Martin TraceyTRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill. Because New Zealand First wants to hear the voices of the individuals involved the unions involved and all those involved we are going to support this bill at first reading to get through to the select committee tomorrow. Both my colleague Ria Bond and I will be sitting in on the hearings because as has been addressed this is a monumental piece of legislation in its own way. But we cannot guarantee our support past that.Unless the unions and unless the women themselves are a hundred percent happy with what is going on here we are not prepared to support the Government. So we want to make sure that this is what the workers want. We want to make sure that this is what was talked about and signed behind closed doors and really made and really arranged between those workers and those unions and not somehow changed as it went from that room to this room. So I make that very clear. We support the bill at first reading. We hope we can support it all the way through but we have seen this Government before.It is interesting sitting here and listening to the Government members rise and talk about how happy they are that this is now going through and what a wonderful thing it is and how the carers really deserve it. I want to go back to 2012 and I want to go back to the Caring Counts report by Dr Judy McGregor. She came to give a briefing to New Zealand First. People may not remember it but actually I was sent by New Zealand First to go to the protest outside TerraNova Homes and Care offices way back then. I was there with Jacinda Ardern. I was a bit green at the time—I had done a bit of protesting but not a lot as an MP. I was not quite sure how far you could go.Judy McGregor when she came to brief us on Caring Counts said that this was a case of State-sanctioned emotional blackmail because the women predominantly who are in this workforce—and Jan Logie remarked upon it—would not leave their clients in the lurch. They would not just walk out and go and protest. They made sure that every protest that they held to draw attention to this issue was done with the least disruption to their clients because they did not see them as clients; they saw them as people.I want people to remember what this Government and its support partners said back then in 2012. John Key said that this deal was a risk to the Budget and possibly to the country's future. That is what he said back in 2013. So there has been a long pull forward and it got here only because Kristine Bartlett and the unions got together and took the Government to court. And quite rightly as was pointed out by my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway from the Labour Party the Government was looking down the barrel of a much bigger settlement. So that drove it to the table.In her report Dr Judy McGregor said that to address the equal employment opportunities issue there needed to be a dignified leadership within Government. Unfortunately we were not able to find it inside this Government and so particularly as women and as a country we had to go and find that leadership in Kristine Bartlett. The dignified leadership of Kristine Bartlett who made herself the figurehead of this movement well supported—absolutely no doubt—by her fellow workers and by the unions. But that woman placed herself at the front of this issue and it was not easy. It has never been easy to be a woman who has stood up and said: I deserve it." It was the message—and it was the message of this Government—that when a woman stood up and said "I do the work. I deserve the pay." somehow she was being selfish. That is what needed to be overcome. That is the criticism that took place when this issue first started.I am not going to take very much more of our time because we do want to get this to the select committee. We do want to hear. We want to make sure that what is written down here is what people believe it to be. I will however comment on the kaiāwhina workforce and Careerforce and the work that has been done after the Caring Counts report on developing that in-place in-workforce training at very low cost to upskill that workforce.I want to remind people about how vulnerable the New Zealanders are who are cared for in their own homes by this workforce. When an untrained person is sent there both of those individuals are physically at risk. That is from personal experience having been called by constituents in Rodney asking for support both for themselves and for their carer. So we will be watching we will be listening—it is a very tight time frame and we understand why. We do not object to the very tight time frame because if this is correct if it is good then we want it to go forward and we want it in place by 1 July. But we will be listening we will be watching and we encourage as many people as possible to come forward in the time frame and submit to the select committee. Thank you."