Motions — Women Winning the Right to Stand for Parliament—Centenary

I move, That this House celebrate the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to stand in parliamentary elections and the immense contribution that women MPs have made to Parliament and to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Members of this House, I rise to acknowledge that it is 100 years since the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act was passed and women were able to stand for Parliament in Aotearoa New Zealand. I begin today by quoting the member for Grey Lynn, Mr John Payne, in the debate on the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act in 1919: “There was a time when women had not a soul to call her own. Her very property passed to her husband on her marriage. We have done away with that, and have gradually come to recognize that woman is equal to man in being a thinking, capable being. We have ceased to treat her as a chattel in very many things pertaining to her civil life, and we now recognise that the time has come when women should stand on an equality with men, not only in regard to entering the professions, but also in representing their sex and families by directly having seats in this House and in the Upper Chamber.”

Today, I want to salute the many women who have changed our history in Parliament and ultimately for women and girls in New Zealand. I salute three women who stood for Parliament unsuccessfully in 1919: Rosetta Baume, Aileen Cooke, and Ellen Melville. Although they didn’t at first succeed, they paved the way for our first woman member of Parliament, Elizabeth McCombs in 1933. When she was elected, the “No Women Permitted” sign over Bellamy’s dining room came down. The wording of the swearing-in ceremony was altered and the Governor-General had to refer to “members” rather than “gentlemen” in the Speech from the Throne. McCombs was still not allowed into the inner sanctum of Bellamy’s bar.

I salute the first woman member of Parliament to be a Cabinet Minister, Hon Mabel Howard, in 1947. She was also the first woman to serve as a Cabinet Minister in any Commonwealth country. I salute Iriaka Rātana, our first wahine Māori MP and also the first elected MP to become a mother. Iriaka was a passionate advocate for the welfare of her people. After giving birth to her seventh child in December 1949, she entered Parliament in 1950 and campaigned to improve the lives of her constituents.

I salute Hon Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, our first Māori Cabinet Minister in 1972. Whetu was also our first sitting MP to give birth, in 1970. She was back at work in Parliament two weeks after giving birth, bringing her baby with her, and also had her second child while in Parliament. I salute Hon Pansy Wong, our first Asian woman MP, in 1996. She was also New Zealand’s first Asian Cabinet Minister. I salute Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, our first Pacific MP, in 1999, and our first Pacific woman Cabinet Minister. And who could forget Georgina Beyer, elected in 1999, our first transgender woman elected to Parliament—not only in New Zealand but in the world. In 2003, we also had the first mother and daughter serve together in Parliament with Janet Mackey and Moana Mackey. That year also saw Hon Margaret Wilson become our first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Today, we need to honour those who have led our legislative processes. I salute our three women Governor-Generals: Dame Catherine Tizard, Dame Silvia Cartwright, and Dame Patsy Reddy. I also particularly salute our three women Prime Ministers: Rt Hon Dame Jenny Shipley, Rt Hon Helen Clark, and Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, our first Prime Minister to become a mother in office and only the second world leader to become a mother in office.

History has taught us that more women in the political process leads to better outcomes for women. Better outcomes for women are better for families and communities and, ultimately, better for our democracy. I salute members of this House today for championing better opportunities for women, for championing issues such as equal pay and women’s safety from violence.

I see that the Rt Hon Helen Clark was the 17th woman MP and we now have our 150th woman MP in this House. We can see that we have made rapid progress. We now have 48 women members of Parliament: 40 percent—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Can the member wind up?

—yes—and the highest level of representation for women ever. We must continue to push for more diversity in our Parliament and also at local government level. I may need to say to my own son as he grows up, “Yes, men can be Prime Minister, too. We had some several years back.” Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa.

Mr Speaker, thank you for giving me the call and can I please thank the Minister for Women, Julie-Anne Genter, for that and for those nice memories, actually, of some of those women who I’ve had the great fortune to serve with and some of those that we do remember, acknowledge, and respect for all that has gone before us.

I couldn’t help having a little smile, as you were speaking. Someone said to me yesterday that her daughter is studying New Zealand history in school, and then she was kind of horrified to hear that it was in the 1980s. Ha, ha! So I’m kind of pleased that this is a bit further back, and we’re really looking genuinely at our history again, to Elizabeth McCombs in 1933—of course, she won in a by-election when her husband died—and then in 1942 with Mary Grigg, who was our first National Party woman MP. But, to the House, she, too, became selected in a by-election when her husband unfortunately died. I did wonder if a few women were looking at their husbands slightly differently at that time and thinking it might be a pathway.

