hospital and as soon as you came home never wanted to sleep—but maybe that was just my children. So that time at home is incredibly critical but actually the issue is not as simple as one of how many weeks. Now this bill is about how many weeks. We are supporting that; that is fine. But the point we are making is that there are other critical elements to how we support families in that period of time.Actually I know that Labour love to try to take the moral ownership of this issue as if they're the only ones who've ever cared about it and done anything about it and somehow the fact that we used a financial veto means that they are completely exempt from having to worry about process on their side. Well actually a financial veto is good process and the reason it was used was because the fiscals were so significant. At least we were up front about what they were right from the outset. But what this National Party has done when it has had the opportunity to be in power is not just increase—not once but twice—the time of paid parental leave that is available to New Zealand parents but also significantly change the workability of paid parental leave. That is the point that I've been making on this bill in terms of lost opportunities and that Ms Dowie has been making and that others have been making. The National Party when we were in Government for example significantly extended the eligibility of paid parental leave so that it wasn't just mothers and fathers who were eligible but grandparents and Home for Life carers whāngai parents and a number of others who were equally eligible. Labour just likes to rewrite history and ignore all of that because they like to pretend that only they care. It was also National by the way who made paid parental leave available to seasonal workers contract workers and employees who have more than one employer. So there is a huge amount that this side has done to support New Zealand families and New Zealand women and as well it is not of course just paid parental leave: we've extended and increased the amount of the parental tax credit—again to help families in those early months to have more options about what they do.While I am happy to stand here and support the bill and we've made that clear and I made that clear in the first reading of this bill I'm not going to be told that therefore we have no ability to comment on the fact that there are other things we can do. This is a party that has been equally active and supportive of New Zealand women all the way through and I don't accept the argument that somehow because quite rightly quite legitimately and using absolutely correct process a financial veto was used when the conditions meant that that was required Labour gets a pass from having to follow any sort of process at any time. All I am saying is live by your own words that many of you including your own Leader of the House and of course the Green Party as well used over the last nine years on many many occasions.This is the first piece of legislation that this new Government has brought to the House and it is on one hand encouraging that it is a piece of legislation that finds such widespread although not quite universal support in the House. But it is very worrying I think that on this first piece of legislation they have simply—and dismissively I think—not bothered to include the full information that was available to them. We know they referred to it in their Cabinet paper but they have indicated it to the House in passing form only now. They have not bothered to see if there are ways to improve the bill—as they repeatedly told us was always the case with any legislation—when there is no particular reason to rush. If that is the way that this new Government is going to approach this House—with callous disregard for process when it suits them and incredible flexibility of their own principles when the situation supports that or suits them—then I think that's worrying.On the merits of the bill it is one that we support as we have always supported finding more ways to help Kiwi families be strong.But let me just end on this one point. The reason that any Government National- or Labour-led is able to do things like this is that we have a strong and growing economy and we have healthy surpluses and that has been a hard-fought work product of nine years of the last Government. We have left the new Government with the ability and the space to make these sorts of changes and I just hope that they appreciate and understand that the spending part is easy; the earning part comes harder."