No money for paternity leave, says Minister 

Source: ONE NewsA baby being measured by a Plunket nurse

• WATCH the video (1:48)

Fathers say it's worth it, but they are unlikely to get extra bonding time with their newborns on the taxpayer.

That's despite a call from the Families Commission for more paid parental leave after it found almost half of fathers didn't take any time off at all.

Dean Eteveneaux took six weeks off work when Bailey was born just over a year ago.

But he had to eat into his annual leave to do that.

"There's a lot of benefits of it, just seeing them you know grow from day one. They grow so quickly and you don't want to really miss out on that," says Eteveneaux.

But half of all working fathers are missing out, according to a new Families Commission survey of nearly 2,000 fathers.

"They obviously feel it would serve the future of their children better if they were able to do that," says Gregory Fortuin, Families Commissioner.

Currently mothers are entitled to 14 weeks parental leave funded by the taxpayer.

Fathers don't get any pay and they are only allowed two weeks off. The commission wants that to double to four weeks, with pay.

But Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson says there just is not enough money to extend the paid parental leave scheme.

"To be perfectly honest, an extra four weeks paid leave is not one of our priorities at the moment. It's tough times and we don't have an open-ended cheque book," says Wilkinson.

Under the scheme, mothers are able to transfer some of their 14 weeks paid leave to their partners. But of the 22,500 women who took paid leave this year, only 218 transferred any across.