Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) Link to this
I move, That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The purpose of this bill is to implement the Labour-Progressive Government’s commitment to extend paid parental leave to self-employed parents who are not currently covered by the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. In doing so, the bill furthers a number of the Government’s objectives to support working parents on the birth or adoption of a child.
Paid parental leave is one component of the Labour-Progressive Government’s policy to promote high-quality working lives. So far more than 77,000 working parents have benefited since the Government introduced paid parental leave for employees in 2002. A year after introducing paid parental leave, the Government conducted a review that showed that the scheme has been very successful and that both employees and employers have adjusted well to the entitlement. The review also found that the scheme could be improved by extending its coverage to self-employed parents who are not eligible for paid parental leave. That is what the amendment bill does.
The bill supports the Government’s commitment to families and to enhancing equity, by ensuring that the paid parental leave scheme is accessible to a wider number of individuals. It does so by allowing workers to access paid parental leave, irrespective of whether they are employees or self-employed, and by supporting the health and well-being of new mothers and their babies. The bill is intended to provide parental leave payments to self-employed people on a basis that is consistent with those that are provided to employees, where that can be achieved, while also recognising the particular circumstances of self-employment.
It is estimated that just over 2,000 self-employed parents will apply for paid parental leave each year. Self-employed mothers will be eligible if they have worked an average of 10 hours a week or more during either a 6 or 12-month period immediately before the expected date of delivery or adoption of a child. Self-employed mothers will have the same rights as employees to transfer this payment to their eligible partners, who may be either self-employed or employees. Self-employed people will be entitled to receive paid parental leave if they are engaged in more than one type of work consecutively and/or if they have a break of 30 days or less between engagements. Like employees, they will be required to stop working while receiving payments. However, they will be able to maintain a level of oversight of their business during the leave period.
The bill provides that employees and the self-employed will become eligible for a subsequent period of parental leave and parental leave payments if the expected date of delivery or adoption is at least 6 months after their return to work from a previous period of parental leave, rather than 12 months as at present. That provides fairness between first-time parents and parents of subsequent children. It will extend the eligibility to paid parental leave to a small number of employees who are currently ineligible.
The bill enables the Department of Labour to approve applications for payment where there are technical problems with the application. Currently, these applications must go to the Employment Relations Authority before they can be approved. That amendment will save applicants from having to go through that process. However, the department may not approve applications if the problem is in dispute between the employer and the employee. The bill also includes a new provision that explicitly provides that employees or self-employed persons may apply to the Employment Relations Authority for a review of a decision made by the Department of Labour about their eligibility for a parental leave payment.
The changes contained in the bill will be monitored after their implementation and will be included in the findings of an evaluation of the entire parental leave scheme, which is currently under way. The evaluation is looking at the experiences of women, partners, employers, and those who are ineligible for this scheme. It will assist the Government to further understand how well the parental leave scheme is meeting its objectives, and it will identify potential areas of further improvement for the future.
The bill reflects the Labour-Progressive Government’s commitment both to working families and to building strong families. It will extend coverage to a range of self-employment activities, including the working arrangements of farming families. Giving practical, financial help to families and supporting positive health outcomes for both mothers and babies are significant steps. By extending paid parental leave to self-employed parents, this Government is ensuring that more New Zealand working parents, irrespective of whether they are employees or self-employed, have the best opportunity to raise their families while continuing to participate in the paid workforce to their full potential.
I conclude by thanking the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee membership for its efficient, hard work on the bill. I also extend my thanks to the clerks and to all those who took the time to make submissions. I commend the bill to the House.
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) Link to this
National supports the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill, which provides paid parental leave for self-employed persons. It was, in fact, National members’ major concern back in 2002 that Labour had, in essence, cherry-picked those who were to be provided with support, and we noted in particular that the self-employed had missed out. More broadly, I also put on record—because this has been subject to question by the “Labour-Bureaucratic Government”—that we recognise that this policy is embedded into the New Zealand social structure. Paid parental leave is now part of the fabric of society and of the expectations of parents.
Ms Dyson made great play that this legislation was part of the Labour-Progressive coalition Government’s initiatives. It is too bad about New Zealand First; that party was ignored in that statement. The truth is that the approach the Government has taken would really be better described as being by the “Labour-Bureaucratic Government”, because its members have gone for a complicated, expensive, administrative approach. They believe it is best for everyone to be subject to welfare given in 14 equal payments, because, after all, parents could not possibly be trusted with a lump sum. A lump sum would be far simpler and more effective as a mechanism of payment. The Government is going to have inspectors checking out the number of hours, and going in to look at log books, inspect premises, examine records, provide reviews, and so forth. It is the sort of approach that could be loved only by a bureaucrat. The Government, as befits its nature, has chosen an expensive and a cumbersome, bureaucratic approach to delivering benefits and advantages for parents.
