Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she is looking at adopting National's proposal to allow parents to take Paid Parental Leave (PPL) at the same time.
The Government introduced its PPL bill under urgency last week, which would allow parents to split 26 weeks of PPL between them.
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However it doesn't include provisions for shared parental leave. National wants it tweaked so both parents can take leave together.
Ms Ardern told The AM Show on Monday she likes the idea - despite the flaws in National's proposal.
"I've talked to our Minister, we're going to see how quickly we can do that," she says.
"What we've tried to pass on to the Opposition is actually when we looked at the idea the officials came back and said 'actually, there's this issue and this issue - it's going to take us a while to work through'."
Previously, acting Prime Minister Kelvin Davis said the Government won't be changing its plans as it was "happy with the bill we've put forward".
But his colleague Willow-Jean Prime said she knew how difficult being a new mother could be and would be talking to Minister for Workplace Relations Iain Lees-Galloway about adopting National's amendment.
Ms Ardern denies she's reluctant to introduce shared PPL in order to deny a win to National. Instead, she argues there were "some problems" with the proposal National had put forward.
"There are actually issues that we just need to work through the impact on. Business, we need to talk to them about it," she says.
"There is a really good chance that we're going to progress this, but I've just got to do my job and do it properly.
"If we just put it through in urgency and suddenly a business says to me 'well actually now you're making me cover for two employees, and that's going to be tough'."
However Ms Ardern is confident that shared parental leave will happen soon.
"We're looking at it right now," she says.
"There's absolutely every chance it could happen next year."
Newshub.
