Sue Moroney Maiden Speech

15 November 2005

I secondthe motion, that a respectful Address be presented to HerExcellency’s speech.

And in doing so, I record my respectfor her Excellency, Dame Sylvia Cartwright and her role inrepresenting Queen Elizabeth II.

Congratulations to you,Madame Speaker, on your re-election. From one Waikato womanto another, I celebrate the dignified, and fair but firm wayyou conduct business in this House. It is personallyfulfilling for me to be able to deliver my Maiden speechthrough you.

Hearty congratulations to the Prime Minister,the Rt Hon Helen Clark, on her historic third successiveterm as Prime Minister – an awesome achievement for a trulyawesome leader.

I pay my respects to the Member ofParliament for Ohinemuri from 1905-1925, Hugh Poland, who isthe great grandfather of my husband Shane Vugler andtherefore the great, great grandfather of our children Quinnand Logan.

In doing so I acknowledge the involvement andsupport of Shane, Quinn and Logan in all that I do. I amproud to have them here with me today, along with my parentsand other members of my family.

I thank the CambridgeBranch of the NZ Labour Party for their hard work, theirencouragement and support. After 31 years of chipping awayin a part of New Zealand that has not always welcomed theirviews, this hardy bunch of visionaries now has a Member ofParliament among their ranks and I am privileged and humbledto carry that mantle.

I thank the NZ Trade Union movement,particularly my colleagues in the Waikato for theirmentorship and support.

Being a List Member of Parliamentallows me some latitude in deciding who my predecessor is. Ichoose to acknowledge Former Labour List Member, HelenDuncan, in this regard. Helen worked tirelessly in thisHouse under the most difficult of circumstances with herhealth to ensure that the voice of working women was heardhere. In particular I acknowledge her involvement insupporting the introduction and review of the EmploymentRelations Act, 2000.

I applaud her courage in decidingthat the time was right to leave this House to focus onspending time with family and friends, and I wish herwell.

It pleases me to have contributed to this Parliamentreturning a higher proportion of women members than everbefore - women now make up 32% of this House. However, giventhat women are 51% of this country’s population, we havesome way to go before this house can live up to its claim ofbeing truly “representative.”

I note that the NZ LabourParty is doing better than most with 38% of Members beingwomen and I stress the importance of women being elected toParliament who will stand up for the rights of women andchildren. The important contribution that we make to thisHouse, is that we do bring a woman’s perspective and we mustwork to protect and enhance that.

Madame Speaker, thereare three key defining experiences in my life that form thefoundation of my principles and beliefs.

The first wasnot unusual for a New Zealand child – it was the experienceof growing up in a small rural community. For me, that wasthe Waikato community of Walton, where I lived next door totwo sets of cousins who, along with my four siblings, madeup a fair chunk of the roll at Walton Primary School.
Like my colleague, Lynne Pillay MP, our family never hadMichael Joseph Savage on our wall, but we did have a verytasteful mural of a horse race over our fireplace.

My Mumand Dad were dairy farmers and the 80 acres provided ourfamily of seven with the means to get by. While it was notalways easy for my parents to make ends meet, as children weenjoyed a carefree existence in a loving and supportivefamily.

It was in this setting that I learnt theimportance of working together, of valuing each other’sstrengths and accommodating weaknesses. For in smallcommunities, neighbours draw on each other’s resources allof the time. It is how we get by.

Nothing is moredevastating for small communities than in-fighting andbickering. Energy spent on these destructive forces soonmakes small communities dysfunctional.

New Zealand,Aotearoa, is a small community. There is no doubt that we dobest when we draw on each other’s strengths and valuediversity. We have witnessed how successful we can be whenthis approach is taken as it has been in the past six years.When we pull together, we are unbeatable.

Which brings meto the second defining experience in my life so far. Again,not unusual for a New Zealander of my generation – the bigO.E.
I headed off overseas by myself a little earlierthan most, at the tender age of 18. In my naivety, I packedan overnight bag to take away with me. Inside were two setsof clothes, a sleeping bag and my most important cargo – asmany cassettes-full of Kiwi music as the bag could handle.
What I brought back with me two years later was a deeplove and appreciation of New Zealand and its people and ahead full of what I now know to be politicalawakenings.

Two things struck me in particular. Havingspent much time travelling in Ireland, Britain and theMiddle East during the early ‘80s I saw the close connectionbetween intolerance and oppression. Coming from New Zealand,it never occurred to me that intolerance of other’sreligious or cultural beliefs would be used for an excusefor so much bloodshed, just so one group could gain powerover the other. It caused me to reflect on how vital it isfor New Zealand to foster tolerance and understanding. Weare a shining beacon of light in a World dimmed with hatred,suspicion and fear. We must work hard to retain our stanceon this.

My other lasting impression from that definingexperience is the unique gift we have in our tangata whenua.That Maori are our tangata whenua gives us a perspective onlife that no other country has. And yet, while my life waspartly defined by this fact, I had never set foot on a maraeuntil I was in my early 20’s. In fact, I had been the editorof a community newspaper before I had engaged with Maori intheir place, in that unique and thought-provoking way. WhenI look back, I find it disturbing that I was in thatposition where the newspaper I edited and partially wrotepurported to be the “voice of the community” without a goodunderstanding of Maori within that community.

But here’sthe good news. Our two sons, aged 6 and 7, have already beenonto a marae because their state-funded kindergarten tookthem there. And because of what they hear and are taught athome and at school, they both have the most naturalpronunciation of the beautiful Maori language. For them, itis already part of being Kiwi and they don’t have to gooverseas to find out about it. So this is progress and itbodes well for our future.

