Kerekere ElizabethDr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā koe. It is a great pleasure to use my first time in a general debate to acknowledge that we are in Transgender Awareness Week. Ngā mihi atu ki ngā takatāpui irawhiti whakawāhine tangata ira tāne [I acknowledge our whole homosexual transgender and non-binary community] all our trans and non-binary whānau from Māori and Pasifika communities but also for our migrant refugee and asylum-seeking people. I want to acknowledge those we have lost. There are many issues facing our trans and non-binary whānau. In particular I want to mihi to the memories of Carmen Chrissy Witoko Jennifer Miss Lee" Edwards and even though she's not Māori I want to acknowledge Dana de Milo because she was a long-time member of the Māori Women's Welfare League and we absolutely welcomed her into our communities.Now if anybody wants to know more about trans and non-binary people I refer them to this amazing amazing report. This is Counting Ourselves: The health and wellbeing of trans and non-binary people in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ngā mihi to the research team that did this work an incredible amount of work with almost 12000 people who answered the first survey about this. Now this includes issues around gender-affirming care provider knowledge and competency healthcare access barriers mental health and wellbeing substance use school sport discrimination safety and violence identity documents material hardship family-whānau community connectedness and demographic group differences. The great news is this is available to anybody; you can get this online.Right now the Counting Ourselves team—they launched their survey in Parliament; they hosted that event earlier this year—have opened up a second survey and so I want to take this opportunity to encourage anybody who is trans - non-binary to take part in that because the nature of this kind of research is something that directly informs our work in the community and in this House. This is part of the work that when we had the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act we referred to this kind of research. It's a comprehensive anonymous survey on the health and wellbeing of trans and non-binary people living in Aotearoa. You can fill this out online or in hard copy if you are 18 years or older.I just want to acknowledge that many people don't naturally associate with the terms "trans" and "non-binary"; they're not always sure if it covers them so I just want to acknowledge the range of terms that our people use in all of the different languages and nations of people who are in our country. So for example: trans transgender transsexual takatāpui irawhiti trans woman transfeminine whakawahine fa'afafine fakaleiti or leiti fakafifine akava'ine vakasalewalewa trans man transmasculine tangata ira tāne fa'atama akatāne non-binary tāhine genderqueer irakē gender fluid irahuri gender diverse irahuhua cross-dresser bi-gender pangender demi-gender agender and also trans people who just identify as a woman or as a man. The deadline for this is 30 November if you know somebody that would fit into this.Know that those stories are so important to tell for the rest of us. The goal of this is to help improve the health of trans and non-binary people in Aotearoa. As a cisgender ally I am really really proud to do that shout-out for them today.Finally I want to acknowledge the legendary Georgina Beyer. She was the first transgender woman in a Parliament anywhere in the world. That was from 1999 to 2007—15 years ago. I challenge my party and all of the parties in this House to see who is going to elect the next trans - non-binary person into this House. Kia ora."