General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

It’s a great honour to rise after my sisters have risen to celebrate Suffrage Day, and I don’t want to do any disservice to any of them, but I recognise that this is a general debate and I need to get to the point I want to make in the general debate. But before I do so, I’d like also to acknowledge the gratitude that I have to Kate Sheppard, and also to someone who has actually paved the way. Pansy Wong was the first ever Asian—Chinese—member of Parliament, elected back in 1996. Apparently, I made history by becoming, in 2008, the first ever Korean woman to hold office outside of Korea. So I take great privilege, and for the record, I’m No.105—105.

Earlier in the debate, my colleague Jo Hayes actually quoted something that Rt Hon Dame Jenny Shipley said, talking about fighting for something instead of each other. When I talk about the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and the former Minister, Hon Clare Curran, I want people to know that I’m not fighting her; I’m actually fighting for the transparency and the openness that she promised, and I actually want to get to that.

Today, I’m a little bit disturbed that there was actually a letter from the Chief Archivist that the right honourable Speaker tabled. I had a look at that, and it actually quotes, “Papers and records deposited remain in the care of the Chief Archivist, and unless the Minister depositing agrees in writing, they remain in the ownership and control of the former Minister.” Technically, what that actually means is that every Gmail that this side of the House has questioned the particular Minister and also the Minister of State Services on, in terms of transparency and openness in relation to the appointment of the Chief Technology Officer, which they have now had to cancel in relation to Derek Handley—how it all transpired—all of that communication that is actually, apparently, transferred to the Chief Archivist, is not available.

The Minister, Hon Clare Curran, has to give permission in written form to say that she gives permission; otherwise the Chief Archivist cannot actually release it. So I urge the former Minister, Hon Clare Curran, to come down to this House and actually, perhaps, give a personal statement and perhaps table all of those Gmails that are being questioned in this House. That would be the only honourable thing that she could do. Otherwise, as the Chief Archivist says, Ms Curran may establish, by agreement with the Chief Archivist, conditions for access under section 42(3)(c) of the PRA, the Public Records Act. That pretty much trumps any Official Information Act (OIA) request that we could use to try and get the information, and that seems really, really wrong. I think, as the Minister actually promised openness and transparency—even the Prime Minister has actually supported that view—I urge the former Minister to table all of those Gmails so that we will get to the bottom of it finally.

And what a shambles the actual appointment process has been. I mean, there’s been advertising that went out looking for the CTO, they closed the application, decided that the whole 60 people who applied for the job didn’t actually meet the criteria for Clare Curran, and then opened it up again a second time round, and, actually, apparently, she’s found one—delayed the announcement, delayed the announcement. There have been lots of OIAs and questions, and we find out that she did, in fact, appoint the Chief Technology Officer, even when the Prime Minister said that Derek Handley was still under consideration.

So there are a lot of questions that need to be answered, and it has been very, very murky. Considering the fact that that Minister has actually promised that this Labour-led Government will be the most open, most transparent Government ever, it seems those words don’t really mean anything. If that Minister was the Minister for open Government and she has done these shady activities using her personal Gmail—and, as members have said, using personal Gmail’s OK, as long as you actually abide by the rules and be transparent, but she hasn’t been. If she’s doing that, what else is that side doing?

On Suffrage Day, the last thing I would’ve expected was a member of Parliament to get up and attack a woman. They could’ve left it till tomorrow or next week, but no, they reverted to type, because deviation and sideshows and roadblocks are what they’re famous for. They’re famous for that because they’ve got a leader who has an abundance of inquiries, and the most serious inquiry should be about his status as a leader of that party.

Look, the most prominent inquiry in Parliament today concerns the leaking of information by one of his own National Party colleagues. Oh no, don’t shake one’s head. We all knew, the moment we heard this story, that there were 55 subjects who were all suspects. The inquiry that Mr Bridges launched—now, he’s the leader of the National Party pro tem—was on 28 August, to be conducted by, guess who? PricewaterhouseCoopers—they’re pretty big, but it doesn’t stop there, oh no—and Simpson Grierson. That was 22 days ago. They’re trying to find somebody who we know—that is, the identity of the leaker in the National Party—and guess who’s paying for the inquiry? Why, the New Zealand taxpayer, through the Leader of the Opposition’s leadership office funding. The New Zealand taxpayer is paying for this absolutely mindless, hopeless inquiry, the end pathway and result of which we already know. So why don’t we just cut to the chase here? Pay the money over to us, and we’ll give you the answer. Ha, ha! It is phenomenal.

