Did anyone else catch Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson saying the Government would not extend Paid Parental Leave at all?
They were also the only party who refused to form an all party parliamentary caucus for children, after indicating for the past 2 years that they were keen to participate.
Add this up with their “dumbing down” of the early childhood sector and their funding cuts to the most severly disabled children in our education system and it seems that their “brighter future” doesn’t include children.
…And if they are serious about closing the gap with Australia, then they must move on paid parental leave soon, as the Aussies go to 18 weeks leave in a little over 12 months time, while we have 14 weeks.
Alot! One of the many things I have always liked about the Labour party is the way that you manage your portfolios, without much bias towards one or another.
In contrast, the National party quite often seem to be so focused on one or two issues, especially in budgeting, that they leave a number of other portfolios in the deep end, in this case, Youth.
Thanks Sue and Labour for your hard work in making sure ALL of New Zealand get what they deserve.
Agreed.
I still fail to understand why the owner of a small engineering company has to fork out 3 months wages for the office girl to have a child and also employ a temp for that time.
What better incentive for people to breed the next generation of taxpayers?
@Sheralyn: Having found your way to a political blog I suspect you are being disingenuous, and really just object to employers having Parental leave obligations full stop. FYI women not “office girls” tend to have children.
Good on you Sue for keeping this issue on the radar.
Sheralyn might be more credible if she knew that IRD paid for the ‘leave’ not her small engineering business.
as the IRD puts it:
Paid parental leave is a government-funded entitlement paid to working
mothers while they take parental leave from their job(s).
Put simply you only have to pay SOMELSE to do the job
Sheralyn, I totally get how you got that mistaken, even though it cost the business little or none, it costs time and resources for the appointment and training of a relif staff member.
I heard Kate on the radio too – what a cold-hearted woman! She thinks that taxpayers shouldn’t support people who choose to have babies at all. They’re just a burden on the state, you know, sucking up scarce resources and demanding such luxuries as time, attention and love! I wonder if Kate would be so wealthy and articulate now if she and her parents hadn’t had the support of cheap home loans, Plunket, school milk, free education and low university fees.
When was Kate on the radio?
Yuk! School milk!
@Rich – having flashbacks to warm milk?
Richard- must have been better than nothing though, however never having had it myself I couldn’t say.
At least they gave it some effort.
U had it too Spud?
No, but my parents did.
U heard the stories then? It was the Labour Government that introduced it ah?
Yes I’ve heard stories and I don’t know.
If anyone knows who introduced the school milk scheme, I would be interested to know. Thx
If I did my reading right Labour did, it was introduced in 1937 when Labour was in power.
Thanks Spud!- once again showing Labour has the best interest of our kids at heart, always
There was a ’school apple’ program as well. But it must have stopped much earlier than the milk as I dont remember it from the early sixties
The reason additional Paid Parental Leave has been (quite correctly) rejected is simply because there is no additional funds to pay for extended welfarism. Labour as always love to get out my chequebook to pay for their social programs. I struggle to see why parental leave needs to be extended further – especially when it is so unaffordable to the country. Maybe Sue, you should also say how much extended extension of paid parental leave will cost and what services Labour would cut to pay for it. Of course your government had time to extend paid parental leave even further – or had Cullen already spent every dollar(and then some) and even by Cullen’s socialist standards this was unaffordable?
Of course, the middle classes (of which I am a proud member) are already sick to death of being exploited over the past nine years to pay for your social programs. Such election promises (unfunded) by Labour will ensure you remain on the opposition benches.
ghostwhowalksnz: Do you know who started that one?
@Monty: I have been waiting for that one – actually I do know how much PPL costs, as I have prepared a Bill extending it to six months. Each additional 4 weeks of leave costs a maximum of $40m – and this pales in comparison to the $110b extra the Nats just committed NZ taxpayers to in order to let big polluters off the hook when they amended the ETS.
If the Government was serious about reducing crime, improving health and education standards, then they would agree that investing in those early years of children’s lives is money well spent. In fact, I would say it is the best investment any Government can make.
So my answer is, I would stick with the original ETS and this would more than pay for extended paid parental leave.
Now that’s a brighter future!
@Sheralyn, Ghost is right, IRD pays the PPL, not the employer, so its a great deal for employers as well as the new parents. Recruitment and training costs would have happened anyway, unless we assume the parent would stay working their full hours through a pregnancy, birth and child-rearing process.
The apples for Schools ran from 1941-1945.
