Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): It is such an honour to rise and speak to this bill. This is such a historic moment in New Zealand's history and to get to stand up and speak to this—I am a little bit overwhelmed by the fact that I get to do this.First of all I want to add my thanks to Kristine Bartlett; my union E tū also joined by the New Zealand Public Service Association and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation; and of course Peter Cranney the lawyer who started this crusade in the courts; and to name John Ryall and Cee Payne and Erin Polaczuk and Alastair Duncan and of course Helen Kelly who was loved by all of us and who was a critical part in this process. I also want to acknowledge some of the non-union women in terms of Prue Hyman Linda Hill and Martha Coleman who have been fighting this fight and providing the context and the support for this for a very long time.This is indeed a result of over 120 years of women's and unions' struggle to get to our first pay equity settlement out of our equal pay legislation. This is worth celebrating. While I say that I do acknowledge that this is a settlement and there are some details in that that I will go through in a minute. But I do want to talk just briefly about why pay equity is so important. It is kind of like it should not need to be said but it probably does. Pay equity is ensuring that women get equal pay for the work of equal value to male-dominated professions. It is about giving those women dignity enabling them to live lives that reflect the value of their work.So often in this process I heard from women who were almost embarrassed to talk about the money. So often—and this is probably an issue—it was not so much about the money; it was actually having the acknowledgment of their value and the importance of the work. For me there is something about—this is a righting of an imbalance in our society about us actually getting the chance to say that caring matters. For us as a country we want people to care for each other and that is something that needs valuing. For me this is at the heart of pay equity. It is about getting our values in line and making sure that our society reflects and our people's pay reflects what is just bloody important.I also just want to say that it is obviously around addressing inequality and gender-based inequality but this will in this settlement also have positive outcomes for ethnic inequalities in our society. It is worth celebrating on that point as well.This piece of legislation is the legislative expression of a settlement that was achieved by the unions and the Government and it will increase from 1 July—very very soon—the pay rates for some workers to $23.50. Most of those workers will be on or around the minimum wage at the moment. Within 5 years those on the level 4 qualification will get up to $27 per hour for their work. We do not know whether that is exactly pay equity because the comparator work was not done through this process but we know that this is a pretty good step towards equality and I am not going to be curmudgeonly enough not to celebrate that. It is a pretty incredible achievement.We do have to acknowledge that the Government was brought kicking and screaming to this process all lawyered up and fighting it every step of the way and it is lovely to hear the Government members stand up and say: Two billion dollars—aren't we great? This is amazing." I hope that this side of the House just sits with that experience of how good it feels to acknowledge the value of undervalued and exploited women and to end that exploitation because there is a whole bunch of other women waiting and their time has come. I am so looking forward to seeing the legislation in this House to support social workers to support school support workers to support hospital administrators—to support all of them to get the dignity that they deserve. Just remember how good it feels to do the right thing and go into your negotiations with that feeling and an open mind.There are some other details in the legislation that it is worth touching on because they have been kind of controversial. One of them is around the funding and the point has been made that a lot of the providers said to us that this is not covering all the costs that it is not covering the oncosts or the full cost of training costs or accrued leave costs or the internal relativities in terms of the fact that the managers' pay will probably have to go up. Our understanding is that this legislation is to enact the settlement so those aspects were not part of the settlement and it is not appropriate for them to have been. This is just about enacting the settlement but the Government has to make sure that these providers those other costs that have been acknowledged in this process will be funded through the next contract. We do acknowledge that there is a tension in this process and that we have set up a system that will encourage people to settle their contracts because that is the only way that they are going to get those additional costs addressed. People need to know and the Government needs to know that we are watching. We are watching that process and we do not want good not-for-profit community-based ethical providers who want to do well by their staff and their clients to close down because you are not willing to pay the proper cost of the oncosts of this.I also want to say to employers in terms of this that I put up an amendment to clarify that you are legally not able to cut workers' hours because of the increase in pay. That amendment did not go through and I hope it did not go through—and I am going to put it on the record that it did not—because that is the law as it is at the moment and it was just a restating of it. I want those employers—and I have heard of two today that have already said that from 1 July hours will be cut—to know that the unions will be watching you. If there are any workers out there who are not in their unions who are watching this then union up and make sure that we can hold your employer to account. We will in this House be supporting that process.I do want to say I guess to finish up that we are conscious of the Government bringing new legislation to the House soon that—from the draft we saw of it—will make this process more difficult. I know the Government disputes that but everyone I have spoken to who has been involved in this process has said that that is what is contained in that legislation. Everyone who is celebrating this amazing moment for us as a country to express our values and what is important to us should stand up to make sure that that right—this process this moment—is not taken away from any other worker.Finally just to go back to what this is all about and to just give my thanks to all of these women—and the men—who have done this work for the years and years and years of love and care and heartache and stress that you have and you know the personal cost that you have borne through this exploitation and the difficulty of surviving on minimum wage and doing this work. I want to say on behalf of myself that I am sorry it has taken this long and credit to you for getting it here. You deserve this and more.I am left with the memory of visiting a care service where an old man was saying thank you to his caregivers and at the end of his speech he stumbled. The caregivers were there in a second and bringing him back to his seat and they made everything all right. He was a man who had been a public servant had been erudite and had grown into his life and now he was completely reliant on these women for kindness and for his ability to be with dignity. For us to be able to acknowledge those workers today in providing dignity is a thing of beauty."