Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well as No. 37 resumes her seat No. 110 stands to her feet to support this motion today. I am very glad it's given the title that it is actually because I think this is about winning the vote; it was not given to women. There used to be a lot of discussion about how women sat about genteelly almost and were handed on a plate—a silver plate probably—the right to vote the right to stand for Parliament. This was not the case. It was a big fight it was a close-fought fight and it took a very long time. I thought it would be useful to recap on some of the really stellar moments that have led us to the historic place that we are at today in the House with around 40 percent of all representatives being of the feminine persuasion" as it used to be called. We are women and we are proud to be in this House and there have been in my time a lot of changes not so much since 2011 but from the time I was first around this Chamber when I was part of the press gallery in the late 1980s. It was in my position as the first woman presenter of Morning Report actually that I encountered a lot of flak and there was a lot of discussion among male colleagues in journalism about why on earth you would want a woman in the job—a New Zealand woman in any job—with a twangy accent. So I came from an environment in the media where I was not unused to some unusual sexist strange old attitudes.But I found it here in the House as well when I came over here. I remember when Ruth Richardson dared to breastfeed in the Chamber. In fact it was just out in the lobby I think that the first event occurred. And now—Willow-Jean Prime nods—it's very commonplace for this to occur and even on occasion for the Speaker to snatch up an unsuspecting child and bear that child off to the Speaker's Chair. This is a child-friendly place now and so it ought to be but it was not always the case. So on a day like today when we recognise people like Mabel Howard who was the first woman Cabinet Minister—she served from 1943 to 1969. It is for what she did in 1954 that really perhaps consolidated her position in history because as a flamboyant individual she held aloft two pairs of her own bloomers. We understand they were both clean and respectable but they were vast and they were vastly different from each other. And her point in an otherwise from what we can gather moribund debate was that not all sizes were created equal; there needed to be some standardisation. I believe she won the day not only because of the strength of her arguments but because of the size of her bloomers. I'm not sure how we could replicate that in the modern political arena; I don't think we would want to. It took till 1996 for an Asian woman to come into Parliament—Pansy Wong. We had Winnie Laban. She and I were at school together and I remember the great pride many of us felt at the time when she came into Parliament in 1999 as not only the first Pasifika woman but then one who went into Cabinet as well. So there has been much to celebrate but there's still a long way to go.Dame Hilda Ross was somebody who my colleague the Hon Paula Bennett referred to earlier. Hilda Ross is something of a touchstone to National Party women. She is somebody who has inspired and through the trust that we've set up does help enable future generations of women to crash through that large barrier and to become a member of Parliament. It's not an easy thing to do. Others have mentioned how hard it is just to get into this place never mind about staying here. When I was elected in 2011 on the North Shore I was the first woman candidate for National to be even selected never mind elected. I was told by several of the dowagers of the good parish of the North Shore that that good place was not really for a woman member yet and that I'd better wait my time and my turn.Hon Dr Nick Smith: Or were they just not ready for Maggie Barry?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: Yes possibly they were not ready for Maggie Barry; that could have been the subtext of what she was saying. In fact there were a lot of individuals who felt that the time was not necessarily right for a woman to take over. I don't know when they thought it might occur but what I have noted is that a lot of women knock a lot of other women. So your worst critics can actually come from within your own gender and that's always been something of a mystery to me. The men have a certain predictability about them—obviously males in this Chamber notwithstanding—but certainly the women have taken it to a whole new vicious level. And what Hilda Ross and others have shown us very eloquently—and Dame Jenny Shipley as New Zealand's first woman Prime Minister—is that you've just got to do it. You've just got to get out there and make a difference; believe in yourself and back yourself and that is why I am very proud today to stand as number 110 in Parliament to support the motion about women winning their place. Thank you Mr Speaker."