You know what? Twenty-two days later, we are still no wiser, with these major New Zealand companies in full pursuit, and yet we formed the coalition Government in half that time—11 days—after we knew what the special votes meant. Eleven days to form a coalition; 22 days to try and find out what other people know: namely, who leaked on Mr Bridges. There are members over there that should be very nervous. I won’t look at them, or look where they should be, because if I do, then the suspicion will be cast on them without us getting the reward for disclosure. We are famous for disclosure, especially when it comes to the National Party’s sins.

Can I just say, the National Party has been utterly preoccupied, using taxpayers’ money, and it’s a disguise, because the National Party has an awfully sorry parliamentary record over the last decade. Do you know how many people they’ve seen come and go in the last decade, since 2008? Two pages full.

💬 Clayton Mitchell: Woah, and small font, too!

Small font—two pages full. Unbelievable. People who either resigned or had to go—and that’s far more than two fingers on two hands—then you’ve got the people who got pushed—

💬 Chris Bishop: What happened to Brendan Horan?

—and then the ones like Mr Bishop over here mentions, who decided to jump before they got pushed. Forty-five MPs, in the space of three terms, all gone. My message to the National Party backbench is: your party is a very dangerous place to be. There’s no doubt about it. It is simply unbelievable.

Let me tell you what, in the last 11 months this coalition Government has made 100—no, 1,000—gee, I almost underrated the party’s performance. I underrated the coalition’s performance. We’ve made 1,057 decisions in just 11 months. It has taken them 11 months to get their boxes down here. That’s all they’ve done—11 long, tawdry, hopeless months to get their boxes down here whilst we have been making decisions, possibly 1,200 before the year is up—1,200.

Can I just say, as we come to a close, that the National Party in Opposition is “dysfunction junction”. Nothing’s happening there. It’s a total mess. The leader can’t even get one out of four National Party supporters. Whilst we’re interested in good public policy, all they care about is public relations. We strive for action; all they strive for is unction. The member—that’s Mr Bridges—needs to reveal to the public who the leaker is, or I will.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s really interesting that the last speaker started off by attacking a woman’s speech for attacking a woman, so there you go. I would also challenge the Rt Hon Winston Peters to put those stats that he just had into percentages and compare them with New Zealand First’s and bring them back to the House, because we would really like to have a look at them—thank you.

Now, in terms of women’s suffrage today, which I intend to make the bulk of my general debate speech on, I would like just to put a shout-out to my grandmother, who last Thursday, 13 September, turned 102 years of age. [Members applaud] Thank you. I think that’s fantastic. Her name is Joan Jeffries and she lives in coastal Taranaki. She was around when women had the vote but not at the time when women actually were able to stand in Parliament, so there’s a huge amount of things that have happened in her lifetime.

I am very lucky because I’m the middle of five generations. I still have my mum, I’ve got a daughter as well as two sons, and I’ve got a granddaughter as well as four grandsons. So being in the middle of five generations is very special. The things that I actually notice are from my grandmother’s time to the time that we’ve been here—and we’re lucky enough now to see 40 percent of our women represented in Parliament and I think worldwide that’s a pretty special thing that we’ve got going in this country. But over time, the changes that have been made in terms of what women were able to get out and able to do have been incredible.

Before I came into Parliament, one of the last directorship roles I did before I came into Parliament was on the board of New Zealand Young Farmers. I’m the only grandmother that’s ever served on the board of New Zealand Young Farmers because you max out at 31, but actually I was the DairyNZ strategic partner on there. To be a young farmer you don’t have to be young, so it was my luck to be on there. But when they are looking at new board members and strategic partners or whatever, you know the gender balance thing is very much taken care of now in some of those younger boards; it’s more of the older boards that are transitioning. I spent most of my time on boards or councils where I was probably one of maybe one or one of two women on a board and the councils might have been three or four out of 35 to 40 people, so things have changed.

I would just like to put a call out, as the 2012 inaugural Dairy Woman of the Year, that last night Rebecca Keoghan from the West Coast, who’s also a Dairy Woman of the Year, was named a rural Woman of Influence. We also have Dairy Woman of the Year Katie Milne who’s now the president—the first woman president—of Federated Farmers. So it’s quite a big thing for the rural areas. Often it’s said that it’s very hard for women to win rural seats. We certainly haven’t found that on our side of the House. Somebody went to the library the other day and just asked for the information—one of the people in my team went to the library and came back with the information that I’m the first woman that has represented either Taranaki - King Country or New Plymouth in the 52 years of Parliament. I would also like to acknowledge Harete Hipango, who represents the Whanganui seat, who also has part of Taranaki now in her electorate. So it’s a very big year for us. I am No. 126, in case anybody’s wondering.

