Logie Jan; Rurawhe AdrianJAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Today is 125 years since the women of Aotearoa voted for the first time. In my contribution this afternoon I'd like to talk a little bit about that event and some of our history that I've been learning over the last few years and particularly this year.I grew up having this idea of a linear sense of history moving forward towards more and more rights for women. But it's been over the last few years that actually I've been learning that's not exactly true and that the history of suffrage in this country and women gaining the vote is not exactly a simple story particularly for Māori women. So that's what I want to share in this contribution today because I think it's important that we understand our history and I want to acknowledge for me as a Pākehā woman that I actually haven't understood our history properly in this area and I think it's something worth sharing.I recently visited my local art gallery Pātaka—I live in Porirua—and in there there's an amazing suffrage exhibition that I'd encourage anyone in this area to go and visit. In the exhibition the first three stories are of local women that were really active in the 1700s and the early 1800s who were powerful Māori women leaders.I just want to share the story briefly of Waitohi Te Rauparaha's sister to put the suffrage debate into context today. So she was an important rangatira and trusted strategist and peacemaker of this area invaluable to Ngāti Toa rangatira in those early 1800s. When a Waikato war party was seen on its way to attack Ngāti Toa Waitohi recognised some of her relatives and pleaded with them for peace. Her words were heeded and the attackers returned. Waitohi journeyed south to Porirua with her brother Te Rauparaha to settle on Kāpiti Island. It was Waitohi who persuaded Ngāti Raukawa and other iwi kin to join Ngāti Toa there settling on Kāpiti. The leaders of those iwi noted that they came because Waitohi invited them; that if Te Rauparaha had called they would not have come. This woman she used her diplomacy and intelligence to apportion the land to these iwi who had arrived from the north. Such was her power that this was not about a vote that then invested power in other men to make decisions; this was a supreme leader over multiple peoples and countries in effect who was a Māori woman in power in the early 1800s. So for Māori women gaining the vote in the late 1800s must really be put in the perspective of what had been taken from them in those intervening years that the right to invest a man with the power to make decisions for all the people in this country was a pretty sad recompense actually for what was taken away.I also want to finally acknowledge that today while we celebrate that first vote for what it was it was for mostly non-Māori women who cast their vote on this day and most Māori women first got to cast their vote on 20 December though it was split and it was decided that half-castes could vote on the general role on this day but Māori who had no other lineage had to wait until 20 December. That was for Māori seats and those votes weren't even private. They were in both languages and this history—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired.