Ardern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:661. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to give another contribution on Sue Moroney’s bill on paid parental leave and employment protection which would if it were able to take effect as was originally intended extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. Over the course of this debate we have had an opportunity to talk at great length about all of the rationale and evidence that sits behind a paid parental leave extension. I will just canvass those very briefly again before I go on to my substantive contribution around clause 4.As the member in the chair who has taken this bill through has continually highlighted all of the evidence from the World Health Organization and beyond points to the fact that in order to form a strong attachment between mother and baby and in order to encourage breastfeeding through the first 6 months of life 26 weeks of paid parental leave is essentially best practice. The kind of indication we have that that is indeed the case is really just the OECD. If you were to compare where New Zealand ranks Australia introduced its 18-week payment Britain has 39 weeks and Sweden—obviously always outdoing everyone else—has 16 months. That means that on average the paid parental leave entitlement in OECD countries is close to a year and New Zealand lags significantly behind. Of course when this bill first came forward we were looking at 14 weeks. The Government has since made some paltry changes in that regard but even then New Zealand ranks around 24 out of 25 OECD nations when it comes to—I do not want to use the word “generosity” because it is not about generosity; it is actually just about doing what is best for mother and baby and that is where we rank.That also points to the fact that New Zealand when you look at how much we spend as a nation on the first 5 years of a child’s life tends to spend about half of what other comparable OECD nations do. We start to pick up beyond those first 5 years. One of the significant reasons for that initial spend is our lack of universal child payments and also our relatively small amount of paid parental leave. That points to the way that other nations treat paid parental leave which is based on international evidence and we are lagging behind. That speaks directly to the purpose of this bill the clause that we are debating now which is the purpose clause. The purpose clause states: “The purpose of this Act is to extend the duration of parental leave payment to a maximum of 26 weeks.” All the way through this debate we have been very very clear that we had stuck with 26 weeks because firstly it was best practice and secondly we knew it was affordable.I really want to pay respect to my colleague Sue Moroney who has taken the step of putting in a substantive Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 15 which acknowledges that we have a Government that despite the best arguments in the world is going to veto this bill. So in light of that Sue Moroney has put forward amendments that basically try to salvage something for families whom we know—if we are not going to extend 26 weeks to everyone—are the ones who desperately need it the most. When you narrow that down Sue Moroney looks at families who have multiple births which we know is a very small percentage of families—I come from a multiple-birth family; my father is an identical twin—to families who have premature births or to families who have a child with a significant disability. Sue Moroney has put forward Supplementary Order Paper 15 which at least allows those families to have 26 weeks of paid parental leave. I want to acknowledge that it is hard to make such substantive changes to a bill when you believe in that bill so much but I absolutely believe that Sue Moroney is trying to do right by those families by making that substantive amendment.Sue Moroney has also set out in question time today the relative cost of those changes when compared with other costs that we have had for the substantive extension. We are looking with those revised changes in the first year at an estimate of around $6 million. It is $4 million in years 2016-17. Then we go on to $8 million $9 million and then as we project out we are looking at around $10 million in cost. When you compare that with some of the things we have spent money on under this Government it is a very small amount of money for the benefit that those families would gain. Obviously it is significantly less than what the Government was going to veto had we had the 26-week extension which again we have argued to the hilt that in the long term saves money. Having a decent attachment and having a child get the best start in life absolutely saves money. I believe that we have made that case substantively. We only need to look at the children who are getting a poor start in life who are estimated to cost this country $6 billion. So extending paid parental leave is an investment rather than a cost.But even then given that we are facing a financial veto putting forward an estimate that is only around $10 million which is half of a referendum to change a flag—half; less than half—we could extend paid parental leave to families with multiple births premature births or children with disabilities. Chris Bishop how could you argue against that? If you would like to have a go though you would be most welcome. I would like to hear the arguments against supporting families with premature babies multiple births or children with disabilities. I am sure there is some measly argument that you will stretch out in there somewhere. Though just to give some clarity around where those figures for the estimates we have come from they are a guideline only. They are based on the fact that around 7 percent of births are estimated to be premature. We know that a percentage of those are due to poor oral health in pregnant women and a lack of access to decent health care. While we are at it I would not mind having a debate about whether or not the Government would like to adopt Labour’s policy of free dental health care for pregnant women because that would reduce the number of premature births thus reducing the cost of this bill and the cost that we experience as a nation generally. It is just an extra idea that we are happy to gift to the Government if it were reasonable enough to adopt it—sorry 7 percent is both premature and/or multiple births.I believe it is Multiple Birth Awareness Week this week. I believe it is this week. I am sure one of my colleagues would like to speak to Multiple Birth Awareness Week. I am sure there is at least 5 minutes in Multiple Birth Awareness Week. Part of the purpose of this bill now is to extend it to 26 weeks for those multiple births so it is definitely relevant. It is roughly I think from memory more like only a couple of percent of births in any year that are multiple births. If we then look at the number of births with disabilities we are looking at around 4 percent. That is a total of 11 percent of total births. We have roughly 60000 births in New Zealand each year so that is where we have taken that from. If anything we have probably overestimated the cost but we wanted to make sure we were generous in our costings for the Government. It cannot claim that we have pulled the wool over anyone’s eyes. As we have said we have spent $9.2 million—and that is probably close actually to what we are proposing to spend on this legislation here—on the failed Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade change process. There was $9.2 million spent on that and in the first year we are proposing a spend of $6 million.I think Sue Moroney’s changes are not only pragmatic but generous to the Government. They are giving an opportunity for the Government to actually support something that is really positive. However we will forever maintain the principle that an extension to 26 weeks is absolutely critical. As I have already outlined in my speech the reason it is in this purpose clause the reason for that original extension to 26 weeks is that every OECD nation that we like to compare ourselves with has already taken that step if not gone beyond that. We often compare ourselves with the likes of Sweden in terms of the good social outcomes that it is able to maintain. Why is it that we will not look to the foundation policies that help it to generate those positive outcomes? That is why we will maintain that principle. In fact Labour generally has an aspiration for a year’s paid parental leave. We can at least make these gains in this round.