Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare talofa lava and mabuhay to our Filipino community in attendance and namaste to our Nepalese community here for Everest Day at Parliament.Now it's been 125 years since women got the vote but it's sad that we have to acknowledge that to this day women are still waiting to get fair pay and get paid what they're worth. My colleague Liz Craig already very thoroughly explained the case that we refer to as the Terranova case that Kristine Bartlett and her union E tū had to fight for and run through three court cases. It is also really important in this case to see that the role of the unions is so crucial in taking these cases on because without the unions Kristine Bartlett would have had very little opportunity by herself.Now there has been a bit of discussion from the other side about people that were not here at the time of the pay equity settlement in 2017. Well I wasn't a member of Parliament but I was working in the union and I did see all of the women who came together at meetings expressing their disgust at the National Party and the then National Government trying to stop the law from going through. Basically what happened at the time—and I'd just like to set the record straight because previous speakers Michael Woodhouse and also Nicky Wagner completely misinterpreted or misunderstood the way things have happened under their watch. Basically what happened at the time is after this settlement was made the unions had to take a separate claim—that was quite correct—but that was because the National Government refused to include the mental health and addiction support workers in that particular care and support agreement. They had the Ministry of Health come along and say Look on behalf of the National Government you are not to include these mental health and addiction support workers."—these very supportive supporting and deserving workers as Ms Wagner pointed out—"You're not to include them in here."So that's why we're here. We are righting a wrong today a wrong that was done to these workers by the National Government. I'd like to point out that that group was specifically written out of that settlement and that is actually showing so clearly why this coalition Government is different from the previous National Government because we believe that improving mental health and addiction outcomes for our people is a top priority and deliberately excluding people who support and help our most vulnerable really shows you that a National Government at the time didn't care. First of all they had to be dragged through the courts to get to this settlement and then secondly they wrote out such a deserving group of people that we now have to put back into the law.Now I started my speech also by saying that women are still waiting to get fair pay to get paid what they're worth and that is really what we're doing now. This is fair pay. This is really what the Government is bringing in and I would like to congratulate everyone involved in this process because this is really paving the way forward as the Minister has said. This is a fair pay agreement. It's nothing else than that. It's a fair pay agreement for 55000 workers in the care and support worker industry now joined by the 5000 mental health and addiction support workers. It just clearly shows that this Government is tackling the long-term problems that are facing the country. We do know that not everything can be fixed overnight but we are righting the wrongs done over the last nine years. We are making a start. There's a lot more to do but we're getting on with the job and we're doing exactly that. Thank you."