4. Women—Employment and Education Rates and Gender Pay GapDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister for WomenWomen—Employment and Education Rates and Gender Pay Gap4. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister for Women: What reports has she received about the progress of women in New Zealand?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Women): This Government of course absolutely backs women to succeed and the latest household labour force survey shows that we have one of the highest ever labour force participation rates for women at 64.5 percent. This puts us fifth-highest I must say in the OECD and well above the OECD average of 51.9 percent. The number of unemployed women of course is also down to 4.9 percent.Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What progress are young women making under the National Government?Hon PAULA BENNETT: Our young women are in a better position than ever to seize the opportunity that this country has to offer them. We have the lowest rate for young women not in education employment or training since we began measuring it in 2004. There are 57 percent fewer young mums on main benefits at the end of 2016 compared with 2009 down from 4263 to 1836 and we have seen—Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise for interrupting our Deputy Prime Minister. There is just so much noise on the other side I simply cannot hear what she is saying.Mr SPEAKER: I was about to rise to my feet. There are two or three serial offenders to my left who have not effectively been quiet throughout question time. I do not want to have to see the end of somebody's parliamentary career with them having to leave in the last few days of them being here but if they are going to continue to interject unreasonably and consistently then I am afraid that members of the Labour caucus leave me no alternative.Hon PAULA BENNETT: I thought we would be celebrating the successes of young women in this country and I want to add to this that we have seen the percentage of girls achieving NCEA level 2 increase from 70.5 percent in 2008 to 81.7 percent in 2016.Grant Robertson: Has the Minister seen any reports of a 37-year-old woman raised in Morrinsville now living in Point Chevalier making excellent progress?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I may have noticed that there has been a bit of a change in the last week but as I say you can change the lead singer but if the band is still singing the same old tune nobody is listening.Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How is the public sector leading the way on promoting women?Hon PAULA BENNETT: As Minister of State Services as well as Minister for Women I think it is absolutely outstanding what the public sector is doing and leading by example. We now have the highest ever percentage of women on State sector boards at 45.3 percent. We have 45 percent of the top three tiers of leaders in the Public Service who are women and 12 of our 29 chief executives are women and we are going to get that to 50 percent. We have also of course ensured that 55000 women in our aged-care sector have got on average a more than 20 percent increase in their wages.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If any of that is remotely true and this Government is doing so much for women why is it so prejudicial against young women trying to get equal pay in a country where they think that they have got a right to be paid equally?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I find that ironic coming from the man who wants to hark back to the good old days in the 1970s where women were not even working and—[Interruption]Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! No. I am just trying to get some silence so that I can hear the point of order. The Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the interests of a fair go for young women could the Minister just answer the question and not try to be a smart alec.Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! When I consider the tone of the question that was asked there was an element of that in the tone of the question that gives a bit of licence to the Deputy Prime Minister to answer the question.Hon PAULA BENNETT: What I will say is that in 1998 and in the early 2000s when that Minister was part of a Government the gender pay gap was at 16.3 percent. It is now at 12 percent and we are bringing that down further.