The Government has said that it has done a review, and that it will do further reviews. I actually asked, by way of interjection and in anticipation that I might get a response, whether the Families Commission would be involved in that review. I asked that for a deliberate reason. The Families Commission, at least in part, is the creation of United Future. That party has spent a lot of time talking about how the Families Commission could advise the Government on better and more effective ways of supporting families. I hope that United Future members will take a call on this particular bill because, if there were ever a bill that dealt with issues of concern to United Future, this is it.
So I am looking forward to United Future’s contribution today on how it will be developing family-friendly policies. Its members say that is actually the reason why the party is in Parliament. They should make contributions on these kinds of issues, although they did not make a contribution—unfortunately—at the Committee stage. Some of us were looking forward to that, so I am certainly looking forward to the contribution today. Why do I stress that? I stress it because the Families Commission is now charged with being the principal adviser to the Government on family-friendly policies, and on how the machinery of Government and, indeed, the community can promote families.
Probably the most significant submission on the bill was the Business New Zealand submission—and not, I say, for the usual reasons. Normally, one would expect Business New Zealand, the Employers and Manufacturers Association, and so forth to be focusing on compliance costs, on procedures, on how the legislation will affect administration in employment, and so forth. Business New Zealand certainly did that in the technical parts of its submission, but it also took a more overarching approach that I think would have been very instructive to this Parliament and, indeed, to the select committee. It said that the problem with the current system is that it still divides families between those in employment and those who are self-employed. It asked why families who make the choice of not being in either self-employed or employed work should not get the advantage of a community-provided—I guess that is what this is—benefit. Why can they not have that benefit, as well?
Did I hear the Government make any acknowledgment of that issue, at all? The answer is no. Yet I suggest that is actually the critical issue that should be being debated in this Chamber today. When an organisation like Business New Zealand can actually ask Parliament—across all parties—to look at the broader issues, then I think that in third reading speeches Parliament has an obligation to consider those issues. United Future in particular, given its kaupapa, has a very important commitment and obligation to make a contribution on those issues in third reading speeches.
After all—and the Government makes great play of this all the time—we should be looking forward. It is very easy for people to stand up in this Parliament—as they do from time to time—and go on about what happened in the 1980s, in the 1990s, or even, dare I say it, in the last 6 years. But the public really wants to hear about what the future holds. People have lived the past. They cannot relive that; they can only live the future. So the policies of parties, and indeed of Parliament itself as a whole, should be looking forward. I suggest that the Business New Zealand submission is a very important one, because it actually points to a direction for the future of social policy.
If the Government were really interested in that sort of thing, it would be examining how young families are making choices. Certainly in my experience young families are increasingly making the choice that the principal caregiver—usually the mother—will not go back into the workforce. Where they have a choice, that is the choice being made. I know a number of mothers are in Parliament. They tend to be usually in their 40s and 50s, or thereabouts, and by and large they have had a somewhat different life experience from contemporary mothers, as they generally—and I talk about this on a cross-party basis, not distinguishing between parties on that basis—accept the view that women should be working pretty much straight away after having a baby, because that is the way to maintain and sustain careers. I know that a large number of women made that choice, thinking it was the right choice. Many, I say now, actually question whether it really was the best choice for themselves, their families, and their children. Their daughters are making different choices, in many cases. They are making choices to try to stay home, where possible, and families are making substantial financial sacrifices to achieve that outcome.
The problem with this legislation is that it is focused primarily on issues relating to the 1980s and 1990s. I am certainly not suggesting that there should not be parental leave for those people who work; obviously, there should be. But I am saying that we should look further forward, take on board the submission of Business New Zealand in relation to—increasingly—young families in New Zealand, and extend the coverage. I think that when a business organisation is taking a leadership role not on a business issue, per se, but on a broader social issue, it behoves the entire Parliament to take that on board.
That submission was intended to be a submission about the social nature of our families and our communities, and I think that is precisely the issue the Families Commission should be focusing on. I hope the Government will be asking the Families Commission to do some serious research on that issue, as it has indicated it wishes to do so in the future. National is supporting the bill, but we want the Families Commission to look at the issues more broadly in the future.
SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this
It is my privilege to be able to rise in support of the third reading of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill. It is wonderful for me to be able to note that there is wide support among parties for the legislation. It demonstrates to us that when a good, progressive Government is in for long enough, that actually starts to lift the bar right across the board.
When paid parental leave legislation was introduced into the House by the Labour-led Government in 2002 there was opposition to it, and there is not any longer. So that is a sign of really good progress. We are going forward as a country, and we are being led through that because a good, progressive Government has been in for long enough. So we want to keep that going, and we want to keep the support for this progressive type of legislation, which does make for a level playing field. The previous speaker said this bill somehow brings in a division between working parents and those who are self-employed. In fact, it does quite the opposite of that, so I am not quite sure how he made that assessment. We do have widespread support among parties for the bill.
