Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): 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.