Bennett Paula: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bennett Paula: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of the National Party for the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill that the member Lynne Pillay has put forward today. I cannot help but start by stating that girls can do anything. On my own behalf I would like to add that we do not all want to do everything. But for those who do and who want to be in a combat situation and want to be in the armed forces I certainly think: “Good on them and why shouldn’t they?”. If this bill will take away that little bit of legalese from the principal Act then National will stand up for it. The bill certainly has my support. 
I have done a bit of research into the legislation over the last few days—particularly yesterday and today—as I knew it was coming up. One of the things that struck me after talking to many in the armed forces was that women do have opportunities to be in those roles. In fact someone very close to me who is in the armed forces made it very clear that there is no discrimination against women. He said: “Boy by crikey help you and you will not have a job within the armed forces if you are seen to be promoting on the basis of gender and not on the basis of the best person for the job.” That is something we should recognise because we are so quick to go out there and condemn people for separating the genders for putting women down and for saying they are not good enough to be given equal opportunity. If there is no discrimination in our armed forces despite the Human Rights Act at the moment then they deserve some recognition for that and for the opportunities they are giving. 
I agree with previous speakers that it is a disappointment that our own Government does not do this and does not recognise the one woman Nancy Wake who has done so much in that regard. I hope that perhaps that message has come through tonight even more strongly as well as the fact that so many people believe that she deserves recognition. 
As has been stated the legislation is just changing the descriptions that are there to stop discrimination and prevent it from happening. The speech made by Minister Lianne Dalziel was beautifully read. I think she read it really well. It is a shame that as Minister she has not put this legislation through herself; she could have done it relatively easily. It is a shame that it has needed to go through everything and that it has taken so long. We could have done it more simply if we had needed to instead of proposing it as a member’s bill and hoping it would get pulled from the ballot. From my obviously very new recognition that is the difference. We had to hope that this bill would be pulled from the ballot instead of the Government putting it through in the last few years. 
With regard to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and this bill being a step towards it I proudly stand up as a New Zealander and on behalf of National in recognition that society has moved so far along. I agree that we can look back 20 years and then look at where women are today. But it is these sorts of battles that we still need to be fighting. 
Let us look at combat and women in the armed forces. There has been much discussion in the House today on women in those sorts of roles what could happen to them in combat situations and the reasons. One of the interesting things for me in talking about women in the armed forces was that the many people I spoke to said that in some cases there would be reasons—and quite good reasons—why women should not go into certain situations. Then those people stated there would be cases when people with brown skin or of a certain height could not go into certain situations. In fact everything is taken into consideration in certain combat situations. Such considerations are not necessarily based on gender but on suitability for certain situations at certain times. We put faith in our armed forces that they recognise the safety of people with particular religious beliefs a particular sexuality and that sort of thing as they relate to the extreme cases and situations that unfortunately the world finds itself in at this time. 
I am happy to be standing here and defending women’s rights to have equal opportunities out there. If this is one more small step towards them then National can certainly commend this bill.