Moroney SueSUE MORONEY (Labour): It is with genuine excitement that I rise to support this bill today and to celebrate this historic victory for women and their unions because that is no doubt what has happened. It feels quite emotional actually because I still recall on the first day of the Employment Court hearing standing with other women to welcome Kristine Bartlett as she walked into the courtroom in Auckland. I think it was 2012; it seems like an awful long time ago. I had a big bouquet of flowers with me to present to her on behalf of the Labour women's caucus because we felt so strongly about the importance of that case.I have often—because I have done a few media interviews on this issue over the course of that time when people have wanted to ask Well you know why should women get paid more?" and all of those sorts of things—referred to Kristine Bartlett as the Erin Brockovich of New Zealand. That is how it feels to me. She is this actually quite small but fiercely determined woman who took on that Government who took on her employer who took on the patriarchy actually—she and her union and all of the members of those unions—and won. They won the day. And I am looking forward to seeing the dramatisation à la Erin Brockovich—I do not know who is playing Kristine Bartlett; who is going to play her—and seeing actually the story recorded behind this wonderful victory because it has been an awfully long time coming.People may or may not know that prior to coming into Parliament I spent most of my working time actually representing staff in rest homes. I worked for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) based in Hamilton for about a dozen years. That seems to be about the amount of time that I spend in a job these days—a dozen years. It seems to be my limit. I was bargaining and negotiating and representing healthcare assistants and nurses working in rest homes for that period of time and it was a battle that I have taken on for many years—to try to get this group of mainly female workers recognised for the extremely hard and important work that they do. This work of looking after the most vulnerable in our society—our precious elderly—is not only physically draining and physically challenging; it is also emotionally challenging intellectually challenging and mentally challenging. When you think about all those factors that go into providing that expert care and love and support for our elderly is it not about time we recognised the value of that?I want to recognise the unions who took this case to the court. I want to particularly recognise—well I have to call it E tū but I am a bit kind of old-fashioned so I am going to say the servos. I am going to say the servos. That is my union and I feel exceptionally proud of the role that it played in being at the forefront of this. But there also is the Public Service Association and the NZNO my old union as well and their role in this and the Council of Trade Unions. They all worked very strategically together to make sure that this win succeeded. I know that at times they would have had their hearts in their mouths because it was actually a leap of faith really to sit down with a Tory Government and negotiate their way through this. But they took up that challenge they did it and they have won the day.It took far too long. What was the Crown doing actually getting in the way of that? What was the Crown doing arguing against them in the court when it should have been supporting these women and their families—and in fact the men who work in those female-dominated occupations as well? But here is the real problem: if that National Government had not repealed the 1990 pay equity Act brought in by the previous Labour Government—if it had not done that in 1990—you know all those families would have had pay equity more than a decade ago. They would have had it in 1990-91 and their families those generations of those children who have been brought up in next to poverty conditions would not have suffered that if that Government had actually left that Act in place."