Today I was lucky enough to wake up to a live streaming of the formal opening of NZ’s 53rd parliament. We basically just watched the MPs come up one at a time, swear their allegiance to the queen, and then sit back down. What was interesting though was that some MPs chose to swear their allegiance in Maori, and one MP, Naisi Chen, swore her allegiance in both Maori and Chinese.

It made me feel very proud to watch the ceremony, I almost cried. Yesterday Helen Clark posted a photo of when she was in cabinet in the 80s, and besides her and two other women, the whole cabinet was white men.

It’s the 21st century, and I’m proud the House of Representatives in New Zealand is starting to look like the population, like the people they are supposed to represent. I’m also glad because these people, seemingly, weren’t placed their because of tokenism, but because New Zealand has built a culture that tries to emphasize all of our unique abilities, not just that of the patriarch, the ones that used to rule the roost.

Take note, Japan.