One of the things that I just wanted to perhaps bring up on a more serious note, and off the suffrage topic, is the way that we treat people. I know that we’ve got a lot of work going on at the moment on the Employment Relations Act and it creates a lot of noise across the House. But what I saw when I came into Parliament is that it’s very difficult for the people that work here when there’s a change of Government. A lot of this open transparent Government and the stuff around the Chief Technology Officer has really been about emails and transparency. But I have to think about people who lift up their family and go to a place to get a new job and then find that that job doesn’t exist any more. I think we’ve got to be really, really careful as people how we treat others, so it’s not just about what we put in legislation; it’s about what we do as people and how we enact that legislation.

So, Mr Speaker, it’s been a pleasure to have a general debate today. Thank you, and I put a shout-out to all women in New Zealand on Suffrage Day. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m No. 122. I want to thank Louisa Wall and Joanne Hayes, as Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians co-chairs, and the Hon Anne Tolley for everything they’ve done to make this Suffrage Day commemoration so special: from the breakfast to the camellia, to the number, to the photo, to the event happening at the moment. It’s been an awesome day.

Today I recognise Kate Sheppard and her work on suffrage and pay equity, and I recognise Meri Te Tai Mangakahia on her work as the first woman to ever speak in a Parliament, in the Kotahitanga Parliament. Her issue was to ensure that not only were women given the opportunity to select MPs but that women could be MPs as well—and her work on land rights and the right for Māori women to own land.

But we all have our own perspectives on our heroes and our heroines, and my perspective on Kate Sheppard is about her advocacy with regards to family violence. The reason that Kate Sheppard wanted women to win the vote was that she wanted women to join the temperance movement. Men were using all of their wages to buy alcohol, coming home, and beating their wives and their kids. So my commemoration of Kate Sheppard is that she is our first family violence campaigner.

What would Kate make of us today? New Zealand has had three wonderful women Prime Ministers, Governors-General, Chief Justices, Ministers, CEOs, lawyers—wonderful women. But let’s balance that against the fact that, just a few years ago—three years ago—Labour and Green women members of Parliament in this House stood against the tyranny of being called supporters of rapists and murderers by the most powerful man in this House. Balance that against what happens to many of us in terms of cyber-bullying and abuse that we take even today, in 2018.

This House is currently reviewing family violence legislation, and only a few weeks ago my friend and colleague Jan Logie passed a significant bill, which affords women the ability to take leave when they are escaping violent relationships. My friend, I honour and acknowledge that. We have one further step to go, and that step is to ensure that our tāne are supported to change their behaviour. Kate Sheppard opposed family violence in all its gory details: women, men and children. Now, children, I have to say, have been and are my life’s work: children who witness and experience violence. They are the ones for whom we now need to pick up the mantle that Kate Sheppard left for us to ensure that their lives in this country are peaceful.

There are many differences in this world to the world that Kate Sheppard occupied. Gender is no longer binary, and in that regard I want to acknowledge the fact that there are many people who suffer in many extraordinary ways, and today I want to make some pledges in my remaining minute. I make a pledge to the people who are disabled who suffer at the hands of those who are supposed to care for them. I make a pledge to our LGBTQI community. Your suffering is not in vain and it is not invisible. I make a pledge to Māori and Pasifika women, whose blood, sweat, and tears have flowed so that the Māori and Pasifika women who occupy this House can stand strong for you. But mostly, I stand for our tamariki today, and this day, Suffrage 125, let us make it be about our kids. Kia ora.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a real privilege to get a slot in today’s general debate, because we’re celebrating the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage today, and I want to dedicate my slot to this celebration. I’m really proud to stand here and celebrate this day with you all—congratulations. It’s a real privilege and honour also to be the first Indian-born woman member of Parliament in our Parliament.

I am really proud of both countries that I belong to—my birth country and my home country. As I said, I am Indian born. I am really grateful to be born in the generation that I am, because I know that those women who were born before me worked really hard, in both countries. Here in New Zealand, yes, our suffragists led by Kate Sheppard—I want to acknowledge them, and I want to thank them for all the hard work they did in opening doors for us. Back home in India, in those days—I’m talking about my grandparents’ generation—villages used to be typical villages. Some villages didn’t have schools, and girls were not sent to another village or town or city to access education. It was only men who got access to education, so, obviously, that gender gap increased. I also come from the country where some—I say some—families desire male children over female children. Some families will go to any extent to make sure that their child is a male child, and this is despite all the efforts by the Government of India—and I want to acknowledge the Government of India for the hard work that they are doing in this space.

