Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Madam Speaker thank you. I want to thank the members in whose name this bill is sponsored for this momentous occasion. This bill ostensibly updates the definition of the legislation to match what is international best practice but it is so much more than that. This bill demonstrates New Zealand's ability to lead the world in supporting legislation to reduce inequities for women.With this bill being a multi-members' bill I want to thank Jenny Marcroft Golriz Ghahraman Jo Hayes—I wanted to leave Jo till last actually—Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Jo Hayes because their strength of character to work collectively to demonstrate it and to allow for each of us as parties and women to celebrate and share in that is extraordinary. But there are two other women that are notable in this. One is my friend Louisa Wall who has driven a lot of this kaupapa for many many years and the other woman I would like to thank is the Hon Anne Tolley because behind the scenes the Hon Anne Tolley has navigated the parliamentary processes and supported it in a way that only she can with her mana and her respect to allow this process to occur.I am the recent past chair of the New Zealand Parliamentarians' Group on Population and Development and I recently had the honour of leading the delegation to the International Conference on Population Development ICPD25 which is 25 years since the United Nations made the first declaration to support population development in Cairo. Twenty-five years on nations from around the world—9500 delegates—met to reconfirm their commitment to the agenda for population development. At that conference on the very first day the president of Kenya President Kenyatta stood up and said he made the commitment that FGM would be outlawed in Kenya by the year 2022—an extraordinary statement with which to start the conference.This conference was extraordinary in that we openly discussed LGBTQI rights. We openly discussed the issues of trans rights. We stood for a minute's silence to recognise those trans people that had died the year before. I want to say: the context is we are in Africa where Ethiopia and Somalia on the top and eastern border of Kenya have up to 98 percent FGM. So there is an African country standing up for the rights of those women. We also made a commitment to the three zeros by 2030: zero maternal deaths; zero unmet need for family planning which includes safe abortion; and zero gender-based violence which includes harmful practices such as FGM.On the last evening that we were there I hosted a little function for a couple of Kiwis who are doing some plant and food research there and they told me a story and I want to share this story. It's about a woman who works with them. As a young girl she heard the aunties come to the village and she heard the screams of the other young girls who were having the FGM practice upon them by the aunties and she managed to escape for a few hours. She left the village. When she came back her father made the choice to take her and her four sisters away from this practice and away from this village. So she didn't actually get FGM. Her father made the decision to educate his daughters and they have a life that's different from many other women in Africa because of it. Now this woman is a plant technician working for a couple of New Zealand guys in Kenya and making a great life for herself. Why I tell that story is that those two gentlemen were so moved by that that they made a commitment to Kenyan women from that point on to help them be educated. So they use this woman who works for them as a plant technician to educate other women about FGM.I want to commend New Zealand women parliamentarians—the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians but the women in this House. You are just amazing. Thank you so much. I'm so proud of you all. Thank you.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.