It was my pleasure also to be on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which heard submissions on this bill. It was apparent that having a progressive Government for this period of time has lifted the bar among community organisations, as well. I cannot recall one submitter who came in and said that we should not have paid parental leave in this country. There was widespread support among all sorts of community organisations, business organisations, and unions. The whole community came along to our select committee to say well done and that they wanted to see this introduced and it could not come soon enough.
For me personally, as a mother of young children and having raised them both as a waged worker and as a self-employed person operating my own business, it makes absolute sense to me that there should be consistency between the approaches. Certainly, in having my babies and raising young children, the pressures on me were the same whether I was in waged or salaried work or was self-employed. Self-employed people who run their own businesses have a great deal in common with waged and salaried workers in this country, because they are operating on a very similar level. The pressures are the same in those families, and this bill recognises that. Since 2002, 77,000 working parents have benefited from the commitment that this Government has given to building stronger families through paid parental leave provisions, and that is going to continue. It has been estimated that 2,000 self-employed parents will apply each year. There is a lot to be proud of in putting this bill through this afternoon.
The other thing that strikes me from a personal perspective, from where I come from, is that parents in rural areas will do very well from this bill—certainly in the areas that I am very familiar with, such as the townships of Cambridge, Matamata, Te Aroha, Huntly, and Ngāruawāhia. Many self-employed people who run small businesses in those small communities, and also many farming families in all the geographical areas in between, will applaud the third reading of the bill this afternoon and then the enacting of it. In fact, when I was campaigning at the last election this issue was raised with me often on the campaign trail by self-employed people who were wishing to start families or were in the midst of raising their families, and who wanted to get the same benefits that this Government has brought forward for working families.
This bill encourages choice for women, parents, and families. It is not the baby bonus type of approach that has been taken by some other countries that somehow try to give a financial incentive to lure people to produce babies. It is not a baby bonus scheme. It will quite proudly ensure that families have the right resources available to them at that very precious time in a baby’s upbringing.
It is my privilege to stand up and support the third reading of the bill. We have been through a very good and thorough process in the select committee. We heard from many submitters who had very valid points to raise on many technical issues, and that helped us to ensure we got this right. I note that the previous speaker said there was bureaucracy in terms of the bill. We certainly wanted to ensure that we covered all our bases, because we want to make sure this is a fair and an equitable law.
PAULA BENNETT (National) Link to this
I rise to support this bill. Self-employed people work hard. They are the backbone of the country. They are the people who take the risks, and they are the ones who put themselves out there, say they will stand up for something, and give it a go. They struggle against the bureaucracy that actually makes it more and more difficult for them to run their businesses. Instead of supporting small businesses, we find a Government that in general just keeps piling on more and more taxes and more and more paperwork that needs to be done, and making more of a burden.
The risks those people take currently when they are trying to employ people are embarrassing, and should be embarrassing for us as a country. Time and time again in my previous role in the recruitment field, I spoke on a daily basis to employers and to those who were looking for work, and I heard the same story from small employers. They said it was too hard and too risky to take people on. They said if it did not work out, then their small businesses, with profits being absolutely tight and often non-existent, could not afford to look at taking other people on. These were plumbers, retailers, and people who had stepped out there and were trying to do their best, even though they had often been badly burnt. I spoke to one couple who had a plumbing business. The business had expanded and they had taken on a couple of employees. They were willing to train some young people in the business and put them through everything, but they said they could not do it because of the extra costs. They could not take the risk. They reverted to running the business just by themselves.
The National Party has advocated strongly for this amendment. Self-employed people deserve recognition. I have been told by many people who are in this position that when they step out and take 14 weeks off to have a baby, they may use this payment to get an accountant to step into their business part-time and oversee it for them. I was talking to a hairdresser who said that this legislation would give her the opportunity to employ someone on a part-time basis, to step into her business and work on her behalf. The difference between these people and the ones who are in employee roles is that, more often than not, rather than just keeping their own income, people say they will use this money to pay other people to do their job while they step out of their business. The thing the National Party is most excited about with this amendment bill is that it starts to give the self-employed some choices. The National Party advocates hugely for choice—that is what it is about for us.
When we talk about choice, we can refer to rural women. I notice that the previous speaker identified rural women as an important group. We do not find it often but, as has already been stated, this is something we agree on. We agree on this bill, but we also agree that our rural women are equally as important as women who live and work in the cities. Rural women deserve this recognition and deserve this amendment bill, because they are our true backbone. They are the ones who not only run the rural businesses—because we girls know what really happens out on the farms—and get out there and work in the cowsheds but also run the households, as well. They are the ones who really work their fingers to the bone.
They keep the guys in line, as one of my colleagues has just said. Rural women did, however, ask for a lump sum. This is not a new concept to the National Party, and we were interested to hear it come through in some of the submissions. As it is part of our philosophy, what we really liked about it was that, again, it just opened up those sorts of choices. Rural women said to us that a lump sum would give them choice in how they use the money and in what they do. I have worked out that the $347.50 a week adds up over the 14 weeks to just over $5,000.