Hey, I am going to indulge slightly. I want to acknowledge National’s Dame Hilda Ross. She is a woman that we hold in high regard. She was someone who gave so much service. Of course, her seat was in Hamilton. She’d served on a local body. She’d served on the hospital board, I think it was at that time, in about 1941. She had done such a lot as far as her service—her service started, actually, in the influenza outbreak in 1918, I think it was. What she did during that time of genuinely in the 1931 earthquakes in Napier—she was someone that actually rushed to that place and was handing out parcels. It was all about service to women, to children, to families, and to the disadvantaged. She then saw a path to actually serve back, which was via Parliament, and to get herself selected. She’s a woman that we hold in particularly high regard, to the point where we have the Dame Hilda Ross trust. I did think it’s an opportunity for us to think about what we do in giving back.

One thing that we often say is that the words are all good, but unless we are genuinely making it easier for other women, in particular who want to get into Parliament, then it’s all nice sentiment but we’re not actually getting on with it. So we thought we’d get good and practical, as National women. And I think we started it, Louise Upston, about five years ago from memory, and we decided we really genuinely would get stuck in. So what we did was we kind of took over the Dame Hilda Ross trust through the National Party. We started raising funds and having fundraisers and a variety of different ways that we did that. Now, what we realised is that for women today, it’s actually the path into Parliament.

I often say to people that in Parliament itself, I believe that we’re treated pretty evenly. We get the same pay, we get the same conditions, and we get the same respect and disrespect at times for the way that we act. We’re probably as badly behaved. You can get a bit caught in the gendered language. But, quite frankly, I think some men in this place are treated pretty appallingly for how they look or speak or dress or do, on all sides of the House, by the way. So I’m not sure that is gendered any more. But I do think the path here is still a bit more difficult for women, so we wanted to recognise that.

In our party now, when a woman is putting their hand up to be a candidate, we actually genuinely mentor them. We help them go through speechwriting. We put money into training for them for the fundraising that we’ve done. We recently have had a conference that we called WIN—Women Influencing National—and we invited them here and we had a range of speakers. Then we talked about how they can influence our policy that we would be taking in next year.

Also, as I say with those candidates, once they get pre-selected, we recognise that it’s a really difficult time. You’re needing babysitters all of a sudden, if you’re not used to being out at night trying to meet delegates. You’re having to get a brochure printed. You may need a new outfit so that you feel good when you’re standing in front of a crowd asking them to vote for you. So we give them a donation of $500 and say, “Spend it however you like.”, and when they get here, we then now try to wrap around how we can do things differently.

I do look at some of my new colleagues, because when they came in, we said, “Right, well, we did a bit for you. What can we do next?” I reckon that’s the lesson for us, from those women that have been before: what is our role as women parliamentarians to do practical things for the next girls and women that might want to step up and be counted?

I think this is going to be one of those extraordinary debates where we hear tributes being paid to those who have paved the way for many of us in this place. I want to acknowledge both of the speakers who have gone before me in acknowledging that, and our Minister for Women, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, in particular, for the very practical way she is role modelling that as a mother herself in this place and becoming a mother as Minister for Women.

I stand here proudly as the 99th woman to enter into this place, and I have to say that seems astounding to me: a hundred years and I’m number 99. You know, you’d think that those numbers might be higher, and yet at the same time I think of how far we have travelled in that period of time. Those women, when you showcase their profiles, when you talk about who they were when they came into this place, it’s almost hard to fathom what it would have been like when they ran. But they were ordinary women who did extraordinary things. They were women who not only in some cases were championing the right for women to vote, they then decided actually from the beginning that it wouldn’t be enough to simply have the right to vote; there were issues that mattered such that they needed a seat at the table as well, but it took time.

You know, it was 1893 when we were talking about getting the right for women to vote. It wasn’t until 29 October 1919 that the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act passed through Parliament, and that gave women in that election seven weeks from the time that Act passed—seven weeks—to then run and try to win. I know how difficult a seven-week election campaign can be. Sadly, for those women—and I pay tribute to them as well: Rosetta, Aileen, and Ellen—they were all unsuccessful, but they stood up and they led the charge for women to have a place here in Parliament.

Ten more women tried and failed in that intervening period and it wasn’t until 14 years later—14 years—that Elizabeth McCombs was able to successfully be elected here. It took another 14 years before Mabel Howard came into Cabinet and it wasn’t until 1949 that we saw our first Māori wahine, Iriaka Rātana, successfully make it into this place as well. But what’s the story behind each of those women? Elizabeth McCombs was not just a parliamentarian; she was a mother of two, and she also is described as having raised two orphans. She was elected to Christchurch City Council, where she convinced the council to build a creche, and continued to be a huge advocate for women in here. Mabel Howard: before she was a Cabinet Minister, she was the first woman to become a secretary of a predominantly male union. Iriaka Rātana: she held her seat for 20 years in this place, and she was a mother of nine. Like, I can’t even fathom one of those on its own, let alone the combination of the two. Iriaka was concerned with the welfare issues of Māori. She believed they could be solved—it’s so described—through a caring Department of Māori Affairs, with Māori welfare officers and a focus on things like the Māori Women’s Welfare League.