An early example of the good nutrition for school children under Labour
so what 4 weeks would be best to make this statement work “if the Government was serious about reducing crime, improving health and education standards, then they would agree that investing in those early years of children’s lives is money well spent. In fact, I would say it is the best investment any Government can make”.
The 1st month, the 2nd month, the 3rd month or a month in the childs 2nd, 3rd or 4th year. I would be interested to know when this scheme would be most effective. You must know the answer.
Sue,
Any plans to extend the fathers benefit (in labor policy). I had built up my leave while I was single for a long holiday. When my fist came along I took only the two weeks, and I guess we coped, but for the second child I took a six week holiday. It was the best decision I could have made. I was so busy helping out mum, taking the two yr old out etc. (P.S. made more money during this period without work than ever did working for the man).
Also we miscalculated the WFF and IRD forgot to put the second baby on and we lost $50/week every week (eating only noodles). I cannot fathom how anyone would/could have babies without these labor policies. Remember they are not just welfareism, but reintroduction of policies that are standard in the developed world.
Another idea would be to can the Monty Python 2025 group and any others that write National policy after the election.
P.S.
Like many fathers(not all and rarely said in public) I did not ‘bond’ with either babies until they started to respond back and really became human. The break was as much about supporting mum and child proofing the house.
Sue – it is still a crock and more creeping socialism. I doubt that you will find much support for this extension of the welfare system. If when my kids were born I wanted to take time off I could have used some of my extensive annual leave instead of placing more burden upon the long suffering taxpayer.
Gotta do something about these thread names, it implies you think National actually has it in for kids, like they don’t feed their own if they don’t do chores…
Sue, if you were in Government at the moment, would you be extending paid parental leave.
1.If not, why not
2.If yes, where would the cash come from.
I think it would be better for the Labour Party if you thought about how you would make it happen, instead of criticising the Nats for not.
my kids are all gone .. 23, 25 & 27. Had 3 under 5 at one stage. In our day (god I love that saying .. now) we had a few, and I mean a few, years of the family benefit for 1 of them.
This was in the days of 18-20% mortgage interest rates, single income (apart from my 2nd job for a year .. I stopped as the tax on the 2nd year was a killer)and getting home stuffed at 11pm or so didn’t help the kids.
It was so hard .. things like buying and maintaining the car could tip us over the finanicial edge. In those days, we paid things in cash or lay-buy.
These days, and this will upset some, families have it a lot easier with benefits for all sorts of things. I would suggest keeping up with the Jones’s and easy credit are a big issue.
@Sheralyn,
Girls don’t have children, women do. And if the owner of the small engineering business wants the office ‘girl’ to return, then he pays maternity leave, otherwise not!
Monty,
Calling parental leave and working for families “welfareism” really irks me. Its the first step to putting these policies on the optional pile, and moving us out of line with the OECD.
Simple lessons on how the world works:
bosses say they can only afford X wage because boss not imaginitive enough to raise PRODUCTIVITY.
Workers want what they can get, but bottom line is cost of living.
If a job is worth less (profit) than the cost of living then it is obviously not worth doing (valued by society).
If a family worker charges more wages because the family costs more to live then the employer will only employ single/Dink/semi retired workers (in the low paid jobs).
WFF is just a one (most simple) method of redressing this imbalance, so our employers have less to worry about getting workers in low paid work.
This does not address the many other quality of life issues raising children throws up, but will it will take 20 years before we see the fruits of investing in family’s.
Debby, Im lost for words,you havent read any of the responses to the mother to be situation.
The payments for maternity leave are funded by the government.!!
Its not the full wages /salary. but its a start. Consider also that pregnancy is considered to make you eligible for the sickness benefit , but wouldnt extend after the pregnancy. Its better all round for a new mother to stay working and then apply for government funded maternity leave for the period before and after the birth , In think 14 weeks.
@Jabba: We have 14 weeks PPL now and my Bill proposes to extend it to 18 weeks in 2011, 22 weeks in 2012 and reaching 26 weeks in 2013. The Families Commission has analysed the international research and recommends 13 months PPL, but I think it is more realistic to achieve the 6 months that the World Health Organisation recommends for breastfeeding (now we’re back on the “warm milk” theme).
We are behind most OECD countries on this, and as I said earlier, the gap will grow with the Aussies if we don’t move by 2011.
Does anyone have any ideas on why the Nats backed out of the all party caucus for children?
@Sue. Any idea of when your bills up for debate?
woops… meant “…bill is up for debate”