When I was growing up, I didn’t know that I would find myself in this beautiful country that is the first self-governing country to give women the right to vote. I didn’t know that I would be standing here in this House, having the opportunity to celebrate the 125th suffrage anniversary with you all, but I knew that my upbringing was the best. I knew that my parents looked after me and my sisters without any prejudice, despite all the surroundings that I have talked about. I want to mention that I’m not the only girl child; we are four sisters. So I want to thank my parents for the efforts that they have put in us. They provided us everything that we needed to achieve, to do well in our lives. So there is a role for every one of us, and that is to provide opportunities to younger generations, younger girls, and that is how I see this example.

We have so much to celebrate in our country. We are continuously advocating for women’s rights. We are fighting for our rights. Yes, today, while we are celebrating the 125th suffrage anniversary, we should also acknowledge and celebrate that we know what we want to achieve. Yes, the list is long, and I want to add more things to that list, and that is intersectional feminism. When people talk about feminism, we just bring one dimension to that, but I think we need to bring more dimensions to feminism, and that is people who are migrants, like me, and people who come from ethnic minorities. Having said that, I am here not because of my ethnicity, and I am here not because of my gender; I am here because of my hard work, and I’m really proud to be part of the National Party, which believes in hard work and rewards people for hard work.

We are the first country to give women the right to vote. Yes, it is our wish to be at the forefront for the social change that is right for our country, that is best for our country, and it’s a great privilege to be part of this continuous momentum for inclusion. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Chair, thank you.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to speak today of three women who have worked or are still working to enfranchise women. The first I wish to speak of is Elizabeth Caradus, and I have with me here a page from the suffrage petition. The first name on it is Elizabeth Caradus—or, as I first heard of her, Elizabeth Russell Caradus. She is my great-great-great-great-aunt and, obviously, signed the suffrage petition, but that wasn’t all. She arrived in New Zealand at the age of 10, in 1842, on the Jane Gifford. Six years later, she married James Caradus. They had 15 children, of whom about eight survived to adulthood. In amongst all this busy life of rearing children, she was a prominent member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, especially in Auckland. Then, when the Women’s Franchise League was started in Auckland, she became a prominent member of that group, too.

So she was one of the group of suffragists who worked hard to collect the signatures, who worked with Kate Sheppard. Later on, she became one of the earliest members of the National Council of Women of New Zealand. She was a suffragist, and it is an honour to have that somewhat distant connection to her—and I am very proud to have that connection. We don’t know much about her politics. We don’t even know much about what she thought because, as it turns out, she was a working-class woman. She and her husband didn’t have much money, certainly not much time, so she couldn’t go to the conferences and the debates and so on. But we do know—and this is a quote from someone who went to a meeting that she was at—that she spoke with her “accustomed zeal”, and on another occasion she was recorded as giving an “excellent and pithy” speech. So there seems to be a tradition of speaking in my family.

The second woman I wish to speak of today and to honour as someone who has worked to enfranchise women is Kristine Bartlett—the woman who took the pay equity case. Kristine and the union who worked with her took an important case that argued that women today should be paid equally for work of equal value, and today, on Women’s Suffrage Day, that pay equity work has now been acknowledged in a bill that has been presented to this House and will be debated.

It is wonderful to see the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill coming up in front of this House today. That bill also enfranchises women. Having a vote is only part of being enfranchised; being paid well for the work that you do gives you the capacity to operate, it gives you the capacity to be part of a community, and it gives you the capacity to be a full citizen. So I see that as very important work that is done not just economically but in terms of empowering women to be full citizens of this country. So to all the women and the men who have worked hard on the equal pay and the pay equity legislation, I acknowledge the work you have done to enfranchise women.

The third woman I wish to speak of today is a friend of mine—a friend who was honoured last night in the Women of Influence Awards, where she was given the supreme award for the work that she does for women. Jackie Clark, I salute you for the work you have done in South Auckland with The Aunties, supporting women who have been affected by domestic violence, and supporting them in the most tangible of ways: by ensuring that they can buy some groceries, by making sure they have a mobile phone so that they can make phone calls without being traced by their partner, by helping to pay for repairs to a car—all ways of empowering and enfranchising women so that they can lead full lives in their community. I am honoured to be part of The Aunties group too, supporting women in times of need, and enfranchising them.

We do this work not for ourselves, and we appear in this Parliament not for ourselves. I remember, every time I am in this House, the women who have supported me to be here and the women who I hope to support in my turn. I especially think of my mother, Marie Russell, and the support she has given me, and my three teenage daughters: Bridgid, Sophia, and Ruth.

