Labour blocks shared parental leave law

Newshub reports:

The National Party is accusing Labour of picking “politics over parents” after it voted against a Members’ Bill that would’ve allowed choice when taking paid parental leave. 

On Wednesday, National deputy leader Nicola Willis’ Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill had its first reading in the House. Every political party voted in favour of the Bill except Labour, meaning any further progress on it was halted.

Willis said her Bill would have “modernised” the current settings of paid parental leave, allowing Kiwi parents to take their leave at the same time, one after the other or in overlapping instalments. 

“Whether you’re a Dad wanting to support Mum in the first few weeks after birth, or you want to divide your paid leave entitlement between two primary caregivers in overlapping instalments, the choice should be yours. But Labour wants to stop you.”

I’m staggered Labour voted against such a common sense law change. Every other party in Parliament supported it.

Allowing both parents to take say six weeks leave each, could be huge. Those first six weeks are so challenging, and even harder to do solo when your partner has had to return to work.

But Deputy Prime Minister and Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni said the advice the Government received is that the Bill is “unworkable in the form that it is in”. She said there are some potential “unintended consequences” the Bill would cause, including the health of the birthing parent.

“It is something that would need to be thought through more before we could agree to such a measure,” she said. 

“Part of the reason it was set to 26 weeks [of paid parental leave] was actually to provide the six months of breastfeeding that the World Health Organization recommends.”

This is basically bullshit. The law already allows the father to take the paid parental leave. It just doesn’t allow it at the same time as the mother.