One of the other things that rural women identified was that they have problems getting specialist care in the rural areas. We could go into that because that is a shame on us in itself, but it is not what we are here to discuss. They said they may even choose to use that lump sum, if they get it, for specialist care. One woman said that if she received a lump sum it would give her the option of flying in her mum or her mother-in-law from another part of the country. She would have the money to be able to get that level of support. Others talked about how expensive it is to have babies, with all the equipment and everything else that they need. They stated that having a lump sum would help them to pay for some of that. It is a huge advantage that these women can now have some choice. I certainly challenge our current Labour-led Government to think about how it could push that issue a bit further, and to think about how it may be able to open up more choice for women.
I suppose that element of choice is what I would like to move on to now, because it is something that is rather dear to my heart and is one of the main reasons that I am here as a National member of Parliament. For me, in particular, it is about choice for women. I cannot be more adamant and more blatant about saying that my agenda is about choice for women. I am asking the Government to start looking at some of the bigger-picture stuff. I am asking the Government to stand up and identify that there are some real issues in our society—issues that are occurring now and will just keep growing in the future. Unless we start asking some of these questions, we will never ever come up with any answers.
They are not the easy questions, and they are not the ones that we all readily have answers to. But let us not have any doubts about it—women are having fewer babies. The facts are that they are having them later, and that we have a declining population. The reality is that some of those women do want to be stay-at-home parents. I do not think that we as a society recognise that any more as the valuable role that it truly is. Instead, we have a push into paid work. Is that what we want? I do not really know, but it is a question we need to ask ourselves as a society.
Childcare options are something that the Government, in all fairness, has opened up to a bit more. It says it is opening up to those in this term. It is like putting a piece of chewing gum in a hole when there is a leak. The question and the answer are so much bigger than just the issue of childcare. How about we reward those families that decide that a grandparent will help them look after the child? How about we open up more choice in how we fund the childcare side of it? How about we recognise those parents who choose to stay at home instead of treating them like second-class citizens, as we currently do? I do not know the effects of having a child in long-term day care, but neither do other members, and neither do we as a society. Unless we start asking those sorts of questions, and unless we start doing a bit more research to identify what we are doing to our children with our changing society, we are in real fear of having to fix problems later, instead of looking at the big-picture stuff now and identifying how it goes through.
I stand in support of this bill, but I see it as a small part of what we need to be doing as a country. I ask for a bit of vision and for more leadership than this small amendment bill gives us. But I commend the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which looked at the bill. I certainly thank those who brought submissions to us, and I proudly stand and support this amendment for the self-employed.
SUE BRADFORD (Green) Link to this
We have said all along, as the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill has progressed through the House, that the Green Party is delighted to support the extension of paid parental leave to the self-employed. During consideration of the initial paid parental leave legislation, we advocated, alongside many submitters, that self-employed workers should be included within the bill’s coverage. It is great that we have finally achieved that today, and I would like to thank and congratulate the Minister of Labour, the officials, the submitters, the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and everyone who was involved in finally getting this legislation through Parliament.
Although the main purpose of the bill is to extend paid parental leave to the self-employed, that is not its only purpose. It also reduces from 12 months to 6 months the minimum period before an employee is entitled to a subsequent period of parental leave and a parental leave payment. It gives power to the Department of Labour to accept applications for paid parental leave, even if there are irregularities in the application. It gives review rights on paid parental leave to the Employment Relations Authority. I am very pleased to see the reduction from 12 months to 6 months of the period of eligibility between periods of paid parental leave. It helps those parents who may be adopting again before the 12-month period is up, and also those parents who themselves have another child within 12 months of the earlier one being born. The changes to ensure that there are cost-effective review and appeal mechanisms are also supported by the Green Party.
Although we are totally supportive of the bill, it is not the end of the struggle to have a world-class, best-practice paid parental leave system in this country. In fact, we are still only about halfway along the path towards delivering such legislation. We can be very proud of what we have achieved so far—we can even pause briefly for a half-time break. However, the journey is not complete, and further legislation will be required to extend the scheme to make it world-class, to make it best-practice, and even to make it comply fully with our international obligations. I am pleased to see by Minister Dyson’s comments today that she also acknowledges we have not reached the end of the paid parental leave journey. I am glad she reminded us that the entire paid parental leave scheme is currently being evaluated, and that she hopes the evaluation will identify areas of further improvement in the future.
As I said earlier in this debate, even after the bill is passed I believe improvements will still be needed with regard to eligibility criteria, the level of paid leave, the length of leave, and how much is paid. A number of those issues will probably need to be addressed before New Zealand can ratify the relevant International Labour Organization conventions on paid parental leave.