So if that is what I came backwith, what did I leave behind? All that great Kiwi music wasleft with overseas acquaintances who got a head start on therest of the world in appreciating our unique creativity. Th’Dudes, Dragon, Herbs, Split Enz, Sharon O’Neil and HelloSailor were all great ambassadors.

So, to my thirddefining experience. It was the one that drew on all of myother experiences and put them into context. It is myinvolvement over the past 18 years in the trade unionmovement.

At this point I wish to acknowledge the directand lasting impact on my life of unionists James Ritchie,Hon. Mark Gosche and Carol Gosche, Dr. Linda Sissons, StephBreen, Stephanie Doyle, Linda Holt, Carol Beaumont and agroup of wise Waikato union women who are too numerous tomention individually. It is through the many experiencesand discussions I have had with these people, uniondelegates and union members I have worked with, that givesme the strength of my convictions.

It is through the tradeunion movement that I learnt once again, the power ofworking together, the empowerment in valuing diversity, thefutility of feeling threatened through ignorance and thewisdom of collective decision-making.

It was here that Ilearned the art of advocacy, the importance of strategy andthe satisfaction in standing up for what you believe in.

Ilearned that you win some, and you lose some but you never,ever give up – you just regroup and develop a betterplan.

And another lesson from the farm was reinforcedduring my time in the trade union movement. It goessomething like this – if you want to know how best to getthe job done, ask the people who do the job. Sounds simpleenough, but time and time again I have seen bad managementdecisions being made because the actual workers never had asay or were not listened to. The health system of the 1990swas a particularly bad example of this and the damagingeffects remain with us today.

I represented thepredominantly women members of the NZ Nurses Organisationthrough the harsh industrial climate of the EmploymentContract Act and I learnt how quickly things can be tornapart and how much longer it takes to rebuild them. National Awards that had been negotiated by that union fordecades were decimated within 18 months of the ECA beingenacted, because that legislation made it illegal forworkers to strike for agreements that bound more than oneemployer.

However, even after Labour introduced theEmployment Relations Act promoting collective bargaining andgiving workers back the right to strike over multi employercollective agreements, it has taken five years to get anational agreement back for nurses in the public sector. Thedisparity that had taken place over the 1990s for workersdoing the same job, was so large that national consistencyhad to be put back together piece by painstakingpiece.

Most New Zealand workers are still nowhere neargetting back the type of agreements they lost under the ECA.It is much easier and faster to tear things apart, than torebuild them.

Madame Speaker, because of these threedefining experiences and all of life’s other lessons inbetween I am extremely proud to be a Member of this fifthLabour Government.

Anyone can rule the roost by using thetactics of “divide and rule.” The plan is to attack the mostvulnerable or anyone who is a little different and then therest will want to be in ‘your gang’. You can witness thisstyle of “leadership” in any school yard.

What takes realskill, intelligence and determination and results in abetter place for everyone to live in is the ability to leadby inclusion, to involve everyone and to harness thebenefits of diversity. These are the leadership qualitiesthat I most admire in Helen Clark and the factors that havelead to New Zealand’s success in recentyears.

Understanding the difference in the two leadershipstyles I have just outlined puts the political correctnessdebate into context. Some have struggled to define whatpolitical correctness is. It appears that anything notbelieved or accepted by the majority is politically correctand therefore must be eradicated.

However, I’m going tostick with the literal meaning. Strictly speaking, the termpolitical correctness means the correcting of power. Poweris corrected when rights and recognition are given to thosewho previously didn’t have them and this has the effect oftaking power out of the hands of the few and putting it inthe hands of the many. Therefore, when I hear peoplecomplaining about something being “politically correct” Iknow that they are worried it will pass some power ontoanother group. It’s called power sharing and I’m all forit.

Following the recent election, the media has focussedon divisions within New Zealand – however, what I see aresignificant areas of consensus that create opportunities tokeep moving forward.

For example, during the electioncampaign, everyone agreed that wages are too low in NewZealand. Well, lets get on and get that sorted.

Anotherarea of general agreement was the need to build asustainable future for New Zealand, including how we planfor our energy needs, how we invest in infrastructure andhow we invest in skills development. These issues won’twait.

And I believe the timing is right to improve thebalance between people’s lives and their paid employment.Surely the whole point of having growth in the economy, isto improve our lifestyles. Why else would we strive foreconomic growth?

Several pieces of research now point tous working some of the longest hours in the developed world.This does not make us more productive – on the contrary, itadversely affects our productivity as fatigue sets in andthe risk of making a mistake or having an accidentincreases.

It also has a significant social impact asfamilies miss out on spending valuable time together. That’swhy I welcome a minimum of four weeks’ annual leave for allworkers from 2007. It’s why I want to work on otherinitiatives that address these issues.

As a new Member ofParliament, I feel I am about to have my fourth definingexperience and I expect it will build on my previousthree.

Madame speaker, I have nearly completed my Maidenspeech and have only mentioned horse-racing once. For thosewho appreciate the subtleties in life, please note that thelight blue silks, black sleeves and red cap are very much inthe house today.

For those who have no idea what I amtalking about, it doesn’t matter. Because getting horses torun very fast is one thing – and it is very exciting – buthelping to improve people’s lives, well that’s somethingelse. That’s what I’ve come to Parliament to do and with thelove and support of those who share this vision, I will domy best to achieve that.

Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou, TenaKoutouKatoa.

ENDS

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