Williams ArenaADDRESS IN REPLYARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): I move That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency's speech. Mr Speaker I congratulate you on your election to the Speaker and acknowledge this House.E te Whare e tū nei tēnā koe. He mihi atu ki a koutou e pupuri ana ki te mana o te whenua nei tēnā koutou e Te Āti Awa me Taranaki Whānui hoki. E ngā huihui o te motu e rau rangatira mā tēnā koutou katoa. [To the House that stands proudly greetings. I would like to acknowledge the holders of the mana of this land Te Āti Awa and Taranaki Whānui thank you. To the people and the leaders from around the country who have gathered here today greetings.]Prime Minister Deputy Prime Minister Leader of the Opposition members of the 53rd Parliament and our guests in the gallery we gather here today to celebrate another chapter in our democracy our democracy as young as Te Tiriti o Waitangi and as old as the talanoa of my voyaging ancestors our democracy of which we are all custodians for the duration of our service. The oath we swore yesterday was of allegiance to our country and a pledge to faithfully protect the democratic institutions which are a taonga for all New Zealanders. These institutions are woven strands in the whāriki of our democracy and while checks and balance on their power are essential to human rights protections we should tread lightly upon them lest we risk undermining democracy itself.I thank the people of Manurewa for electing me to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The humbling weight of their expectations is on my shoulders but their support lifts me up.E taku reo rangatira he whakatauākī e pā ana ki te ingoa o taku mātāmua ko Te Mākahi. Iti te mākahi paoa atu noa pota pota noa."[I now turn to my chiefly language and say this; there is a proverb about the name that was bestowed on my eldest Te Mākahi. "Though the wedge is small deftly struck it shatters large objects."]The meaning of that whakatauāki is this and it refers to my son's name that carries the story of Tuterakiwhanoa who with his mākahi cleaved the valleys and the lakes of the South Island. It means that "Deftly wielded with determination the mākahi though it is small will fell any obstacle" and that is what progressive politics is to me. I believe in a politics that empowers ordinary people to come together to organise and build power in their communities and together to shape our country and build a better life for themselves and their families. Labour has always been the political party that stands for that kind of progressive change and I've seen the power of this change in four generations of my own family. My father Haare Williams is here today. He's in his late 80s or early 90s maybe—we don't know. He's never had a birth certificate. Dad wasn't a poor kid because that would suggest that he didn't have enough money to get by. In fact he had no money never had a reason to see it and never handled it. He was raised by his Māori-speaking grandparents on the shores of the Ōhiwa Harbour in a raupō whare with a dirt floor in a place that was sacred to the Hāhi Ringatū and to Te Kooti. These were people whose first touch-point with the State after years of not being extended the rights of every other citizen was the extension of the old-age pension to Māori by Michael Joseph Savage and the first Labour Government. That meant Dad didn't have to spend his childhood gathering kaimoana and caring for his kui. That meant that he started primary school as a big nine-year-old and learnt to read English from the only book that his grandparents had: the Bible. Peter Fraser's Labour Government put rural school buses on the road and Dad went to high school because of it. After repeating sixth form he made it to teachers college and in the 1980s he became a broadcaster with Māori radio where his voice is still heard today. Dad taught me that there is dignity in humility and that dignity is the most fundamental of all rights. He taught me that a change of opinion isn't a sign of intellectual weakness and how to make peace from conflict. It's his skill of practical peacemaking that I want to bring to my politics: a practical peacefulness for which my tupuna Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki came to learn in his age. Te Kooti's story is documented in a book Encircled Lands by Judith Binney which I read at law school. Te Kooti was falsely imprisoned twice and kept from his land. But despite all that he saw the law as the most powerful tool for change and something which could be a shelter for those oppressed: "Ka kuhu au ki te ture hei matua mō te pani." ["I seek refuge in the law as a parent for the orphaned."]My mum she's Ngāi Tahu. She was a campaigner for sexual and reproductive health and gender equality. As a GP she's looked after some South Auckland families for five generations. She served as a royal commissioner on genetic modification and in countless community organisations and is my model of a woman who gets things done. She also taught me to give without expectations and to love generously. I had many great teachers and mentors at school work and in politics but I'd like to speak about just two of them who serve in Parliament today. The Hon Nanaia Mahuta: papaki kau ngā tai o mihi ki a koe [may the tides of gratitude continue to lap gently towards you]. Since I was a teenager I have been inspired by Nanaia's work in her community and in Parliament. My dad's grandmother was born around 1870. Women couldn't stand for Parliament until 1919 and it wasn't until 1933 that the first woman entered Parliament. It took until 1949 for the first Māori woman to be elected and in the year 2020 we're much closer to the equal participation of women in the exercise of power in this place. I'm grateful to trailblazers like Nanaia who have paved the way for progress for all women in New Zealand. Likewise I've learnt valuable lessons from the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. When she was a list MP in Auckland Central I saw firsthand how hard she worked to advance progressive policy while I was the president of the Auckland University Students Association. She stood out back then as a leader capable of connecting so well with young