Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): It is incredibly humbling to be here to be able to stand in support today. It is a special day. I will start by acknowledging the petition of Wiremu Demchick. The petition asks That in the matter of those who were convicted of consensual homosexual acts prior to the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 the House (a) promptly issue an official apology to those convicted and (b) pass legislation which sets out a process for reversing the convictions of those convicted both living and deceased in a manner which upholds the mana and dignity of those convicted." That is why we are here today.I had the honour of hosting Wiremu Demchick in my office today. Even he himself admits that it was not purely him but a whole lot of people who have campaigned and have caused us to be standing here on such an important day when we return the mana to people who are just us. They are just our family they are just our friends they are just our elders and they are just part of our communities and our homes and our society. I want to acknowledge in particular a young man who was murdered for being gay when I was a young girl. Homophobia has killed too many people and even more than killing people it has harmed people in a way that has been traumatic for generations actually. I cannot stand today without thinking about a particular man who was killed for being gay. I think about what he lost in his life. Maybe he might have chosen to be a father with a lover or with a husband. Maybe he might have been an amazing uncle. Maybe he might have been a grandfather. Who knows because he lost his life. I send my love to his family because the person who stole his life was my family. Homophobia has taken too many lives and today it is an honour to put some mana back into the lives that we have taken.I want to acknowledge the people in Te Ao Māori who have continued to fight to return to our pre-colonised notions of what sexuality homosexuality and whānau actually are. If we had all as a world held on to the more inclusive notions that define you starting from your whakapapa we would all be better off today. If we had all welcomed the less narrow and restricting definitions of who stands with mana we would all be better off today—people like Dr Leonie Pīhama Dr Mera Penehira and Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku alongside so many others who are working so hard to restore those true meanings of whānau of whakapapa of sexuality of gender and of what the definition of "family" is.There is a lot of healing that hopefully can be recognised. Today is one important—possibly small but important—start of the work that we all have to keep doing. The lives damaged by homophobia the lives damaged by the legalised homophobia that the House of Representatives upheld for far too long—one second of that legislation was far too long and we upheld it for far longer than one second. I look forward to the changes that this action and many other actions makes of recognising that those people are just ours—that we belong to them and they belong to us. I look forward to the work that we will continue to do together including expunging the criminal records of people who are just our whānau.I want to finish up by again sending my love to the family of the young man whose life was taken by my uncle. We lost two men to homophobia. Thank you."