To my darling daughters, it is for you whom I fight. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. What a great day to be a woman parliamentarian here in New Zealand. I am No. 131, and at a breakfast celebration this morning, we were very honoured to have the guests Dame Ann Hercus and Dame Jenny Shipley. It was a time for us to recall all those amazing women who, against a backdrop of huge resistance, against physical and emotional hardship, kept moving towards their goal and, eventually, won their right and our ongoing right to vote.

Our women were the first in a self-governing country to be granted the right to vote, in those parliamentary elections back in 1893—that’s 125 years ago today. It’s a timely reminder of our responsibility to those brave women and those who suffered along the way to fight for us and our rights not to take it for granted, but to get involved in our democracy and vote.

One of our guests this morning, Dame Ann Hercus, talked to us about the barriers—the glass ceilings—and she suggested that they’re weren’t, in fact, actually made of glass. She suggested they were made up of thick layers of men, because men don’t want to share top jobs or positions of authority. Well, personally, I’ve never found that to be the case, but perhaps I’ve been fortunate because I’ve had opportunities where perhaps I did break through a glass ceiling, or that thick layer of men. Maybe it was easy for me; I’m not sure. But the reality was that I could have just simply snuck through because I was totally unaware that such a thing existed, and so I never paid it any mind. But I’ve been surrounded my whole life with very strong, hard-working women with very strong personalities and morals, who have always looked forward with their rose-tinted spectacles on. So whenever I wanted to get involved in anything, I just simply went out and did it.

For me, the glass ceiling analogy did almost ring true in local government, but not because I couldn’t break through, because I did. After six years of being on a council, I became the first female mayor to be elected on the West Coast, and it is quite a blokey place, so that’s quite an achievement. Now, the challenge of the glass ceiling actually came during one term where I was, in fact, around a table with a group of 10 men, leading them as the only female. It wasn’t so much a glass ceiling, but I think it was more the jolly green giant, because one or two of them felt that they were uncomfortable being led by a woman, and their tone and their behaviour, I believe, left more to say about them being gentlemen than about me as a woman.

My experience in local government opened up opportunities for me. It was soon after being appointed to the board of Local Government New Zealand that I was invited to represent New Zealand at a women’s congress in Mexico, and we were invited to send a speaker because of the historic event we’re celebrating here today. The women in Mexico got the vote some 60 years after us here, but their system was fraught with challenges, and I certainly do hope that since 2011, when I was there, things have improved. For instance, a woman could campaign to be elected and win her position, but her position was then transferable. So, in a country like Mexico, where there is quite a lot of male dominance, that transfer was not always willingly given. Sometimes it was under severe duress or duress threatened upon a woman’s family, and so some of these women actually lost their positions through that process.

But here in New Zealand, it took us another 26 years before women could stand for Parliament, and then another 14 years of trying before this country finally elected its first woman MP. I’m very proud of the fact that here, today, the National Party consists of 40 percent women.

But I’d also like us to remember today Elizabeth Yates from Onehunga. She became the first female mayor elected in the whole of the British Empire. She succeeded her husband, who retired due to ill health—

I’m sorry, but the member’s time has expired.

Sorry, I was so interested that I didn’t realise the member’s time was up, either. It’s a huge honour to take a call today, on the 125th anniversary of New Zealand becoming the first self-governing nation in the world where women could vote. I too would like to add my voice of acknowledgment to Meri Te Tai Mangakahia being the first woman ever to speak in the Parliament and providing some guidance for the suffrage movement in that achievement, and, of course, the woman out in front of the Pākehā activists, Kate Sheppard.

In 1893, the vote was extended to all women who were British subjects aged 21 and over, including Māori—we’ll put aside the politics of that, which are awfully uncomfortable. It took us longer to move past this foreign nationhood test, and it wasn’t until 1952 that Chinese-born New Zealand men or women actually got the right to vote in this country. So it wasn’t completely universal, but it was certainly the first time that women had the right to vote in a self-governing nation.

I do also want to recognise that New Zealand’s voting and political systems aren’t designed for everyone. Disabled people experience barriers to exercising their right to vote and to participate politically, such as inaccessible information and voting papers, limited voting methods, and a lack of physical facilities enabling engagement with politicians, so they haven’t actually, in practical terms, had suffrage always. So it’s been particularly great to see Chlöe Swarbrick shepherding through Mojo Mathers’ electoral access bill in Parliament, and I look forward to this House—I hope—unanimously supporting that bill to move us a step forward in terms of the political participation of people with disabilities.

