te Heuheu Georgina: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8768] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to rise and take a call in this part of the debate. I am certainly supportive of most of the comments that have been made on both sides of the Chamber. National clearly supports this bill.  
In an earlier debate I asked why if this has been the policy in the armed forces for nearly 7 years—and indeed it has—it has taken so long for the Human Rights (Women in Armed Forces) Amendment Bill to come to the House. In respect of some of the comments made by the previous speaker Russell Fairbrother who talked about democracy and equality and all those things I say that yes those are all fine sentiments and we certainly support them in terms of human rights. But again I note that it took 7 years for this bill to come to the House.  
The bill is here now and we support it. All the speakers so far I think have made reference to what we all did on Anzac Day. That is good. It is great that we have a day like Anzac Day where we can in all solemnity and in celebration really come together all around the country to pay tribute to those New Zealanders who served in theatres of war overseas in the past. Of course increasingly women are part of that experience. We applaud that and we salute it. We can only hope that as time goes on the population mix in our country—which consists of more women than men—is reflected in our armed forces.  
The purpose of the bill as we have heard is to remove the last vestiges of discrimination against women in the armed forces and to allow them to serve in combat roles. My colleague Wayne Mapp—or was it Ron Mark; I think it was Wayne Mapp—was asking what the front line is and what a combat role is in the type of warfare and the type of security and defence that we see today. Sometimes it is difficult to discern but none the less women want to be considered on merit. There is no need for any discrimination of any kind in our armed forces these days when we have had women Prime Ministers a female Chief Justice and females running some of the biggest companies. We want to see that in the armed forces as well. It is a particularly important part of our employment sector and it is absolutely right that this House is supportive of this bill.  
In an earlier debate I made some comments about the numbers of females in the Defence Force. It is slowly rising. In 2002 the overall percentage of female personnel in the New Zealand Defence Force was 14.9. It was 15.8 percent in 2003 16.4 percent in 2004 16.2 percent in 2005 and 16.5 percent in 2006. That is all good too but I would query—given the numbers of females in the New Zealand population—whether the Defence Force has some long-term strategies to lift the numbers of women in the military. I hope it does. Perhaps someone might be able to enlighten us on that because I do think it is important given the way our population is going. Even in terms of the ethnic mix of our population I think it is important that the military has some strategies in place to make sure that its recruitment strategies match the ongoing change in New Zealand’s demographics.  
This bill is a worthwhile bill. In terms of the title and the purpose it is proper and it is overdue. It is right that we acknowledge the valuable role of women in the military. I attended a service in Taupo which is my home town along with Minister Mark Burton. We were both enabled to lay a wreath. As far as I was able to tell I was laying a wreath as a member of the National Party and Mark Burton was laying one as a member of the Labour Party. That is the way the way the RSA and the civic authorities wanted it in our town and that is the way we did it. It was very good to be able to be part of that.