Hayes JoanneJOANNE HAYES (National): Tēnā koe.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Just one moment. Is this a split call?JOANNE HAYES: No. I am pleased to take a call in this important debate today as the only female speaker on this side of the House. Before I do I just want to acknowledge our Pacific parliamentarians up in the Speaker's gallery. Talofa lava malo e lelei bula vinaka faakalofa lahi atu kia orana fakatalofa atu malo ni mauri yokwe namaste bonjour gidday mate kia ora and greetings. Nau mai haere mai ki Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa. I also want to acknowledge the ambassador sitting up the gallery Matua Shane Jones. Tēnā koe Matua.Before I get into my speech I want to give my condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the earthquake on Monday in Kaikōura. It was in the early hours and it was a tragedy for them. I want to also acknowledge the resilient families and communities of Kaikōura and the Hurunui. I have found a whakataukī that was said in this House during the Christchurch earthquakes and it goes like this: ahakoa whati te manga e takoto ana anō te kōhiwi [although the branch may break off the trunk will continue to remain]. Although a branch may be broken off a tree if the foundations are strong the survival is assured. And I am confident that the survival and the future prosperity of Kaikōura and the east coast of that area and the farmland will once again be prosperous in the future.As the woman speaker on this side of the House in this debate I want to talk a little bit about being a woman MP and how we get to be women MPs. I want to talk about encouraging Pasifika women to stand for office and to get in there and to show that they are just as good if not better than the male counterparts whom they stand against. I want to talk about this because those were some of the issues that were brought up when we attended the Pacific Women's Parliamentary Partnerships Project in Samoa this year. At that conference we spoke about a lot of things but we spoke mainly about Pacific Island women standing for office and it is really really important because women bring a certain element to Parliament. They bring about a softness that only women have. They think about things from a broader perspective as mothers as daughters as friends to each other. They bring about that openness that only women have because we are sisters—sisters as one.When we look across the House and we look at all the women in this House that is exactly what we bring to the debates in this House. We have a group here called Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. We are a cross-party group and our job our main core job is to support women—to support women within the Pacific areas to be able to stand not just for Parliament but also in local government areas.I want to talk about women's health because women know what women need. Women do not need to be told what they want. They know what they want. They know what they need and they need that voice to be able to do that and to be able to express that. As I listened to the chair of our subcommittee Alfred Ngaro he mentioned three words—lead by example—and that is exactly what women do. Women parliamentarians they lead by example. We are strong. That is what we are here for. We are strong and we need to carry that on. We need to demonstrate that and be role models for our daughters and our mokopuna. We need to do that. That is the burden that we carry. Is it a burden? No. It is a love. It is a love that we carry.In the last few days when I have been participating in the Pacific Parliamentary Forum I have had some interesting discussions with a number of you. One of them was an area around—and I am moving across into some of the environmental issues faced within the Pacific Islands that have not been discussed today. One of the areas I talked about with a couple of you was around domestic waste. It was actually around sanitation and the issues of sanitation on small Islands and on some bigger Islands. One of the areas that was about was how New Zealand can help the Pacific Islands to manage sanitation issues in the Islands. Some of the things that I asked some of the MPs were: So what kind of information have you gained from that from your discussions from your meetings?".I am pleased to say that New Zealand has been able to share information to share ideas and to hand over some precious information about how sanitation is managed here in New Zealand and what will actually work within the various and respective Islands that you come from. That to me—when we start picking up little pieces of information that we can take back to our respective Islands then we know that our forum this forum here this year is a big success. The second area is—we were visited last week by two MPs from Kiribati. They came to talk about fisheries and the issues that they have with fisheries management in Kiribati. One of the things that they talked about was managing their fishing zones and their fishing vessels. I said to them when we met with them last week: "Were we able to help you? Were we able to share that information about how you manage fishing vessels the staff the whole area around looking after the fisheries area besides the ocean management side of things—the business side of fisheries as well?". I was pleased to hear them say: "Yes we have been given all the information we need to take home and be able to sort out the things that will work for us in Kiribati." Thirdly I want to talk a little bit about coastal erosion because that is so big with climate change with rising sea levels. The meeting that we had with Beca in Auckland actually helped me to see the work that we are doing in the Islands through Beca and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We can see the type of work especially around the management of coastal erosion. As I was listening to the discussion that we had in Auckland one of the presenters talked to me about going to Apia and helping with the seawall—maintaining and strengthening the seawall in Apia. I have walked along that seawall and it is lovely. It is absolutely beautiful there in Apia and you can see that there needs to be some more help there to build it up and strengthen it. Those are some of the things that this organisation Beca is doing. Not only did we see that at the presentation but we also saw extension of runways rebuilding of runways—making sure that existing runways are maintained so that there is safe transport throughout the Islands. That is absolutely critical to the connection that the Islands will have with other places besides New Zealand and Australia. That is the key way—the transport in and out. When we start to look at things like that the impact of the Western World the Western things—the trinkets of the Western World have made their way back to the Islands. The waste that has actually come from Western World trinkets is starting to pile up in the Islands—rusted old cars plastic bottles. All of those things that we see here which we are managing are building up in the Islands and making a very big headache for those living there. It is taking over. So anything we can do to help to give some advice about how to manage that type of waste and it is a big type of waste—New Zealand has a few tools in its kete which it will share with the Islands. Finally as I start to wrap up my speech our Minister for Climate Change Issues the Hon Paula Bennett is in Marrakech at the moment and our fabulous Minister for Ethnic Communities and Minister of Local Government the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga talked a little bit about that—about COP-22 Marrakech 2016. Our Minister got up and she gave an amazing speech but she also talked about being so proud to announce that she has advised the secretariat of the United Nations that New Zealand's ratification of the Paris Agreement should also include Tokelau. So it is absolutely amazing that Tokelau can be included in our agreement as well. It has been a privilege to stand and speak today to be able to address our manuhiri up in the gallery. I hope that you have enjoyed your time here and will enjoy tomorrow when we sit and watch you speak in the House. I wish you well. Any time that you need some help—please the door is open for you to contact us here in New Zealand. So without any further ado thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Poto Williams—5 minutes."