I am very grateful to the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians and the artist from the East Coast for the beautiful camellia that I get to wear in this House. My number is 112, which just completely blew my mind, if I’m honest. To think that in this day and age, having been in this House for seven years, I’m still only 112th of all women, is mind-bending. If I go back over that time, I’m the fourth out lesbian to be in this House, and many of us are still firsts or seconds. Golriz Ghahraman, sitting right beside me, is the first New Zealander with a refugee background, and Mojo Mathers was the first Deaf New Zealander in this House. There are still barriers to be broken through for people to be able to participate in this place, and it’s made me reconsider how I value this position to reflect on that.

I’m a person who, typically, for a long part of my life, looked at politicians and thought they were all full of—and I’d really not been particularly engaged or enthusiastic about the parliamentary political process, if I’m honest. It seemed a lot about fighting, rather than care for the community. It took, for me, working on the paid parental leave campaign from the community and working in partnership with a member of Parliament who liaised with us—and she managed the politics in this House. I saw that, actually, there was a hope that politicians could be linked to communities and could be about bettering the lives of New Zealanders, and, for me, ultimately, that is what it is about—to be in this place.

So while we celebrate the remarkable achievement of suffragists, today, I do also want to mention Kate Sheppard’s famous quote that “All that separates, whether of race, creed, class, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome.” I would like to extend that today to disability, gender and gender identity, nation or country of birth, and all of the other arbitrary measures that feed discrimination but that could bring us together as a much stronger country. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m honoured to stand and take a call in this debate today, on the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. I am the 138th female MP in New Zealand history.

It’s truly a day of celebration: 125 years ago, women stood up and claimed their equal status. They demanded the right to vote, the right to be included, and the right to have their voices heard, and it’s humbling to stand here in the House today and pay tribute to the women who led this charge.

In 1893, Kate Sheppard and 32,000 other women took control. They did that to not only fundamentally change New Zealand society for the better but they started a fire around the world for other women, too. While today is of huge national significance, all politics is local. So I want to take the opportunity to highlight and pay tribute to a key woman in the suffrage movement from my own electorate of Maungakiekie, Elizabeth Yates. She was a strong supporter of the suffrage movement. Elizabeth Yates was actually the first woman to vote in the Onehunga electorate under the new—back then—Electoral Act of 1893. She was determined to keep the movement strong, and so she stood for the mayoralty of Onehunga and won the election just a few short months later in November. Not only did she do that; that signalled that she was the very first female mayor in the entire British Empire, so a massive significant moment for my electorate Maungakiekie, for Onehunga, for New Zealand, and for the British Empire.

It is a privilege for me to represent and be part of a community that has that pioneering spirit such as Elizabeth Yates had, and it’s also a privilege for me to be the patron of the Onehunga Fencible & Historical Society, guardians of our Onehunga past. Gender equality and pay equity are targets that we should be continuously working for, and we must take the opportunities to reach this goal and do so and seize any moment that we can without delay. So it is disappointing that the Government did turn its head to some of these opportunities. They have now twice voted against a bill earlier in the year that I had in my name that would put in place a system to allow women to lodge pay equity claims. It is an important issue, and I’d hoped to see some progress on it from a Government that had previously said that it was a priority for them. So I surmised back in March when my bill went through this House for its first and only reading that the Government would wait for the suffrage anniversary to produce their version, and that’s exactly what happened.

So what’s the problem with this? Women have been waiting all year since the non-passage of my bill for the Government to have their suffrage day photo op today. They could have got on to this much, much earlier. One might wonder if they’ve been playing politics with pay equity. Having just seen the bill a very short time ago today, it is my understanding and initial summation that 90 percent of it is the same content of the bill that I put through back in March.

I’d like to switch gears now by acknowledging some very strong women in my family. I’m from a family of three girls—I’m the middle of three girls. My mother Lauris Lee is a hugely civic-minded, kind, wonderful, and nurturing mum and a female leader in our community. She shepherded Rochelle Lee and Angela Lee, my two sisters whom I adore and who have been towers of strength for me not only in my personal life but in my career. I think my father deserves a mention. He believed in hard labour from the very get-go. He was gender blind. We had to do everything that sons would have done, and my dad—I’m not sure if he’s thought about this—is a feminist from a long way back; he just may not know it.