I also want to pay tribute to Dame Annette King, the longest serving member in this place, the one who had the ability to endure for the longest period of time—as a woman, Mr Speaker—as a woman in this place. That is no easy feat. Even now, it is no easy feat, and she did so while sticking to her values and maintaining her sense of humour and maintaining the role as a mentor.

In all of these cases—and there are many more examples the Minister herself mentioned—these were ordinary women who have done extraordinary things. And when I look around this House, on both sides of this House, I see the same still represented in the women who are here today. My hope is that those women continue on being extraordinary but that they will also continue on with their multiple roles. They are often sisters, partners, mothers, and aunties. They are often counsellors, teachers, and advocates. As with the women that have gone before, they are never just one thing in this place. They are many things to many people.

My hope is that the leaders that we have out there right now, our young girls and our young women, they look in this place and they see a little bit of themselves and they know that this is an absolutely attainable place where they can be who they want to be—the exact kind of leader they want to be—here in this place, and they can also be, if they choose, a mother. They can be a good carer, a good partner, a good sister, a good auntie, or a good advocate. And, if they choose, boys can maybe be Prime Minister, too. This is my hope for the next generation of women. I pay tribute to those who have gone before us. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It is an absolute honour today, where history joins us in the present, and it is a privilege to speak on behalf of New Zealand First—my caucus has given me that honour today—and on behalf of the leader of the women’s caucus of New Zealand First, the Hon Tracey Martin. As the deputy leader of the women’s caucus of New Zealand First—the deputy leader by default, I might add—I am totally thrilled to speak to this, the centenary of women winning the right to stand for Parliament.

I’d like to begin my contribution with a whakataukī: “Ākona a Tama, he ringa hāpai parāoa. Ākona e Hine, tū mai te whare tangata. He āhuru, he ora.”—teaching a boy to uphold courage and the determination of the sperm whale; teaching a girl establishes the sacred house of humanity with warmth and life.

My great-great-grandmother was a suffragist, Edith Marcroft. Now, Edith, at the tender age of 19, boarded the Matilda Wattenbach and headed to New Zealand. She headed to a place called Albertland in 1863. On board the boat Matilda Wattenbach there was a group of people, and they were Nonconformists—Nonconformists in a religious sense, but I think that’s where I got to learn how to swim against the current. Edith and her husband, Edwin, they both supported the temperance cause that swept the nation.

In 1893, they signed the petition to give women the vote, and the petition read: “The petition of the undersigned Women, of the age of 21 years and upwards, resident in the Colony of New Zealand, humbly sheweth:—That large numbers of Women in the Colony have for several years petitioned Parliament to extend the franchise to them.” Including my great-great-grandmother, 32,000 women signed that petition. Why did they sign that petition? Because it was time to give voice to women.

Now, my great-grandmother died in 1937, but she saw women not only getting the vote but the first woman entering Parliament. I give pause sometimes, and I think: did my great-great-grandmother Edith think about any of her descendants—would they ever become members of Parliament; would there be a girl in the family at some point in history that would become a member of Parliament? I’m her descendant now, and I think back and wonder what she was thinking when she signed that petition to give women the vote.

We have, in 2017, elected the largest cohort of Māori women to Parliament. We have increased our overall diversity. MMP has allowed this to happen. We have created pathways to get more women into Parliament, and that is something to celebrate. We have party leadership today, we have senior MPs in this House, who have supported to get women into Parliament. And it is through their support that I stand here today. So I acknowledge my leadership and the support I have had from my senior MPs.

I won’t traverse the numbers of who came first. That has been spoken of already by those before me. But I would just like, on this the 100th year of women entering Parliament, to make a couple of comments. We can see how women are transforming our country. We are owning our voices. We are claiming our power like never before. But, like the collective power of our forbearers, the suffragists, we are bringing to the fore unique possibilities, new ways of doing politics.

The female voice is needed for a balanced contribution to this House, to this country. The power of our own stories, the power of our own values, and the power of our own vision will shape our future. Now, until 100 years ago, the female voice was silent in this place. A hundred years ago, though, we were given legal permission to exercise our right to be a member of Parliament and to stand in our own power. What is it that we have to say? It is not enough that women are in the boardroom, that women are heads of State, and that women are in politics, if we’re just going to mimic patriarchal nonsense that has kept us down before we got here. We need to stand in our own power and use our voice so that we can challenge the status quo, and we are doing that.

On this historic day, I honour all my sisters who stand and bring their voice to this House of Representatives. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today we celebrate 100 years of women winning—or earning, I should say—the right to stand for Parliament. It was, of course, 1919, and, unfortunately, it was many years after that, 1933, before the first female MP was elected. But I do want to just put on record my thanks to the National Council of Women of New Zealand—campaigners of merit back in the day, and also incredible campaigners to this very day who continue to push for issues that women are interested in and are fighting for.