people. I love that she explicitly talks about kindness. In New Zealand politics we've never been brave enough to talk about the need for kindness in policy making. She's shifted the goalposts and now we expect our politicians not just to be kind in their interactions but to put the welfare of people at the heart of political decisions. Most recently her response to COVID-19 has been a masterclass in the management of a global health and economic crisis. My whānau are here: my wonderful husband Max Hardy and our two little children Te Mākahi and Waioeka. They're giving up a lot so I can serve in this House. I fell in love with Max at uni. He challenges me to do good wherever there is need and he is as much a part of the Labour movement as I am. This job is the next step for us in our commitment to the change we want to see for New Zealand. And I grieve a little as many working parents before me have and many after me will for this time I give up with Waioeka and Te Mākahi who's turning three tomorrow—happy birthday baby. They will no longer have a mum who is at every playdate and rocks them to sleep. I hope when they're older that they'll understand that there were other kids in Manurewa who needed me too: kids with rotten teeth in one of the wealthiest countries in the world kids without warm dry homes kids I met in schools whose eyes light up when they meet a politician who looks and talks like them. Doing my best for the future of my kids means fighting for all families in Aotearoa. Mr Speaker it's my privilege and pleasure to introduce you to some of the people in the gallery above us who believe in the power of local democracy: volunteers for my campaign—among them doctors students retirees unionists a COVID returnee an African freedom fighter a solo mum of three a bus driver and a temple leader. Some I have been organising with since I was a teenager and some I met in the final months of the campaign. I see in them a practical manifestation of the community organising politics that I believe in. So thank you Cameron Jacob-Sauer Melissa Cosgrove Helena Fairhurst David Hopkins Faisal Halabi Ray Boxter Andrew MacDonald Raj Singh Kurt Sharpe Paul Protheroe Dawn Trenberth Len Richards Jill Ovens Christine Hawea Kharag Singh Sam and Erica Bookman Ilango Krishnamoorthy Brooke Loader Viiga Alapati and Naresh Perinpanayagam. Thank you Mel Britt Sonny Harley Sioeli Chandan Lynn Ben Poppy Seamus Raewyn Sam Flor McKenzie Shankar Antonia Sione Ofa Matt Josh Shane Shari Kim Tutamure Kororia Annabel Maria Gadiel Sago Reece Bhupinder Ranbir Teisa Arthur. Thanks Amar Ash Alice Aloka Ella Eric Caleb Judith Linda Jessie Harman Sukhwinder Kamaljit Kuldeep Taran Joy Bill Zara Kathy Craig Laura and Patrick. Thank you for your part in building our movement. My thanks also to Louisa Wall for her work in Parliament and for Manurewa. I look forward to serving in this House with her. I want to highlight three issues that I care dearly about. They're not the only issues I'll work on in my time here but they're important to me and to Manurewa. Housing: every family in New Zealand deserves a warm dry home. This Government also believes in building more houses and we need to strengthen basic protections for renters. In Manurewa 56 percent of homes are rented. Health: I served as a member of the Waitematā District Health Board. I'm committed to a prevention strategy at the top of the cliff. Better maternal and mental healthcare dental care and diabetes prevention will save lives and money. We need to address invisible and physical barriers to local healthcare access.Justice: during law school I was a community probation officer at Panmure and in my early 20s I was seeing men my age—mostly Māori—being caught up in a failing system. I was working there as the new bail laws were coming into effect and I saw firsthand how small policy tweaks can unintentionally change someone's entire experiences of the justice system and ultimately lead to longer and more punitive sentences. Over the last decade I've given deep thought to systematic justice reform. The impact of domestic violence and violent head trauma on women's offending is poorly understood. Bail and sentencing laws can be unjust and counterproductive and offending against people in custody is inhumane. It's not just; nor is it restorative. As the Hon Grant Robertson said in this House we send people to prison as a punishment not for punishment. There are four prisons in the Manurewa electorate and their men women and young people are my constituents too. I'm one of the youngest members here. I first ran for Parliament aged 24 and now I join this House aged 31. My generation—people in their 20s and 30s—and our kids' generation will bear the brunt of the decisions we make this term. This is especially true for inequality and for protecting our natural environment. Now is the time to address racial inequality across all sectors address insecure work and household debt and take bold steps to level the playing field between generations to clean up waterways mobilise the world to fight climate change and prepare communities for global warming's worst effects. As we build back from COVID we have a strong mandate from New Zealand and especially from the youngest people in this country to do the hard mahi for generational change.I am proud to be a member of this progressive Labour Government. I am proud to be a member of the most diverse Government in New Zealand's history which looks more like the country it has been given the job of managing. We still need other voices here—people with disabilities our growing Asian communities. I will do my part to ensure their fuller participation in our democracy.At the beginning of my speech I spoke of the oath I made yesterday to my country but this is my oath to my whānau and my friends who are here to support me today: I promise to be kind to keep people at the heart of my decision making to lead by empowering organisers and communities to lift up the voices of ordinary people and to work hard on their behalf.Kei ngā mana kei ngā reo kei te Whare e te Māngai me ōku hoa o te Whare Pāremata tēnā tātou.[To the leaders to the voices of authority to the House to the Speaker and to my parliamentary colleagues thank you.][Applause] Waiata"