I’m raising two daughters, Sydnee and Makenna. They face many issues that come their way and I’m doing my best as a single mum to foster the resilience in them that I see already. The Book of Proverbs has a quote. It says, “A woman is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.” It’s my hope that my daughters, like many strong women before them, the suffrage women of old, will stare down the barrel of adversity with assurance that they too can laugh at the days to come, and I’ll be there by right beside them.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’d like to begin with a whakataukī: me aro koe ki te hā o Hine-ahu-one—pay heed to the dignity of women. It’s such an honour to stand and take a call in this general debate today as we celebrate 125 years of suffrage. It’s a particular honour for me, because as someone who’s worked for most of my life in the women’s rights space, I chose to move to New Zealand all those years ago largely because this was the first country in the world where women won the right to vote. As many others before me have said, I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before me, Māori, Pacific, and Pākehā women, who have fought. Women, also, like Elizabeth Yates, the elected Mayor of Onehunga, who was elected on 29 November 1893, the day after New Zealand women led the world by voting in a general election for the first time. She was the first woman to record her vote in the Onehunga electorate at that general election.

I also acknowledge another mayor Dame Sukhi Turner, former Mayor of Dunedin, and for a very long time considered one of the most prominent New Zealand politicians of Indian origin. I acknowledge women from the diverse ethnic minority communities across Aotearoa who have fought over many decades to organise their own women’s auxiliary wings and their own organisations, and there were many women of Chinese and Indian origin who did this here in New Zealand, and their histories are part of our history, as well: women like Shantiben Parbhu and women like Rukshmani Kasanji, women who fought to be able to express their ethnic and religious identities as New Zealanders, and women who fought the isolation that many women from ethnic minority communities faced at the time. Without all these women, I wouldn’t be here today.

I stand here as a migrant woman of Indian origin, a woman who calls Aotearoa home, a woman who the Prime Minister would call “youth adjacent”, and, as I found out this morning, the 143rd woman member of the New Zealand Parliament. Yet there’s more to be done. We have a persistent gender pay gap, and for Asian women, we’re paid less than our male counterparts and less compared with Pākehā men and women as well. Gender-based violence affects us all, but there are still issues like forced marriage and dowry abuse that persist and disproportionately affect ethnic women. We are under-represented in virtually every level of leadership, including in our own communities.

I stand here and speak to, and on behalf of, women for whom ethnicity and gender collide to make it even harder for our voices to be heard. I spoke to a young woman New Zealander of South Asian descent recently and what she said has always stuck in my mind. She said, “I grew up thinking of myself as every other New Zealander. But it was only when I applied for jobs or board positions that I had my otherness fed back to me; that suddenly I was different.”

We get asked if we’re Indian, Chinese, Filipino, “fill in the blank”, or a New Zealander. Where are we really from? We also get those other questions about children, not having children: if you have children, it’s a problem; if you don’t, it’s a problem—we get those too. Our New Zealanders from different ethnic communities may speak different languages. We may speak English with different accents. We may have different skin colours, celebrate different festivals, be of different faiths, come from different contexts and backgrounds, and think differently about different things. That’s what diversity is about, and that is why we are strong as a nation.

We are all New Zealanders, and we have a right to play our part in shaping New Zealand’s future. As I acknowledge Kate Sheppard, the most famous suffragette and founding president of the National Council of Women (NCW) of New Zealand, the umbrella organisation of women’s organisations, I also acknowledge that that same organisation has today for the first time at its helm a Kiwi-Indian woman, and I acknowledge the leadership of Vanisa Dhiru as the national president of the NCW, New Zealand. Kia ora. Thank you.

E Te Mana Whakawā, e te mana wahine, ka mihi nui te mihi ki a koe.

[Madam Deputy Speaker, may I extend a warm acknowledgment to you in your capacity as Speaker.]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I acknowledge you, as you’re seated there in the Chair, on this very auspicious day. We’ve heard in the House today the acknowledgment to Kate Sheppard, New Zealand’s premier suffragette—125 years.

Every day is a revelation, and, in many ways too, a celebration of life—life that we have here in Parliament. So I acknowledge the movement, the women’s movement that is here. In so doing, I’m also reflecting on the words of Dame Jenny Shipley this morning. She was talking about Kate Sheppard sailing from afar, beyond the horizon, not knowing what was there. I acknowledge also my Scottish, my Irish, my Celtic ancestry. Kate Sheppard was from Scotland; she sailed to Aotearoa New Zealand. However, Aotearoa New Zealand is the land that I was born in, and, as my cultural identity, it is what has shaped who I am. Suffragette day today and the women’s vote is recognition of women’s rights and placement under the Westminster system. So I’m just going to turn and reflect upon my tupuna, my women ancestors.

I come from a small village at the mouth of the Whanganui River, Pūtiki. Rere-o-Maki—a tupuna, a mana wahine, a wahine rangatira—was one of five women who signed the Treaty of Waitangi. She gave birth to Te Kēpa Rangihiwinui—Major Kemp, he became known as. He gave great military service to our colonial nation and the shaping of it. He became, in his later stages of life, a great leader for his people in resistance of many of the wrongdoings that had gone on in the colonial actions taken against the people of Whanganui and Taranaki. So I’m going to fast track forward. I think it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate today, but also, because of the cultural heritage that I come from, that is part of my DNA. We have many great leaders. We remember them. We celebrate them.