What other areas still need to be addressed? I mentioned three earlier. The first is the issue of the right of working mothers to breastfeed. Again, despite a number of submissions and the views of the Human Rights Commission on this issue, it has not been included in this bill. I strongly urge the Minister to ask her department to undertake work on breastfeeding in the workplace and to develop further legislation in this area as soon as possible.
The second issue is around whāngai and other customary adoptions. This matter also seems to have been consigned to the too-hard basket—once again—in this bill and in previous paid parental leave amendment bills. It is time for the Government to engage in this issue deeply and carefully—in consultation with iwi, hapū, and whānau, and with Pasifika and other cultural groups—with a view to extending the legislation to cover those situations as soon as is practicable.
The third issue is the continuing difficulty that casual and seasonal employees have in accessing paid parental leave. Those are the most vulnerable workers in this country. They often miss out on all sorts of employment rights and, of course, they miss out altogether on the right to paid parental leave. We should no longer allow, through our legislation, the cancer of casualisation to continue to grow, and we should not turn a blind eye to the inability of those particularly vulnerable workers to access basic employment rights like this one.
In conclusion, I reiterate that the Green Party is pleased to support the third reading today. We are pleased that the Government has acknowledged the discrimination against the self-employed that was enacted through the previous legislation. We also support the additional matters that are included in the bill, and we look forward to the day when we fully comply with International Labour Organization standards.
Finally, I would like to say a word or two about what Dr Mapp and Paula Bennett were speaking about. I was struggling to identify the nature of the Business New Zealand submission to which Dr Mapp referred, as I did not sit on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and was not privy to that submission. But it appears that both National MPs were talking about the whole issue of parents who choose to stay at home rather than enter the workforce.
That is an issue of deep concern to the Green Party and, I am sure, to all of us, and I would love to engage in that sort of social policy debate in this House. It raises issues for me about whether the National Party would support, or at least begin to think about supporting, things like a universal child benefit or even a form of universal basic income or citizens’ income. That debate is happening in places like the European Union, and I think this Parliament could usefully engage in such a debate. I am not sure what National’s policy is on tax-free income for the first $5,000 or $10,000 of income, or on further financial incentives for people who choose to have babies. That is happening a lot now in those European countries where populations are decreasing.
I would support a debate on all those kinds of issues, if that is the sort of debate that those members are calling for. It would be a very useful discussion for all of us to have, because we should be supporting the choice of mothers to stay at home, if that is what they would like to do. It is really sad that so much of our ideology now is about driving mothers into the workforce. I would hate to see bills like this one being used as part of that ideological push, because it is very important that those of us who choose to stay at home and look after our children can do that.
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this
I start by clarifying the New Zealand First position: we will definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, be supporting the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill. We are actually quite delighted that, finally, provision has been made for the self-employed to receive paid parental leave entitlements. We believe that the provision is long overdue.
The third reading of the first paid parental leave bill came before the House in March 2002, and it did not include any provisions for the self-employed. Those people were simply ignored. The second bill came before the House in 2004, and again the self-employed were ignored. Until last night it was my perception—and it was only a perception—that New Zealand First had supported the first bill, and if I have misled the House by saying so in earlier parts of the debate on this bill, then I apologise. I genuinely believed we had supported the first bill, but in reality we did not support it. My attention was drawn to that fact last night, and I looked up the Hansard and saw that was the case.
The principal reason we did not support the first bill was that it excluded the self-employed, and that was the exact reason why we did not support the second bill. It did not make sense to us that a highly paid employee on, perhaps, a million dollars a year could receive paid parental leave, but a self-employed person on a relatively modest income would receive the exact sum of zilch. That did not sit comfortably with us, and we are delighted that this bill finally rectifies that situation.
The previous speaker from National, Paula Bennett, addressed her concerns over the lack of lump-sum payments, particularly for rural women. It is true that National members raised the issue in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, but I have some difficulty in accepting that it is a major issue, because, at the end of the day, if a person is to receive $5,000 or thereabouts, as Paula Bennett illustrated—
Sorry, I cannot hear the member from here, but it is a sum of money that those parents need from the first instance. I believe there are financial institutions that would allow the individual to borrow against the weekly payment.
The Government has chosen not to do that, but the issue is not the big deal that Paula Bennett was trying to imply it is, and I thought I would draw the House’s attention to that.
There are some concerns about the bill, though. One concern that niggles New Zealand First is that an employed person who receives paid parental leave has no obligation to return to work in the original firm or company. We think that is wrong in principle. As I have said earlier in the House, the Retailers Association alerted us to a situation where a woman who received paid parental leave then worked for a competing employer during the year her employer had to keep the job open for her. That seemed to us to be somewhat unfair, and we hoped that situation would be corrected or modified.
