Sage Eugenie; Tolley AnneHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Mr Speaker thank you. Tēnā koe. It's with very great pride that I stand here as Acting Minister for Women to acknowledge and celebrate 125 years of women's suffrage. Having been out collecting signatures on petitions—again for the asset sales referendum—I know personally just the slog that that takes. But this is in the modern era when we've got telephones and we can easily mobilise. So I pay tribute to the women who more than 125 years ago collected petition signatures in the days when transport was a horse and cart was walking through muddy streets was having to push against the power of a controlling husband or was having to organise late into the night and disobey those husbands. There were women who lost their jobs and much worse because they were fighting for women's suffrage. But it was their collective power that ensured that petitions were brought to this House in 1891 in 1892 and finally in 1893 when it was successful with 32000 signatures that had been collected through a lot of hard slog.The right to vote is a fundamental part of our democracy. It is what brings us all here. It is what gives us the mandate. It is what determines which party is in Government. It's what gives us the strength in select committees to examine the legislation which the Government puts before the House. It is what gives us the mandate to pass law. It is a fundamental right to vote and the fact that it was denied to women for so long and then as a result of all of that advocacy and all of that fighting it was provided in 1893 is something we should celebrate.New Zealand Aotearoa as a country is enormously progressive when it comes to matters electoral. Our MMP Parliament has ensured that we represent New Zealanders much more fairly and that we have more diversity in this place. I think that goes back to those campaigns in the 1890s to provide us with suffrage. As the Prime Minister noted those early suffragists were also campaigning on the issue of equal pay and said that it was the most important issue after the franchise. It had a huge impact on national welfare. So the suffragists knew that getting the vote was only the start. Being fairly valued and being paid in the workplace was next on their agenda.So it's really fitting today and I was very proud to stand alongside Minister Lees-Galloway on the forecourt of Parliament at the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions' picnic and announce this Government has introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to ensure that we have pay equity in New Zealand. For too long women doing very similar work to men—or the same work—have not been paid the same. That will end with the changes to the Equal Pay Act and the ability to use our negotiation and bargaining system to implement pay equity.I want to acknowledge not only the thousands of women who are involved in ensuring that we have the right to vote but all of the hundreds and thousands of women who are working today in female-dominated industries. One of my early jobs was working in a laundry in a rest home and then cleaning toilets and working in the kitchen in that rest home. There were some lovely Pasifika women there but the boss was a man. We followed his orders and I think our pay was significantly less than his. But it's doing that hard work that mahi that is so essential to the way families work that is essential to providing incomes to families and that is essential to how society works. But women doing that work haven't been properly acknowledged and that is why the changes to the legislation are so important in delivering more money to households and ensuring that we move towards a fairer society.I'm here today as Acting Minister for Women because our Minister for Women has a new baby. It's a great place to be a woman in New Zealand right now when our Prime Minister can be in Parliament and have a new baby. The photograph we have just had of all the women MPs in the library with the Prime Minister holding a baby with the Speaker having been in the Chair with a baby reminds us that that is what we are here for. That is why we got the vote. That is why we're changing the law to make it fairer for all families for all tamariki so that they have a better future. That right to vote is the fundamental starting place for that. Tēnā koutou nō reira tēnā koutou.David Seymour: Thank you Madam—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you seeking the call?David Seymour: Yes Madam Deputy Speaker. I called just earlier.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call David Seymour.