Actually you got that wrong. Labour is fine with parents choosing which one takes the paid parental leave. What they are not fine with is Nationals suggestion that both parents take leave at the same time for a shorter total period of leave.
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Any idea what their problem is with parents having a bit of a choice, whether home togethr for some of it or not ? I donīt understand what the issue is for them.
Last year my son and daughter in-law. who live in another country, took leave for 3 months at the same time as they had the newborn and a 2 year old. They can take 3 months each of non-trabsferable (together or separately) parental leave and another 3 months of transferable parental leave. 9 months in total if fully utilized. They said the 3 months together was a great thing to be able to do. But not in NZ apparently, according to Labour !!
Simple. Labour has committed to extending the period of paid parental leave (for one parent) to 22 weeks initially, up to 26 in 2020. There are several ideas behind this. That provides a significant chunk of time for one parent to focus on bonding with their baby, establishing breastfeeding (if its Mum), recovering from birth especially if it was a birth requiring medical intervention. The NZ College of Midwives has come out in support of this initiative.
For some strange reason National has (apparently suddenly, unless I missed something) decided it would be best to give both parents leave at the same time, but only half the amount of leave. Which kind of defeats the purpose of increasing the period of leave in the first place. So of course Labour isn’t going to buy into that suggestion.
Your son’s scenario above is an awesome idea and I agree that taking the first 3 months off together would be invaluable. But in that scenario your daughter in law could then still take another 3 months off if she wished - so 6 months for Mum. I doubt even National would support that kind of arrangement as the cost in this country would be pretty significant.
I understand where Labour is coming from. I also see some merit in what National is proposing but I don’t think 3 months is enough. It can easily take a good 6 weeks or more to establish breastfeeding alone.
Labour has has started things rolling with the increase in the number of weeks of leave. Down the track they may well re-visit it and make some changes. But reducing the total amount of leave would be a backward step and I don’t see it happening.
So the economists who said their wasn't a big hole in Labours plans (ie who said Joyce was wrong) are now worried about rising debt
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/988...n-labours-plan