Another area of the bill that I think concerned all members of the select committee was the initial plan to allow a person who is, in part, employed and, in part, self-employed to receive paid parental leave for only one of those roles, either as an employed person or as a self-employed person. We thought that was unfair. Although that clause was still in the bill when we reported it back, we extracted a promise from Minister Dyson that it would be corrected. She was as good as her word in this matter, and she presented a Supplementary Order Paper that corrected the situation. So now people who are employed and self-employed—who run their own businesses, for example—can receive a combined entitlement from their two vocations, up to a maximum amount. A person who has two jobs can receive a combined entitlement, and now a person who is self-employed and employed can receive a combined entitlement, too, and we are very pleased about that.
I do not think there is much more to say. I would like to see the bill make as rapid progress as it possibly can, because it is 4 years overdue. In my heart I think we have actually robbed—that may be a harsh term—self-employed people of that entitlement for 4 years. We have certainly denied them a reasonable entitlement for 4 years. I would like to think we can pass the bill unanimously. I do not think the “Dancing King” and the “Army Queen” will be here, and if they do not vote I think we will get the bill passed unanimously. New Zealand First supports the bill, and we want to see it enacted as soon as possible.
HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this
In Helen Clark’s 1984 biography, she joked that if she were elected the whole of our society would change overnight. Well, today we live in a society where the importance of parents, children, and whānau is constantly being eroded by Government policies—policies that have deprived 230,000 children simply because their parents cannot work, that have ruthlessly cut the lifeline of PlunketLine, which many mothers and babies rely on, and that punish 63,000 Māori families by denying them the benefits of the Working for Families package. Twenty years on the Prime Minister’s joke has worn thin.
A month or so back Labour’s Māori caucus called a media briefing to promote the Working for Families package to the media. Unfortunately for that caucus, though, one of the journalists was so underwhelmed by the presentation that he was moved to say to us as he passed by that no one could explain how many Māori would benefit from the package. The fact that Labour felt the need to trot out its Māori MPs to sell a package that denies nearly 100,000 Māori children the support they so desperately need is an indictment on Labour’s discriminatory policies, and is a sad commentary on those Māori Labour MPs who willingly gave their support to that denial.
Members should make no mistake—the Māori Party will support this bill, because we want people who are self-employed to be able to receive paid parental leave, we see parents as being critical players in a stable society, and we have always believed in the importance of financial security for whānau. We also support this bill because it will benefit Māori women, who make up an increasing proportion of Māori with jobs. However, like John Tamihere, I too wonder what adverse effects the fall-off in employment for Māori men may be having on whānau, hapū, iwi, Māoridom, and society itself.
A recent Ministry of Economic Development report revealed that Māori women are still very under-represented amongst the self-employed. It also noted that the gains Māori women had achieved in the workforce were just as quickly being worn away through a lowering of their quality of life. In fact, Māori women interviewed in the report admitted that they had spread themselves too thinly and were having to wear too many other hats.
One of our biggest concerns is the promotion of employment initiatives without the role of the whānau having been properly recognised, protected, and enhanced. Whānau is what counts. We count the cost of parents being forced to work at low-income jobs, and we count the cost to society of a generation being brought up without the support that we enjoyed as children.
Economically, the benefits of self-employment are a significant feature of Māori business success. In fact, a report to Hui Taumata stated that businesses owned by self-employed Māori are valued at over $5.7 billion. That is an impressive statistic in anyone’s estimation. Those assets constitute 63 percent of all Māori-owned commercial assets, and are largely invested in tertiary industries such as wholesale and retail trade, property, transport, social services, hospitality, and tourism. We commend those Māori business people for their energy, commitment, and willingness to take risks.
However, despite that success, other factors need to be considered, particularly those relating to how to improve workers’ work-life balance. Is paid parental leave designed to support child health and child development, or is it designed to keep women hooked into a paid workforce? What is being done to prevent poor health in mothers and their babies, caused by mothers feeling the need to return to the workforce earlier and earlier? What progress has the Government made in eliminating poverty?
The Māori Party is particularly aware that for many Māori a return to work is increasingly becoming an economic necessity, in a society where profit has become more important than the needs of its members. If our society is to truly value the importance of parents, we should look to provide support for parents in casual work and for those forced to hold more than one job, as well as to provide paid parental leave for self-employed parents. Furthermore, if we truly valued the importance of parents, we would also give special consideration to the needs of Māori and Pasifika, who are the people most affected by any changes to employment legislation. That is especially so given the fact that the Polynesian populations are growing more rapidly than others because of a higher fertility rate—go, whānau, go—and will make up an increasingly large component of the workforce, including the self-employed.
Another issue that has been brought to our attention is the legal status of matua whāngai, who are the caregivers of children—often their own mokopuna—whom they have chosen not to adopt. Those people have been excluded from recognition under this bill. Whāngai are an integral part of Māori society. Indeed, our party co-leader Tariana Turia has a whāngai of her own, as do I. Neither of us has bothered to adopt our mokopuna, but we simply raise them in the time-honoured Māori fashion. Including whāngai in legislation is a vexing issue for Māori and is one that Māori are still not completely resolved on. Suffice it to say that the Māori Party finds it difficult to accept that those who take care of children under any terms may be denied support because of their different cultural practices.
