Williams PotoPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I wonder if we ought to get the member who has just resumed her seat Barbara Kuriger a glass of water so she can swallow that very difficult dead rat she has just had to swallow on behalf of the Government. I was not going to expect anything less than that because—let me give you a little history lesson with regards to the National Party and its record on supporting pay equity. In 1990 when the fourth Labour Government passed the Employment Equity Act what was one of the first things the incoming National Government did? It scrapped it. What else did it do? Not long after Labour established the Department of Labour's pay and employment equity unit the National Government came in and it disestablished that. Not only that but it repurposed the money that was given to the Ministry of Women's Affairs.If this member across the Chamber is talking about the Government's record in terms of gender and pay equity I have to say to Mrs Kuriger that I am sadly disappointed. I actually rate her as a member. I think she is very talented and very competent and I would think that she would be the type of member who would stand up for issues related to women and gender equity. So I apologise on behalf of your Government for you having to swallow the dead rat that you have just had to swallow. I want to commend my colleague and friend Jan Logie because this is a great piece of legislation. It is small but perfectly formed and what it does is it talks about adding transparency to the process.That is what it talks about—just adding some transparency to the process. So we can say to those good employers who actually pay the women in their organisations exactly what they pay the men: Good on you. Ka pai. That is exactly what you should be doing." And for those others who do not do it—look to their example. It is not that hard. All you need to do is tick a box send it into the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and lo and behold you have complied. It is really easy. How hard is it to change a mindset? It is about showing some leadership and that is what this bill does—it shows some leadership and adds transparency.I am really disappointed in that member who has just resumed her seat because I know that she is very engaged in parliamentary processes that look at raising gender representation for women. I have to say I am a proud member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's women arm the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. Why I raise that is because our tenet is twofold—it is to raise gender representation and it is to mainstream the issues that impact on women. As women parliamentarians each and every one of us has got a responsibility to stand in this House and say that when there are pieces of legislation that impact on us we have got to get behind them 110 percent and we have to bring our male counterparts with us. I have to say that in our party that is exactly what we are doing. We are saying that this is a great bill. It actually says that we are taking some leadership and we are demonstrating to the companies and the businesses of New Zealand that this is how you do it. I am really disappointed that that member and her Government have taken the stand that they have.The other thing I want to mention about this piece of legislation is that if actually as a Parliament or as a Government or as the executive we took the view that we could put our legislation through a gender lens this bill would actually top the list. In terms of supporting the issues of women this bill actually meets the mark. If we looked at budgeting in terms of a gender lens this bill goes a long way to supporting women to actually have the economic empowerment that they deserve. We are not going to do anything in this country about reducing the rates of violence or around ensuring that women actually get the fair deal that they deserve until we look at their economic empowerment and that is what this piece of legislation is saying. It is saying that as a Government we can take some leadership we can actually put our policies through some lenses we can say to business: "All you need to do is actually be transparent and open with the people of New Zealand and we will celebrate you for doing so."We are coming up to supporting breast cancer awareness week and all the issues that our women need to be arguing for in this Parliament and I have to say I am so disappointed—I am absolutely really disappointed—in this Government for its stance on this."