Ngobi TerisaTERISA NGOBI (Labour—Ōtaki): Talofa Madam Speaker. Fa'afetai tele lava for the opportunity to arise today and take a call on this bill. But can I first acknowledge please like everyone else including across the House our colleague the Hon Kiritapu Allan—and I have said before but as a newbie settling in she was very supportive gave us a lot of tautoko a lot of guidance and for a new MP that's huge and something we really value. I know I speak for all my other new colleagues when I say we're with you and kia kaha wahine toa. Thank you.I wasn't on—obviously being a newbie I wasn't on the select committee that considered this the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill but I know they considered 16 submissions three of those oral and can I just say thank you for that work. Because this bill isn't just a bill—like others have said—this bill is going to save the lives of many of our women in Aotearoa. So thank you to those on that committee. As other people have said this bill is about modernising the technology and upgrading our systems. Currently like others have said when cervical-screening providers need to access clinical information about individual patients they have to do so by fax. And although I look really young with no wrinkles and no grey hairs I also remember faxes so now I've probably busted myself and am showing my age. But yes I also remember faxes and how long that takes and God forbid if there's a power cut and the fax stops because the line doesn't—it's diabolical. So to be able to be sure that we can modernise our system to make it easier to not only contact our patients but also look up our patients' records—health professionals of course—right there is obviously a lot easier especially for women who are having to come in and talk about smearing our mea. And I feel more comfortable saying that rather than talking about other things—you know cervical smear. So yeah we've also heard tonight that 160 women develop cervical cancer and as has been said before 50 die from cervical cancer. And we know that a majority of them unfortunately are Māori women. So this bill will come some way to making that less and less and will save many more women particularly Māori—and can I say Pacific as well. Because as a Pacific woman—and as I said I'd rather say smear your mea"—and having a Pacific mum growing up and Madam Speaker you may have also experienced this as well: things like this were never talked about in my household. That didn't mean that my mum didn't care about my health or what needed to happen to me as a women; it just was never talked about. So even for me—again showing my age—when I started to have cervical smears it was my friends that took me along to that rather than my mum. I'm happy to say now that there is much more awareness and much more encouragement and much more of an effort to make sure that we are messaging that out to Māori and Pacific women in the channels and the messages and how we need to hear that so then we're getting a bit more of an uptake in our people "smearing their mea" and that's fantastic.However like I said this—although it's small—technical change will make a big difference to women who are feeling very mā when they come in to talk about having to get their mea smeared. So and again I know this is probably quite similar to many Māori women as well—you know being close Moana a Kiwa are cousins of the Pacific people—I can imagine that it's a similar thing having to go in and first of all talk to nurses and doctors that you don't even know or receptionists to talk about why you're there and then having to wait until they back in the day—or sorry even now—fax away your stuff. It can be humiliating. So being able to now make those changes again is going to make that whole process—although I still can't kind of talk about the whole process it will make it a bit easier for many Māori and Pacific women. I know I acknowledged Kiritapu Allan before but can I also acknowledge the work that the Hon Kiritapu Allan is doing in this space at the moment. Again I've just talked about how mā it can be for Māori and Pacific women and how we are getting better at messaging in the right way so that Māori and Pacific women understand and are encouraged to make sure they do their regular smear their meas. What Kiritapu is doing at the moment while going through her own wero to me is just an inspiration that not only is she fighting the really good fight—and she's strong and she's young and she's an inspiration in that field—but she's also thinking about other women. And even on her really bad days and you can see sometimes she might have had a really hard bout of chemo she's still talking about "Hey get out there. Smear your mea." and trying to save women's lives just like this bill is doing.So while this bill is small focusing on modernising the current system this bill is actually mighty in what it actually does. Essentially it saves women and it saves many of our New Zealand women and for that again I am grateful and I want to say fa'afetai tele lava to the select committee who worked on this bill. I also want to acknowledge our Minister Ayesha Verrall who's championing this cause—as well as many others—for women and of course with her announcement around the cervical smear and breast cancer screening as well. Can I just finish by saying it's such an awesome time to be part of this Government when we are making massive changes for all New Zealanders but certainly for our wāhine toa. So I just want to say thank you again fa'afetai tele lava and I commend this bill to the House.Motion agreed to.Bill read a second time."