But I thought I would bring a bit of a flavour from the Waikato into this debate, and actually read some of what was the Waikato Times in the passing, actually, of the earlier bill, which was lost in the Legislative Council. This was a speech from the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon WF Massey: “I am sure that women mentally are the equals of men, and very often are the superiors, as men have good reason to know”, and that’s what the Prime Minister said in the passing of the bill immediately before that. Massey went on to say, “I believe that the appearance in Parliament of a number of competent women would have a very good influence.”

That’s why I guess it’s unfortunate that it wasn’t until 1933 that the first female MP was elected. Actually, several of the first, like Elizabeth McCombs, actually replaced their husbands who had been in office and they replaced them. That was the same for, as others have mentioned, the first Māori woman MP, and also, as the Hon Paula Bennett mentioned, Dame Hilda Ross, who was, of course, the first Waikato-based female MP.

I wanted to pay tribute to the other fantastic women parliamentarians who have actually represented the equivalent seat of Taupō. It started, actually, in 1963, when Rona Stevenson was elected as the MP for Taupō, and in 1975, when Marilyn Waring was elected as the MP for Waipā—which, of course, is the northern part of my electorate. There have been a number of occasions, including on Suffrage Day, when I had the opportunity as the Minister for Women to invite Marilyn Waring to speak in Parliament, and she’s had an incredible influence, not just on me but I’m sure on many female members of Parliament who are represented today. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s actually passing the baton. It is the women members of Parliament who have been before us that have had a significant influence on those of us that are here.

As my colleague mentioned, actually it’s about the opportunity and the responsibility to make sure that we are nurturing the next group of women MPs who will come in. In 1984, Katherine O’Regan was then the MP for Waipā. So I do feel particularly privileged to follow a strong line-up of women in the seat that is now known as Taupō. And it’s hard to imagine, actually, what it was like for the women MPs in their days. And I do think that women in this place have been a positive influence. If I go back to the quote of Prime Minister Massey, I think, actually, that it’s a role and responsibility of every single one of the members of Parliament here to make sure it is a place that we can contribute, do contribute, and actually enjoy being here.

I thought I would comment, though, on the comment when the 1918 legislation was passed. It was seen to be quite futuristic, actually, in the passing of the bill—or actually the query that the Upper House might reject the bill by the council, which, of course, it had already denied other rights in the House. And the comment that it would be another nail in the coffin of the two-Chamber system. So it’s somewhat ironic that, actually, the end of that system—they didn’t support women MPs in the start. The new electoral system that we have today and have had now since the 90s—mixed-member proportional—has been a significant contributor to the number of women we have in this Parliament and our opportunity to contribute to improving the quality of lives of all New Zealanders. Long may it last and may every woman in this place support another 10 to get here.

Although the Electoral Act of 1893 accorded women the right to vote, we weren’t allowed to stand for Parliament—it’s hard to imagine that in this day and age. This finally became possible when the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act was passed in 1919. It’s appropriate that 100 years on we reflect on our progress and our future challenges. I am very proud to be a woman member in the New Zealand Parliament and I’m very well aware of the footsteps in which many of us now tread.

I want to particularly recognise Elizabeth McCombs: the first woman elected to Parliament. She was elected to represent Lyttelton in 1933—that’s the electorate I was elected to represent in 1993, just 60 years later. Elizabeth was also the first out vegetarian in our Parliament, and, as a fellow vegetarian, I want to acknowledge that we’re less in the closet these days. She was elected following the death of her husband, James. Despite her credentials as a city councillor, as chair of the city’s electricity committee, as a North Canterbury Hospital member, as a member of the Christchurch tramway board, and she was a justice of the peace, it was still feared by her party—and I’m sorry to admit it was our party: Labour. Labour hesitated to confirm her as their candidate because they couldn’t imagine that a woman would be able to hold the seat, particularly given that it had such a shaky majority under her husband: just a 32-vote majority. But their concerns were not warranted.

Her opponent, who was an independent Labour candidate, said at one meeting, “I believe the difficulties of the country are too great for women to grapple with.” The Press, our esteemed daily paper, noted that the handicap of being a woman would likely count more against her than any special feminist support that she might receive. A woman, probably from Ilam electorate, wrote to the paper and said, “We shall not see anything better in our Parliament because a woman is there. For all the good or harm any woman in Parliament will … do, she would be a thousand times better engaged in attending to her natural domestic duties.” As it turned out, Elizabeth McCombs was an effective Opposition MP, frequently speaking out in support of women’s rights and reforms to help the unemployed.

Again, back to our esteemed daily paper. With the election of Elizabeth as New Zealand’s first woman MP, it was time for important questions to be asked. “Will she wear a hat or will she not?” The Press earnestly inquired. “Will the Governor-General in the speech from the throne address the House as ‘Honourable Lady and Gentlemen’ or will he compromise with ‘Honourable Members’?” Well, Parliament was never the same again. The “Ladies Not Admitted” sign had to be removed from the restaurant and billiard room at Bellamy’s, and, on her first day, an unaccompanied sight of bouquets brightened the debating chamber.

As well as Elizabeth, I also want to acknowledge another woman from my electorate, Gladys Boyd, who was one of the first two women elected to the council in 1947. We have some pensioner cottages named after her: the Boyd Cottages in Lyttleton. At the reopening ceremony for them recently after their post-quake repairs were completed, her family member told a story of Gladys’ husband walking back from the waterfront where he worked, and his mate yelled out from across the road: “So where’s Gladys tonight?” And he said, “I don’t know. She’s on every board except the blimmin ironing board.”

Lots of progress has been made on issues for equality in New Zealand, but we have big challenges ahead. The two most pressing, from my perspective, are addressing the scourge of domestic violence and sexual abuse in our country, and the second is pay equity—equal pay for work of equal value. It doesn’t feel like a big ask, but we’re not there yet. I was only the 37th woman elected to our Parliament. I’m delighted to see the change that has occurred during my short 26-year tenure, so that our Parliament is increasingly a House of Representatives. It needs more, but I think we’ve come a long way and I’m really enjoying hearing the contribution of other women members of Parliament in this debate. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, as No. 37 resumes her seat, No. 110 stands to her feet to support this motion today. I am very glad it’s given the title that it is, actually, because I think this is about winning the vote; it was not given to women. There used to be a lot of discussion about how women sat about, genteelly almost, and were handed on a plate—a silver plate, probably—the right to vote, the right to stand for Parliament. This was not the case. It was a big fight, it was a close-fought fight, and it took a very long time.

I thought it would be useful to recap on some of the really stellar moments that have led us to the historic place that we are at today in the House, with around 40 percent of all representatives being of the “feminine persuasion”, as it used to be called. We are women and we are proud to be in this House, and there have been in my time a lot of changes, not so much since 2011, but from the time I was first around this Chamber when I was part of the press gallery in the late 1980s. It was in my position as the first woman presenter of Morning Report, actually, that I encountered a lot of flak, and there was a lot of discussion among male colleagues in journalism about why on earth you would want a woman in the job—a New Zealand woman in any job—with a twangy accent. So I came from an environment in the media where I was not unused to some unusual, sexist, strange, old attitudes.

But I found it here in the House as well, when I came over here. I remember when Ruth Richardson dared to breastfeed in the Chamber. In fact, it was just out in the lobby I think that the first event occurred. And now—Willow-Jean Prime nods—it’s very commonplace for this to occur, and even on occasion for the Speaker to snatch up an unsuspecting child and bear that child off to the Speaker’s Chair. This is a child-friendly place now, and so it ought to be, but it was not always the case. So, on a day like today, when we recognise people like Mabel Howard, who was the first woman Cabinet Minister—she served from 1943 to 1969. It is for what she did in 1954 that really, perhaps, consolidated her position in history, because, as a flamboyant individual, she held aloft two pairs of her own bloomers. We understand they were both clean and respectable, but they were vast, and they were vastly different from each other. And her point in an otherwise, from what we can gather, moribund debate was that not all sizes were created equal; there needed to be some standardisation. I believe she won the day not only because of the strength of her arguments but because of the size of her bloomers. I’m not sure how we could replicate that in the modern political arena; I don’t think we would want to.

It took till 1996 for an Asian woman to come into Parliament—Pansy Wong. We had Winnie Laban. She and I were at school together, and I remember the great pride many of us felt at the time when she came into Parliament in 1999 as not only the first Pasifika woman but then one who went into Cabinet as well. So there has been much to celebrate, but there’s still a long way to go.

Dame Hilda Ross was somebody who my colleague the Hon Paula Bennett referred to earlier. Hilda Ross is something of a touchstone to National Party women. She is somebody who has inspired and, through the trust that we’ve set up, does help enable future generations of women to crash through that large barrier and to become a member of Parliament. It’s not an easy thing to do. Others have mentioned how hard it is just to get into this place, never mind about staying here.

When I was elected in 2011 on the North Shore, I was the first woman candidate for National to be even selected, never mind elected. I was told by several of the dowagers of the good parish of the North Shore that that good place was not really for a woman member yet, and that I’d better wait my time and my turn.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Or were they just not ready for Maggie Barry?