Speaking of having many great leaders, last weekend I was back in Hāwera and there was the celebration and unveiling of two VC recipients, Harry Laurent and John Grant, for their service during World War I. Being immersed in my community, it is important to give acknowledgment to those who have given service in the shaping of our nation as it is today.

Talking about the shaping of our nation, I also come from tribal ancestral lineage of Ngāti Apa. Ngāti Apa has also given birth and placement to our first Māori woman MP, Iriaka Ratana—on 29/11/1949 she was elected in the Western Maori seat. Another who has been embraced by Ngāti Apa was our first Māori woman Cabinet Minister, Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan. Ngāti Apa is proud to have embraced these women who have contributed to the shaping of our nation.

Another tupuna of Ngāti Apa is Dame Tariana Turia. She founded the Māori Party, as we know, when she crossed the floor. Dame Tariana Turia spoke at the Whānau Ora hui last week, which I was delighted to be in attendance at, with the support of two of my colleagues. I was also delighted that the attendees noted the National Party’s attendance and recognised that the National Party, with the Māori Party, had given the shaping and the formation of Whānau Ora.

With the limited time that I have left, I refer to what was notably commented on at the Whānau Ora hui, and I refer to the words of Dame Tariana Turia in her speech: I believe that our greatest responsibility should be to insist that any definition of well-being without mentioning Whānau Ora is fundamentally flawed. I invite the Government to reflect on that, and when there is the formulation of policy around well-being, to take it back to our families. Whānau Ora is the origin of that.

In conclusion, I am again privileged to attend next week the Māori Women’s Welfare League—their celebration, their gathering. It is 67 years that they’ve been in the making. This is an organisation about wāhine Māori, but they also embrace the importance of whānau. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m humbled to speak today as I stand here, the 148th of 149 women elected to Parliament. I can honestly say that coming to Parliament was not my life plan. But, as a feminist woman and a woman who has been long and often told to shut up much more often than I’ve been told to speak up, I decided to take up that challenge. Last year, I voted on Suffrage Day; today, on Suffrage Day, I speak in this House.

What does Suffrage Day mean to us here in Parliament? I think we have all celebrated, and it has been absolutely amazing to hear our sisters and brothers in this House celebrating suffrage. We must remember though, with 125 years, what we have gained. There are still women across the world who are fighting for that very same right. There are still women dying for the right to have equal representation or to participate in democracy. I honour those women. We’ve heard lots of talk about the herstory of women and gaining the vote, and I just want to acknowledge and recognise this House and the fact that we have camellia carved in our walls to recognise suffrage. It is important that we are here, we are now, and we are honouring the fact that it has been 125 years.

The Labour Party, across the years, have been instrumental in changing laws that affect us as women, and I remember specifically one that I couldn’t believe as a young woman—a very young woman. In 1985, we made it a crime to rape in marriage. We made it a crime in 1985—I was around 14 at the time. Can we believe that? So within my lifetime, it was something that still happened as a right from a husband to his wife.

I want to come now to—and everyone has raised and talked around domestic violence, and I want to acknowledge the Domestic Violence Act and the place of making significant changes and helping significant changes be made in this space around domestic violence. Gendered violence—violence against women and children—is our shame, and it continues to exist. I am so honoured to be able to participate in the changing of the laws that are coming now, and to be able to speak on the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill in this House.

I would like to urge the public and my peers here to look at reflect on the recent draft CEDAW report. I don’t have time to go into the content of it, but CEDAW is the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The report outlines how we are achieving and how much more and how much further we have to go. Please—public, peers—have a read and put your voices towards making change. We need to heed that gendered violence remains a significant problem, and we must work tirelessly to eliminate it. Until we are free of violence and safe in our homes, we will not be equal.

Finally, I want to speak of my mother—my mother, who is in her late 60s and still continues to serve her community, caring for foster children, working as a teacher-aide, donating her spare time to the Arts Council, and creating a Christmas grotto for the children of Kaikohe every year. I think of the impact, what it has meant to her, of earning far less than men and of the impact of a 50:50 split of assets at divorce, that did not take into account her role as a bookkeeper, a farmer, a horticulturalist, a mother—who made my lunch every day when I went to school—and a community volunteer. The financial split ignored the lived reality of this woman. How delighted I am that the Government has announced the Equal Pay Amendment Bill to address this. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.