In conclusion, Māori have a saying: “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.” It means: “What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.” We in this House are those who would have a say in the governance of our nation. We must guard against allowing economic pressure to force us to devalue the significance of parents and whānau. We have an obligation to hold fast to the importance of those who gave us life, who shaped and nurtured us, who are the inspiration for what we are today, and who gave us the values upon which we base our decisions. The Māori Party will support this bill, but we urge all members of this House to give further thought to protecting and enhancing whānau, for whānau are the heartbeat of the nation and parents are the heart.
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this
It is with great pleasure that the National Party also gives its encouragement and support to this legislation. After listening to the speeches we have heard this afternoon, I think that a common theme came through most of them. Paula Bennett started it off, and it was continued on, especially by the Green Party and the Māori Party. It is that there is a real sense within this Parliament, and in our communities in general, that we are probably not doing enough for families and for those who want to bring the next generation of New Zealanders forward in an environment that is successful and provides for everyone. The Budget in Australia, however, had a major implication in terms of Australia’s support of families.
Today we are discussing legislation on parental leave, and it is bringing out those heart and soul concerns that most people in this Chamber have. The Labour Government has dressed up this legislation in terms of being fair, equitable, and progressive, and of providing a level playing field, but those terms should not really have been used—we should not have to be considering separate legislation for self-employed people. When we address these sorts of concerns, they should be addressed in the sense that they cover all New Zealanders at the appropriate time. The appropriate time to do that was in 2002, and if members look back at that time, they will see that most parties supported the idea that the legislation should cover self-employed people.
I think that National, United Future, and New Zealand First all indicated at that time that there was a gaping hole in the employment legislation, in that it did not apply to self-employed people. It has taken us 4 years to get to the stage where we have actually recognised self-employed people. That has been far too long. In that process, a select committee has, over the last few weeks, met and discussed this bill. It has been a pleasure to work with all members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on this legislation. They have worked together. As members of the select committee, we thank all the submitters and all the organisations that they represented, because there was a common thread coming through all the submissions.
There is one issue, though, that I feel the select committee still has not addressed. That was a constituent’s issue with regard to his battle with the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) for funding in respect of the very harrowing and unfortunate circumstances of his wife’s death subsequent to the birth of their child. The ACC rules and the implications for someone who is on parental leave during that period need to be addressed. During the Committee stage, the Minister, Ruth Dyson, portrayed herself as someone who had solved this issue and had resolved the question of ACC’s commitments with regard to that case. Well, that is not so.
Although a Supplementary Order Paper that was put forward covered some of the situations addressed in the debate, it did not cover the full circumstances of that case. Even the Minister admitted that to me, in a letter dated 5 May. In response to my inquiries on behalf of that constituent, the Minister stated: “While I understand the strain this situation puts on the family, unfortunately it is not possible for either ACC or me to act outside the boundaries of the legislation. Thank you again for your letter. While I regret that this advice is not the response you were seeking, it remains the only advice possible in the circumstances.” That was on 5 May. Yesterday the Minster stood up in this House and said that she had addressed that constituent’s situation, yet 4 days earlier she had written to me stating she could not do anything more for him. That is the kind of inconsistency and lack of leadership that we see in this legislation.
There is a failing in the link between the parental leave legislation and the accident compensation legislation, yet there has been no attempt to amend the legislation, other than the Supplementary Order Paper. That relates to some of the broader questions that people have brought up in this debate today. There are some issues that this legislation has not covered. One of the major issues—it is one that the Greens brought up during the second reading debate—is with regard to seasonal and temporary staff. Another major issue, which the Māori Party brought up, is in relation to Māori and Pacific Island adoptions. In both those cases, we have not seen the legislation cover those areas. All we have had is some kind of vague commitment from the Government that it will look at them in the future. That is not sufficient.
If there is a general plan—and the Government says it has one for families and for parental leave—then why not do it all at once? Why did we have to wait 4 years between each of the parts of the reform process? After the 2002 part of the reform process, the Government said that it would have a review to instruct it of the situation. A review was not necessary—the parties in this Parliament could have told the Government that it had not covered self-employed people. As part of that review process, we came out with such concepts as “self-employed parents face the same difficulties as employed parents in combining work with childcare”—that is startling stuff! Everybody knew that already. Then we heard that the benefits of paid parental leave are not able to be accessed by the self-employed. Well, those kinds of statements were actually made by members in this House in 2002. All we got was a review, and people were given a taste of what they were missing out on. Then they were strung out for the next 3 years, while the Government got around to doing something about it.
Over the last 4 years probably over 8,000 self-employed people have missed out on parental leave payments. This is not a situation where the Government has a strategic plan that it is working on. This is the case of a Government that is passing ad hoc legislation covering certain areas, and it will be found out through that programme. Gaping holes in this case have been identified by the select committee—which still have not been resolved by the Government—and they really influence, and show that a wider choice is needed with regard to, self-employed people, women, employee-employer relationships, and family arrangements.