Yes, possibly they were not ready for Maggie Barry; that could have been the subtext of what she was saying. In fact, there were a lot of individuals who felt that the time was not necessarily right for a woman to take over. I don’t know when they thought it might occur, but what I have noted is that a lot of women knock a lot of other women. So your worst critics can actually come from within your own gender, and that’s always been something of a mystery to me. The men have a certain predictability about them—obviously males in this Chamber notwithstanding—but, certainly, the women have taken it to a whole new vicious level. And what Hilda Ross and others have shown us, very eloquently—and Dame Jenny Shipley as New Zealand’s first woman Prime Minister—is that you’ve just got to do it. You’ve just got to get out there and make a difference; believe in yourself and back yourself, and that is why I am very proud today to stand as number 110 in Parliament to support the motion about women winning their place. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

It’s an honour for me to stand in this debate too, to pay tribute to those that fought for the right for women to stand for Parliament in New Zealand. And, at the same time, I also pay tribute to those who fought for the right for women to vote in New Zealand. I am number 107; I was the second Pacific woman in the New Zealand Parliament, and I want to start by acknowledging all of the Pacific women that have graced this place. Already, who has been mentioned? Minister Luamanuvao Winnie Laban; myself; then Asenati Lole-Taylor with New Zealand First; Poto Williams, our member of Parliament for Christchurch East; Jenny Salesa, our member of Parliament for Manukau East; Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, list MP; and Agnes Loheni, list MP. I don’t know, whether back in 1999, when Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban became the first Pacific member of Parliament, that she would have envisaged that in 20 years’ time there would have been seven Pacific women that have been in this place. At the moment, we have four of those seven here at this very time—four? Five—five, I think.

Can I acknowledge the Pacific women that have been here, and I want to do that because of the fact that representation is important; representation of women, but representation of diverse women. We know that in New Zealand, Pacific and Māori women remain under-represented in many of the areas where women, in general, are making progress. Some of those areas have been touched on, but I need to point out that, despite the good work that this Government is doing, Māori and Pacific women still, for example, experience more of a pay gap than others, there is a higher percentage in lower-skilled work, and there are still major issues that disproportionately affect Māori and Pacific women, including family and sexual violence. That is why representation is so important. As a Pacific woman, we don’t just look at our New Zealand Parliament and want to move forward with making sure that we do get to the 50-50 percent representation—we’re at 40 percent at the moment—but we look across our Pacific region. Many of the Māori and Pacific women in this room have been working hard to try and support Pacific countries with also lifting representation, keeping in mind that the average across the Pacific region, when you exclude New Zealand and Australia, is only around eight percent representation for women.

I want to acknowledge the fact that progress needs to continue to be made. We aren’t at 50 percent yet, and there are areas where women are still disproportionately disadvantaged to a certain extent. And I want to acknowledge the Speaker and his role that he has played in making this place more family friendly. There are younger members of Parliament in the New Zealand Parliament now. There are more women members of Parliament, and, as a consequence, there are more children of parliamentarians. In fact, when we got into Government I remember the Crown car drivers saying that they had to go out and do an urgent shop for car seats because they’d never experienced this many children of Ministers before. I think that’s a very strong signal that not only are we increasing the representation of women but we have a younger representation in this place as well.

I want to point out to the House that, not only for women but for parents in general, being an MP, being a Minister, being a Prime Minister, is not a part-time job. It is more than a full-time job. If anything, all of us that have children—and I have two; when I first came in my eldest was 10, when I came in the second time I had an 18-month-old baby because I thought I’d be productive during that three-year sabbatical. We understand coming into this place that this job is demanding, and that if anything is going to be part-time it is our parenting that is reduced to part-time, actually. So we are reliant on our grandparents, on our extended family members, on our partners to pick up the slack there in respect of supporting the raising of our children. So, I wanted to make that point: this is not a part-time job for anyone in here.

I’ll end with some words from a very popular Labour Party karaoke song for Labour women; I won’t sing it, I’ll just do the words:

[We are] woman, hear [us] roar

In numbers too big to ignore

And [we] know too much to go back and pretend

‘Cause I’ve heard it all before

And I’ve been down … on the floor

No one’s ever gonna keep me down again

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is my pleasure to stand and voice my support for the 100th year of a woman’s right to stand for election in New Zealand’s House of Representatives. Although it’s not possible for us to do this on 29 October, it was on 29 October 1919 that this law was passed in this House, and I want to say that it is an honour for me to stand here and to pay tribute to the brave women of our past.

I want to focus my contribution today on the journey of Māori women into politics. And so I start with the suffragist, Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, nō Te Rarawa, who stood in the Māori Parliament on 18 May 1893, where she requested that not only should women be given the right to participate in the selection of members, but Māori women should be given the right to vote and be eligible to sit in the Māori Parliament, thus going a step further, in that time, than the contemporary aims of the European suffrage movement. Her argument was based on the premise that many Māori women owned and administered their own lands, either because they had no male relatives or because the women were more competent. She claimed that although the chiefs had appealed to Queen Victoria over Māori problems, she felt that Māori women would have been received much better by the Queen because they got things done.

