Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. Can I add my voice to colleague Joanne Hayes in congratulating the Parliament. We actually are creating history today because we have shown to the world and our constituents and the nation of Aotearoa New Zealand that when we find something that is incredibly important we can collaborate and we can let go of our party political affiliations. So I think that's incredibly significant and I want to acknowledge all the men in the House and thank them sincerely for their support of this piece of legislation.For me it is all about violence. Next year in 2020 we will commemorate Beijing+25 and when we think about that that was about putting women and girls at the centre of trying to create equality in New Zealand and internationally. So from that perspective we're going to pass a piece of legislation in the Beijing+25 years which will signify New Zealand's commitment to ending violence against women and girls.I have to acknowledge the FGM Education Programme. That was established in 1997 and that was formed to actually acknowledge female genital mutilation (FGM) was a practice in New Zealand and we needed to do something about it. So I want to acknowledge Nikki Denholm Ayan and Melissa whose advocacy for this piece of legislation actually started 11 years ago—11 years ago. And it was within the context of a collaboration with the Human Rights Commission initially so I have acknowledge Dr Jackie Blue and now Saunoamaali'i Karanina Sumeo who's our current Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and our Ethnic Minority Women's Rights Alliance of Aotearoa as colleague Joanne Hayes has talked about.So the focus of FGM education was to improve reproductive healthcare services through provider training and support and also to prevent FGM in New Zealand because we had communities who had come as migrants who as Jo articulated before had experienced FGM in their heritage countries. So we do have a problem in New Zealand; I want to be categoric about that. The FGM Education Programme has said that the cultural currency of FGM is relevant today. The reason it is is because it's a social norm and it's a cultural norm. There's pressure on our young girls to conform. And if they don't have it they become ostracised they're despised and there is no pathway for those young women to marriage. So from a heritage perspective pathways to marriage actually guarantee security and provide an economic base for our young women. So we actually do have to understand the cultural context of FGM.So FGM fundamentally is violence against girls and women and it's an indication as UN Women and UNICEF say of a highly gender unequal society. Within that context women are used so men can express their sexuality. It's all about the sexual pleasure of men because one of the consequences of FGM is that women lose the right to have an orgasm. So that's why male circumcision—and I'm putting it on the table—is not the same. So people who want to address male circumcision that's another bill and one of the men can put that up.I want to highlight that FGM education has consulted with our Somali community leaders and they were unanimous in their support for this piece of legislation; the Eritrean leaders and they were unanimous in their support for this legislation; the Ethiopian leaders and again they were unanimous in their support of this legislation; the Indonesian leaders who expressed strong support for this legislation; and also the Kurdish leaders who were strongly in support of this legislation.For us we would never have brought this bill to this Parliament if our communities didn't ask us to. We are doing this because we are in a position to be able to change the laws of this country but fundamentally as a cross-party women's group we stand as representatives of women in our communities. And it's my absolute pleasure as the co-chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians to give voice to those women who want to change the future for our girls. So I'm incredibly proud of what we're doing today and I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.