Ardern JacindaMOTIONSWomen's Suffrage in New Zealand—125th AnniversaryRt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to recognise the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand.SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is none.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I move That this House mark the 125th anniversary of New Zealand women becoming the first in the world to win the right to vote and celebrate the contribution of women to New Zealand's democracy past present and future.Ki ngā wahine toa o tēnei Whare tēnā koutou katoa.[My compliments to the formidable women of this House.]It is a privilege and an honour to be the first to speak in this special debate on this extraordinary day. My words today are intended primarily as a tribute—first and foremost as a tribute—to the women who led the change. To Kate Sheppard to Margaret Sievwright to the 25000 women who signed the petition in 1893 to the women who were the first 40 years later to enter into Parliament to the first Māori woman the first woman in Cabinet the first female Prime Minister the first MP who gave birth the first MP who breastfed in this House—I acknowledge every single trailblazer who has led the way for women in this place.I also acknowledge the mothers of those women because we stand on the shoulders of giants and they stood on the shoulders of mothers and that's a theme for me today. Amongst this seemingly ordinary set of people the seemingly ordinary 25000 women has risen the extraordinary from that small act of signing a petition. They were bookkeepers they were dressmakers they were grocers they were people who saw injustice and they rectified it. But we would be wrong if we assumed that their only quest was for access to this place or to even have a say in it and that had been achieved and we can all move on.Take Margaret Sievwright the woman who presented the suffrage petition alongside Kate Sheppard. Her fight was for equal pay sexual education and equal opportunities—and how far have we come? We still do not have equal pay in this country and that it is why it is so fitting that on this day we have made it a priority to settle pay equity claims. And we continue to make progress. Thousands of women who do vital expert work with the mentally ill with children with additional learning needs—we as a Government are doing what we can to right that longstanding wrong.There is still too much domestic violence and violence perpetrated against women. Until women feel safe in their homes safe in their workplaces safe in their communities on their streets in their relationships we will not have achieved equality in Aotearoa. That's why in the run up to this year's Budget we provided the first increase to baseline funding for front-line family and domestic services like Women's Refuge in 10 years. That was the very least we could do. That's why we supported and this House passed Jan Logie's Domestic Violence—Victims' Protection Bill providing women with time off work to move home or recover from domestic violence and I acknowledge you Jan in that work. The ultimate goal of course is to make sure it's not perpetrated in the first place. Until women have financial security until we lift them out of low-paid work we will not have achieved the ultimate goal of the suffragette movement.But we owe the suffrage movement more than that. As we celebrate 125 years we have to ask ourselves: what has it got us? It's got us all of these wāhine toa in this House it's got us three female Prime Ministers but is that enough? Our young women may no longer question whether society will accept them in Parliament but they may very well question whether Parliament is something they will accept if it's where they want to be. This is not an attractive place of work and I would argue that for both men and women. Measures of success aren't based on how many constituents you've helped but on how many scalps you've claimed. It's not about the policies you've progressed but the amount of gotcha moments you've managed or dodged.Now there's no one to blame. It's a Westminster system Mr Speaker as you well know and it's robust but how many find it an appealing career choice? But we need it to be and not just for women but for people from all walks of life. Let me be clear though: the suffragettes campaigned to have a stake in this place to have a voice and a seat in it not to be treated differently but the same. Hold us to account. Criticise us. Call us out for not doing enough for going too slow for not going fast enough but call us out as politicians. Call us out as leaders. Call us out as humans. Call us out when we do wrong or make mistakes but not when we do things differently. If we want Parliament to reach that milestone of 50 percent women or to be ethnically diverse more diverse in its representation of age or career then it needs to evolve.This place should welcome diversity. It should welcome reaching 50 percent and I hope that one day it will. Then we will finally be in a place where we say that we have respected the suffragette movement and have fully achieved what they set out to achieve. Kia ora koutou.