While her drive for Māori women in politics seemed to fade after her speech in the Māori Parliament, her legacy has continued on today, and I just need to look around this House and see—and I was reminded by the legacy that she left for us all those years ago. For our Māori women, our journey into Parliament began in 1949, over 30 years after women were able to stand for Parliament, and 56 years after women won the right to vote. Iriaka Rātana, we have heard her name placed in this House today, won the Western Maori seat from her husband who passed away—along with many other women who stood in this Parliament as MPs, taking over the role of their husbands—and she did it in her own right, but that’s how she came in here.

Today, we have come a long way with our very first Māori woman Deputy Prime Minister in the Hon Paula Bennett, and the very first Māori political woman to establish the first independent Māori political party and lead it to victory, the Hon Dame Tariana Turia. Written, along with all of this, are the many Māori women leaders who have come in and have made their mark; that have paved the way for people like myself and a number of other Māori women MPs, to stand for Parliament. These women are Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who held the mantle of the Māori Queen; Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi, for a strong voice for kōhanga reo; Dame Naida Glavish, who greeted a caller with the words “Kia ora”, and was a fighter for Māori health, and so it goes on.

The history of political women leaders is not confined to Parliament, as we can see. We have Māori women leaders across all facets of our lives. Just recently, we have had the voting in of the new Ngāpuhi chair, Mere Mangu, who is another woman who has stepped up into the leadership role, and Lisa Tūmahai from Ngāi Tahu.

Yes, there have been a number of Māori women leaders who have started their leadership styles in iwi and in hapū, and that has led them here today. They have taken the voice of their people into this Parliament, and they are the ones that have set the pathway for our rangatahi wāhine to come here and represent their people and their agenda. These are all the women that we celebrate here today.

There are many, many more I could have mentioned, but I’d be still standing here tomorrow and the next day, so I will conclude my contribution. I look forward to what the next 100 years of this Parliament has to offer up for women, and I too would like to see more women represented in this House to give women a voice that balances out the debate in this House. So, without any further ado, I close my contribution with a whakataukī, and it goes like this: “Poipoia te kākano kia puāwai”—nurture the seed and it will blossom. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Today is the day that we remember our parliamentary and country’s history. On 3 October 1919, Sir Frances Bell moved the third reading of the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Bill in the Legislative Council. The vote was won by 19 to three, and on 29 October 1919, women were allowed to stand for our Parliament.

I want to reiterate the introduction of this debate by Minister Genter, when she said we won the right to stand for Parliament, and we actually did win the right. We won the right to vote in 1893, and what many of us now know is that in addition to getting the vote, we were explicitly excluded from being able to stand. That right was taken out at the third reading of the bill. The people of the time thought that with it in there, we weren’t going to win the vote, but if you look back at history, there were a lot of shenanigans that were being played out behind the scenes. Even our ability to stand in 1919 was actually a vote by the Legislative Council, and if you look at the debate at that time, the Legislative Council did not want women to be appointed by the Governor-General, and that was one of the amendments that was made for the Legislative Council to vote for that particular bill.

So, throughout our history, we have had to fight every step of the way to be allowed to vote and to be allowed to stand and, actually, for the selections within our respective parties, to be quite frank. Like many of us here, I am the first woman who’s ever been the member of Parliament for Manurewa, so I really want to take the opportunity to highlight that it was through the collective action of women that these opportunities were created.

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union movement later morphed into the National Council of Women, and also there were the debates that we did have in the Te Kotahitanga Parliament. I want to quote something from Premier Seddon’s biographer at the time, Tom Brooking, with regard to us being able to stand for Parliament in 1919. He wrote—and I quote—“No Government promoting itself liberal, advanced and progressive could afford to swim against such a democratic tide.” So we were allowed to stand because, as a post - World War I assessment of women, we had proved our worth. We had kept the home fires burning, and the feminists of the time essentially shamed the Government for failing to keep up with international developments.

I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the tuākana that we have in the House. They are No. 37, the Hon Ruth Dyson; No. 56, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta; No. 74, the Deputy Speaker, the Hon Anne Tolley; and No. 78, the Hon Judith Collins. They are the ones in this House who have been here the longest and who I look up to as our tuākana. I think about that concept because when I look outside of this House, it’s people like Marilyn Waring, who’s our external tuakana. She’s No. 15, and can I also note that she was No. 1 in terms of LGBTIQ members of Parliament, and there have been 16 of us.

