Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Today is the day that we remember our parliamentary and country's history. On 3 October 1919 Sir Frances Bell moved the third reading of the Women's Parliamentary Rights Bill in the Legislative Council. The vote was won by 19 to three and on 29 October 1919 women were allowed to stand for our Parliament. I want to reiterate the introduction of this debate by Minister Genter when she said we won the right to stand for Parliament and we actually did win the right. We won the right to vote in 1893 and what many of us now know is that in addition to getting the vote we were explicitly excluded from being able to stand. That right was taken out at the third reading of the bill. The people of the time thought that with it in there we weren't going to win the vote but if you look back at history there were a lot of shenanigans that were being played out behind the scenes. Even our ability to stand in 1919 was actually a vote by the Legislative Council and if you look at the debate at that time the Legislative Council did not want women to be appointed by the Governor-General and that was one of the amendments that was made for the Legislative Council to vote for that particular bill. So throughout our history we have had to fight every step of the way to be allowed to vote and to be allowed to stand and actually for the selections within our respective parties to be quite frank. Like many of us here I am the first woman who's ever been the member of Parliament for Manurewa so I really want to take the opportunity to highlight that it was through the collective action of women that these opportunities were created. The Women's Christian Temperance Union movement later morphed into the National Council of Women and also there were the debates that we did have in the Te Kotahitanga Parliament. I want to quote something from Premier Seddon's biographer at the time Tom Brooking with regard to us being able to stand for Parliament in 1919. He wrote—and I quote—No Government promoting itself liberal advanced and progressive could afford to swim against such a democratic tide." So we were allowed to stand because as a post - World War I assessment of women we had proved our worth. We had kept the home fires burning and the feminists of the time essentially shamed the Government for failing to keep up with international developments. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the tuākana that we have in the House. They are No. 37 the Hon Ruth Dyson; No. 56 the Hon Nanaia Mahuta; No. 74 the Deputy Speaker the Hon Anne Tolley; and No. 78 the Hon Judith Collins. They are the ones in this House who have been here the longest and who I look up to as our tuākana. I think about that concept because when I look outside of this House it's people like Marilyn Waring who's our external tuakana. She's No. 15 and can I also note that she was No. 1 in terms of LGBTIQ members of Parliament and there have been 16 of us. I also want to acknowledge our Prime Ministers: No. 28 Dame Jenny Shipley; No. 17 Helen Clark; and No. 99 Jacinda Ardern. I also want to acknowledge No. 76 the Hon Margaret Wilson. An amazing woman and the first ever female Speaker who in 2007 advocated for a code of conduct for MPs. So 12 years later thanks to Mr Speaker and the Francis review we have the Hon Anne Tolley who is leading that kaupapa for us in the House today. So when I think about where we have come from and where we're going it is on the shoulders of these amazing champions and for my last minute I want to highlight that 20 of us have passed—20 of the 150 have passed. Overall we've been about 10.5 percent and when I think about the statistics between 1935 and 1975 there were 312 MPs and 14 were women—4.5 percent—and in the House today we're 48 and we're 40 percent. But we have lost Elizabeth McCombs Stewart Dreaver Grigg Howard Ross Ratana McMillan Tombleson Stevenson Tirikatene-Sullivan Batchelor Jelicich and Dewe. We have also lost No. 19 Margaret Shields; No. 25 Katherine O'Regan; No. 26 Sonja Davies; No. 33 Gail McIntosh; No. 54 Alamein Kopu; and No. 65 Helen Duncan. I want to acknowledge those amazing women those pioneers who came before us. Kia ora."