Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I'm proud to stand in this House tonight and say that National will support this final reading of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill. And I'm proud that our party has contributed to crafting this legislation and bringing it to the House. We support the simple concept that people should be paid the same for the same work regardless of their gender and we support the equally important concept that if someone has been doing work and there are reasonable grounds to believe that that work has been historically undervalued based on their gender and has been underpaid because of that they should be able to make a pay equity claim. So we support this bill but I do want to put on the record some regrets that we have about the way that this legislation has come through this House.The first regret I have is around the unnecessary delay in finalising the framework that this bill provides. Because what it does as the Minister outlined in her speech is provide a more effective bargaining framework to resolve pay equity claims so they need not all go to court. Of course this was a process that National kicked off in the last Government with recommendations coming from the joint working group on pay equity in 2016. A bill was drafted things were ready to go there was a change of Government. So my colleague Denise Lee who believes very passionately in the concept of equal pay and pay equity took a member's bill to this Parliament to progress pay equity in the absence of the new Government picking up where National had left off. And I think it is of continuing shame to the members opposite that when Denise Lee's bill was picked from the ballot and came to this House and with the provision of a very sound framework for equal pay and pay equity bargaining members opposite chose not to act in good faith.What they could've done is pick that bill up in 2018 and they could've taken it to the select committee and made amendments to it. Instead what they did was they rejected that bill entirely in what I think was a piece of unnecessary partisan politics on an issue that need not require that. What that meant was we then waited and waited for a bill to be introduced and of course the bill was symbolically introduced at the anniversary of women's suffrage which is nice in terms of the timing of the press release but actually just amounted to delay. And what we have seen since is ongoing delay. So here we are in the last three-week session of this Parliament and finally this bill is being passed.I do also want to note—and it's going to be at midnight when it passes I think. I do also want to note that a very substantial Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) has been tabled amending the bill quite significantly. I note the constructive approach of the Minister who said that she has been working behind the scenes with BusinessNZ and the unions on that SOP but I do want to put on the record my concern that that SOP hasn't been tested via the select committee process—it hasn't been tested by public submission by public questioning; members of the public haven't had the opportunity to have their say on what's in that SOP. The reason I raise that concern is there is always a risk when legislation is passed in this way late at night with SOPs that haven't been responded to that there are remaining—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I'm going to interrupt the member. This is a third reading. The SOP passed through the committee of the whole House. This is the time to debate the bill as accepted by the committee of the whole House not to relitigate the actual SOPs or the process. I've given the member a very long time to try to get all of that that she said—and she can get it in order but she needs to do that now.NICOLA WILLIS: The reason this matters is in commenting on the final form of this bill there is always going to be a concern that there is something in this bill that members on both sides of the House have missed that will create an issue into the future. So I want to put on the record that we are hopeful this process works as well as possible for all parties to it. We want to see women being able to progress their claims for pay equity as easily as possible and we want to see employers being engaged in good faith in that process to address claims. But should there be issues and should there be problems I want it noted that the process may have contributed to those issues.I want to end my contribution by saying that actually this is an important moment. Equal pay matters. We still have an outstanding gender pay gap in this country. We all I believe want to live in a country and a world in which men and women have equal opportunities are equally rewarded for their work and are able to progress and fulfil their own potential to the maximum extent possible. This legislation provides a further step in the right direction and I commend it to the House.