Moroney Sue: General Debate 
Moroney Sue: General Debate 
[Volume:669;Page:15743] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 New Zealand women want some answers. They want some answers and they want the Prime Minister to help them find those answers. They want to know where Pansy Wong was when she was supposed to be defending the rights and the responsibilities of New Zealand women in her role as the Minister of Women’s Affairs. 
We have heard today that since Pansy Wong has been Minister she has been in China on six occasions. There were six occasions between November 2008 and 10 September 2010. That is how many times she has been in China when she should have been here in New Zealand defending the decision of that National Government to close down the pay and employment equity unit. Where was she when that unit was being closed down? As the Minister she should have been in Cabinet arguing against that but perhaps she was over in China aiding and abetting her husband’s private business opportunities instead. Where was she when her Government decided not long after she went on the private trip—the taxpayer-funded private trip to do private business in November 2008—to stop pay equity audits for school support staff and for social workers? That is another decision she should have been fending off in her role as Minister of Women’s Affairs. 
Where was she when her Government decided to scrap the contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund? That move will disproportionately disadvantage women who we know because they earn less during their lifetime are absolutely dependent on superannuation funding for the future. Where was Pansy Wong standing up for New Zealand women when that decision was made? Perhaps that was during one of her six trips to China while she was Minister. 
When were those six trips to China? We know about the November 2008 one because Pansy told the Prime Minister about that. She said she was there with taxpayer funding—her husband was using taxpayer funding—to aid and abet his private business opportunities. So we know about that November 2008 trip. But she was back in China in April 2009. Then she was back again in August 2009 just a few months later. She was back again in China in June 2010 back again just 1 month later in July 2010 and then again in September 2010. 
I think that New Zealand women are looking to the Prime Minister to stop hiding Pansy Wong and to have her come out and answer questions about why she was in China so many times and for five of those times on ministerial visits—five of those times were on ministerial visits. I would like to know where she was when her ministry was advising the Government that its bill that extended unfair dismissals to all workplaces was going to disproportionately affect women because of the breaks they have in employment. As for the fourth week of annual leave which most women will find attractive to cash up because they earn less then men do where was she when her ministry was trying to convince the Government not to do that on behalf of New Zealand women workers? Where was she when early childhood education funding was cut by her Government? Was she there advocating for the interests of children and women as the Minister of Women’s Affairs or was she in China aiding and abetting the private business interests of her husband? 
Those are the questions I say to Mr Key that New Zealand women need to have answers to. Pansy Wong was supposed to be advocating for New Zealand women in New Zealand to try to make sure that women were not disadvantaged during this recessionary period. She has failed and we know that she has failed in that because the  
Global Gender Gap Report 
 which came out just a few months ago told us that New Zealand has started to slide backwards internationally in terms of where our women in the workplace stack up in that report. We know that she has failed because the Human Rights Commission recently published a census on women’s participation and again we see the slide backwards for New Zealand women and this was while the Minister of Women’s Affairs was where? Six times she was in China then she was in Australia also in the United States and also in Japan. She needs to front up and tell New Zealand women and the New Zealand public what she was doing on those trips which were approved by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister confirmed for us today that he approved on 11 occasions—11 occasions in 2 years—for the Minister of Women’s Affairs to be not in New Zealand defending women’s interests but overseas.