I also want to acknowledge our Prime Ministers: No. 28, Dame Jenny Shipley; No. 17, Helen Clark; and No. 99 Jacinda Ardern. I also want to acknowledge No. 76, the Hon Margaret Wilson. An amazing woman, and the first ever female Speaker, who, in 2007, advocated for a code of conduct for MPs. So, 12 years later, thanks to Mr Speaker and the Francis review, we have the Hon Anne Tolley, who is leading that kaupapa for us in the House today.

So when I think about where we have come from and where we’re going, it is on the shoulders of these amazing champions, and for my last minute, I want to highlight that 20 of us have passed—20 of the 150 have passed. Overall, we’ve been about 10.5 percent, and when I think about the statistics between 1935 and 1975, there were 312 MPs and 14 were women—4.5 percent—and in the House today, we’re 48, and we’re 40 percent. But we have lost Elizabeth McCombs, Stewart, Dreaver, Grigg, Howard, Ross, Ratana, McMillan, Tombleson, Stevenson, Tirikatene-Sullivan, Batchelor, Jelicich, and Dewe. We have also lost No. 19, Margaret Shields; No. 25, Katherine O’Regan; No. 26, Sonja Davies; No. 33, Gail McIntosh; No. 54, Alamein Kopu; and No. 65, Helen Duncan. I want to acknowledge those amazing women, those pioneers who came before us. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in the privileged position, being the last speaker in this debate, and I’d like to acknowledge all my sisterhood who have arisen to speak on this topic. I feel extremely honoured and privileged to be woman MP No. 105, and I have this little camellia to prove so. It has No. 105 on it, and it was gifted to us as members of Parliament, being women members of Parliament in this Chamber.

I’d like to begin my contribution by quoting one of the maiden speeches that I have become aware of, by the fifth woman MP on the National side, Colleen Dewe. It was given in 1976, when she said—and I quote—“My hope is that I am merely a forerunner of many professionally qualified women who will realise that the surest way of encouraging women to involve themselves in public life and to ensure that opportunities for women in commerce and industry are available is to become a member of this House.” It is to get involved. She also said that “It must be the right of every woman, just as it is the right of every man, to choose her career in life.”

We are privileged in the House, in New Zealand, to be given the right to become a member of Parliament—an equal right—unlike many people around the world.

I come from a country where the common word for women who make a fuss at home and at school is ajummas waving their skirts around—their ajumma power. They say it in a derogatory way in Korea, when mothers get involved in the issues of their children at school. They look down upon those women who fight for the rights of their children by calling them, in a derogatory way, ajumma power. We should be very proud of the ajumma power that women feel when they feel strongly enough to get up and to get involved.

In this House, sometimes I’m a little bit jealous of my colleague Amy Adams for the letters “AA”. Amy Adams gave her number—No. 98, I believe—and I am only No. 105 because I’m Melissa Lee.

But it is really wonderful. The first Asian woman to become a member of Parliament in this House was back in 1996: the Hon Pansy Wong. She was the first Asian woman. After more than a hundred years of Asian people living in this country, she was the first. She was a great role model for me, and she was part-way responsible for my path to actually come to this House. She encouraged me. I wasn’t so sure if I actually wanted to have a public life, having seen people being criticised.

Often, Asian people don’t like the sorts of challenges that happen in the House and the combative nature of public life, and I think, often, that is one of the reasons why a lot of ethnic women do not put themselves forward. So I’d like to acknowledge my ethnic Asian MPs who are currently here. Golriz Ghahraman is here, Dr Parmjeet Parmar is here, and Priyanca Radhakrishnan is here, and they are the only women apart from Pansy Wong who have been in this House. There aren’t that many Asian women, and I hope that there will be more Asian women who actually put themselves forward. I put the challenge out so that they will actually come into this House, because they have so much to actually contribute to this House in public service, and I think they will do an extremely great job. I’d also like to quote the words of—oh, gosh—Esme Tombleson, MP for Gisborne in 1961, where she also said that more women are needed in every sphere of endeavour. Parliament is one of those. She also quoted that we need more women in science as well. I’d like to hope that I stand on the shoulders of my forebears, who have actually come before me, and I hope that the future generation will stand on my shoulders to represent the womenfolk in this country.

I don’t have a lot of time left, but I’d like to call upon my sisterhood to rise in celebration with a waiata, if you would actually give us permission.

💬 SPEAKER: I have.

Very good. We’re going to be singing “Ka Waiata”.

Ka waiata ki a Maria

Hine i whakaae

Whakameatia mai

Te whare tangata.

Hine pūrotu

Hine ngākau

Hine rangimārie

Ko te whaea

Ko te whaea

O te ao

Ko te whaea

Ko te whaea

O te ao

Kia ora, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Let us sing to Mary

She who said yes

Let something happen

She allowed that she would carry.

A beautiful girl

A strong-hearted girl

A humble girl

The mother

The mother

of the whole world

The mother

The mother

of the whole world

Thank you one and all.]

Motion agreed to.