Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to rise in support of this Equal Pay Amendment Bill. I particularly want to pay tribute to Jan Logie and to Catherine Delahunty and I want to say: you are a rock star Jan. You are a true rock star—not someone else mentioned in the House earlier today.I actually want to start with a quote from Dr Jackie Blue who challenges our Minister for Women who she noted has been vocal about information her ministry released earlier this year to support this bill to select committee. And what information was that? That was information that the Ministry for Women and Auckland University of Technology released that said 80 percent of the gender pay gap is due to both conscious and unconscious bias. And what does that mean? Bias—an inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group especially in a way considered to be unfair. We also noted from that piece of research that there are pay differentials between working mothers and fathers of 17 percent and the labour market gender pay gap is 12 percent.So what is this bill going to do? It is going to create transparency in workplaces so that we all know which employers are not paying women as much as men. That is the hallelujah moment everybody.I am going to take a bit of a different slant on this legislation in terms of its relevance. I want to note the White Ribbon accreditation process in Australia. This is about workplaces that commit to eliminating family violence essentially. What that programme does is it builds on existing gender equality and diversity programmes. So it is about strengthening a culture of respect and gender equality at all levels of the organisation. It is about responding to and preventing violence against women supporting all employees to challenge inappropriate behaviour and strengthening gender equality within the broader community. Because guess what everybody: family violence is preventable.So this bill is directly relevant to family violence. If that Government is going to tell New Zealanders that it is committed to ending family violence and it has got a bill before the House the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill—well this piece of legislation is equally as relevant to that kaupapa. Family violence being preventable actually is about an ecological model of changing behaviour. So how do we change behaviour? We change behaviour by highlighting inequality or practices that are unfair to women. That is what this piece of legislation will do. And then it actually becomes a determinant of that workplace or the sector to want to address it. But how can you want to address it if it is not transparently out there so that there is something we can do about it?Accredited workplaces under the White Ribbon Workplace Accreditation Programme demonstrate effective leadership. They drive social change. They strengthen gender equality. And in doing so guess what? They help stop violence against women. I think actually employers and organisations such as Countdown are going to lead in this area as well. We saw earlier this week that Countdown has released a transgender policy. How awesome that Countdown as an employer of 18000 people is going to take the step of having a transgender policy that is all about respect. It is all about people being supported in their transition. It is all about transparency and fundamentally it is about the rights of workers in the workplace.I think Countdown and The Warehouse—because The Warehouse in Australia is a White Ribbon - accredited organisation—are actually going to show up this Government. The reality in this space is the Government is not showing the leadership the Minister for Women is not showing the leadership the Prime Minister is not showing the leadership but corporate New Zealand is showing the leadership because actually it cares about its workers. That is fundamentally what this piece of legislation is about. Do you care about the workers in your workplace? Do you want to help create a gender-equal society? Well if you do—and if that National Government truly was committed to reducing family violence in the community then it would support this bill at minimum to select committee. Let us have the discussion. Let us see where it fits. Let us show how committed we are to making sure that women and men are treated equally in New Zealand. I 100 percent support this bill. Kia ora.