There are some big-picture issues out there that have been discussed during this process: is a lump-sum payment an appropriate way of dealing with this issue? Should we be extending it beyond the issues that we have discussed in this legislation so far? Should we be asking further questions, as Paula Bennett has, about the role of work, and the role of women in the future? Should we be asking questions about the role of families, and the role of men in the future, as well? Those concepts were not considered either by the Government or the select committee. No, all we had at the select committee was a small piece of legislation to cover one tract of this issue, and we left a big hole for other people to have to fill in the future. That does not show a Government that has a grand plan.
The Government does not have a grand plan, and it is not looking forward. It is just a Government that fills in when it has to and where it has to. So should we be supporting legislation like this? Yes, we should, and we are. But we want to see a greater role taken by all Governments in providing in this area, and that is a challenge for this Government, for this Parliament, and for our country.
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) Link to this
I want to congratulate the Minister, Ruth Dyson, for moving another step along the way towards giving parents out there an opportunity to take time off work and care for their children. Yes, we did that for employed workers in the past; today we are doing it for self-employed workers. They will be out there saying what a great Labour Government they have, and they will be listening to David Bennett, who wants to have a baby bonus instead of this very sensible provision.
The Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Bill was submitted on by all and sundry, and everybody was in favour of it. Not a single submitter opposed it. Can we find a statement in the commentary on the bill from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that anybody was opposed to it and found fault with it? No, only David Bennett and some of his colleagues are opposed—not all of his colleagues, because some of his colleagues do not believe in that at all, but they have been told to stay in the office and not to make a speech. Some of the National Party members said some people will go out and get a job just in order to get this benefit. The fact that one has to have a baby slipped their minds. It was a man—someone who has never given birth—who said that he thought this paid parental leave for the self-employed was such a good deal that people would become pregnant, have a baby, and look after that child for the rest of their life—
Darren HughesI do not want to mention names. I will just say that a well-known member of the National Party does not agree with David Bennett.
I am really interested in David Bennett’s position on whāngai adoption. I look forward to the debate on his member’s bill next week, when he will say that this is a lazy Labour Government and that he will show everybody on the Government side of the House how to do business, and that he will get a bill through the National Party caucus to allow all workers and self-employed people to receive paid parental leave in the case of a whāngai adoption. I say to David Bennett that he should go for it, and we will see whether his colleagues on the Opposition side of the House—particularly Dr Wayne Mapp, who has a certain responsibility for these matters—agree with him. I would like to be a fly on the wall in the National caucus room when David Bennett—that trooper—gets his member’s bill drafted, heads to the National caucus, and says he wants to change the law because it is absolutely hopeless that people who adopt culturally cannot receive paid parental leave.
I happen to agree with David Bennett on that, as did the entire Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and that is why we noted that point in the report. David Bennett has a law degree, but he does not know that an amendment cannot be made to a bill if it is not within the scope of the bill. In other words, one cannot have provision for whāngai adoption in a bill that deals only with self-employed people, because that would produce an anomaly whereby all the employed people would be unable to receive a payment. So, quite rightly, the officials said the matter was outside the scope of the bill. One should not need a law degree to understand that point. If a matter is outside the scope of a bill, Parliament cannot amend the bill.
Are members on the Opposition side of the House given training about what to do when they become an MP, and about how the law-making process actually works? Obviously not. The member should go back to the National Party school for brand new MPs, and find out about the scope of a bill and whether an amendment can be made to it—even if someone wants to do so—if the amendment is outside the scope of the bill. Did David Bennett seek the leave of the House to make a change to the bill? No, I did not hear him do that. Did we see an amendment on the Table to change the bill? No. This is just a whole lot of hot air, and nobody believes it.
However, what people do believe is that this Government is serious about the ongoing improvement of the law. So if members listened to Minister Dyson’s speech, they would have heard her say that a full evaluation was going into the whole question of the parental leave scheme. If that were done in the way that David Bennett wants it to be done, employers would be ignored, as would Federated Farmers and the Council of Trade Unions; one would just go ahead and change the scheme, without a proper review or evaluation process. This Government is not as stupid as that; it would not do that. If we are to evaluate the entire scheme, we will ask how it is working for everybody. We will engage with businesses, Federated Farmers, the National Council of Women, the Council of Trade Unions, etc., and then we will come back with further improvements. When we do come back, I bet National will vote against them.
This is a great bill. This is an excellent day for the Government and an excellent day for self-employed people. I am very happy to see this legislation finally passed.
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this
You may rule me to be out of order, but the Hon Mark Gosche made some enlightening comments in that speech. I seek the leave of the House for David Bennett’s bill, when he produces it, to come straight out of the ballot and go through the House.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
The member knows I will rule that out, and I do so right now.