Address to NZ Labour Party Women's Day

Labour Party Annual Conference
Rotorua

Today is a special day for me on two counts – it is the anniversary of my first election to Parliament in 1990 and, more importantly, it is my first opportunity to address Women's Day at the NZLP Conference as the Minister of Women's Affairs.

In the time I have available I want to reinforce how critical this time is for women to be actively involved in the political wing of the Labour movement. I say that because promoting the advancement of women is not possible in an environment where we spend all our energy fighting to retain what we have.

The question I have been asking since the election is what was the quid pro quo for the more than two million dollars of support from the Exclusive Brethren and other right wing, conservative individuals and organisations that almost bought National an election result they could not otherwise have come close to achieving? I am asking that question, because I have a sense that women would have been paying the price.

I know that the National Party's promise to scrap the Ministry of Women's Affairs was designed to be the headline news to take the focus off the real implications for women should they have been elected, but even that in itself indicates a tolerance for the disparity that exists between men and women on several levels. I remember how quickly after the 1990 election National repealed the employment equity legislation that was due to take effect and which would have compared pay rates with the nature of work performed by nurses and police officers.

When I talk to younger women today, I find that not too many know how hard our forbears had to fight for things they take for granted today. Many think that, because this is the way things are, there is nothing they need to do to either protect or enhance those rights.

Everyone knows that New Zealand led the world in giving women the right to vote, (it is part of our identity as a nation), but many of the other rights we take for granted have been legislated for in my lifetime.

Until 1976, industrial awards contained separate pay rates for men and women for doing exactly the same work. Until 1977, there was no law against sex discrimination in the provision of goods and services. Prior to the passage and implementation of the Contraception, Sterilisation & Abortion Act 1977, New Zealand women had to travel to Australia for safe, legal abortions. Until the mid-1980s there was no law against rape within marriage. Until the mid-1990s domestic violence was not treated anywhere near as seriously as other violence and there is still a long way to go before it is. Paid parental leave was only introduced in 2002.

And, what about doing more than defending what we already have? What about advancing the position of women - or do we just fight a rear-guard action and say, this is "as good as it gets"?

As women we need to take the opportunity such as conferences like these in order to address the issues that matter to us as women, but we must also then seek to engage with the wider community, because they need to be reminded that only a Labour-led government can achieve the things that matter to us as women.

At the same time we need to be mindful of the reality that there is a well resourced, influential international movement that masks its conservative desire to return men to the head of the household, the boardroom and the political arena, behind the language of family values.

No one can argue against the values themselves – they actually are Labour values - but they are used to obscure the real agenda.

My awareness of feminist issues occurred in the 1980's when I became involved in the union movement. We debated the Working Women’s Charter and the relevance, (or should I say irrelevance), of economic theory to the unpaid work of women in the home.

The arguments that were made against the Charter, women re-entering the workforce after having children, access to childcare and even the establishment of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs were the same arguments we hear today.

I attended one of the nationwide series of workshops in Christchurch that led to the establishment of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. A small number of men had enrolled to attend using their initials so they wouldn’t be identified as men until they turned up. I thought they were pathetic, but clearly nervous about what they perceived to be a threat to the natural order of things.

And, that is what the debate is really about - the threat to the natural order of things. That is why Don Brash used the language of the ‘mainstream’ during the election campaign last year – it’s where he is comfortable. That is why he had no trouble accepting help from the non-voting, non-participating Exclusive Brethren, who have a very clear position on the place of women. As they do on other subjects that matter to us – like their firm belief that we should have followed the US and Australia into the war on Iraq.

The irony is that the Exclusive Brethren do not fit the definition of mainstream – they stand apart and they are intolerant of difference.

When I arrived in Parliament in 1990, I watched the free market that he supports in its purest form unleashed on health, education, state housing, ACC. I watched the effects of the benefit cuts and the failure to increase the minimum wage.

I watched the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act, which scrapped national awards and introduced individual contract negotiations in the name of freedom of choice. I watched what the competitive market model did to health, education and ACC. The theory, we were assured, was perfect. The reality was appalling and women in particular were the ones who really felt the consequences. As mothers, as workers and as the head of most single parent households women were sacrificed at the altar of the free market.

I am really proud to be part of a government that has systematically set about putting things right. And it hasn't been easy. We have had to work with other political parties due to the minority status of all our governments since 1999. We have had to work together with a broader range of interest groups and stakeholders to find solutions that take us forward.

We have done that successfully and the credit has to go to the extraordinary leadership of Helen Clark.

The challenge that I want to put to you and this will be reinforced when Ruth speaks this afternoon is that we need to be vigilant as women members of our various communities to challenge some of the language that masquerades as political debate. Women still fall significantly behind men in key areas.

I cannot believe how many times in the past year that I have been asked why we don't have a Ministry of Men's Affairs. I have said that I would be happy to advocate for such if men were on the down side of the gender pay gap; if occupational segregation led to men having most of the low-paid jobs; if primary responsibility for child-rearing and running households meant that an analysis of policies required separate consideration of the impact on men; if men were the primary victims of domestic violence in the overwhelming numbers that we see now the other way around; if men made up only 7% of private sector boards; if men made up only 8% of modern apprenticeships.

If I believed there was a risk that policies would not reflect the significance of the potential impact on men, in the face of all of these barriers to men achieving their full potential in life, then I would help men argue for a Ministry of Men's Affairs.

They are the reasons why I joined the call for a Ministry of Women's Affairs 20 years ago and why I believe we need to continue to pursue our rights as human rights. We have made progress but there is still some way to go. If we want women to have economic independence; if we want all women to be able to exercise real choices in their lives and the work that they undertake in terms of achieving balance; if we want women to have safe, healthy lives, then we must break down the barriers that stand in the way of equal opportunity, justice and equity.

Those are the goals of the Action Plan for New Zealand Women. I know that the opposition believes that the Action Plan is a subversive document designed by officials from the Ministry of Women's Affairs. But nothing could be further from the truth. It is a plan that has been developed by New Zealand women as reflected in workshops held from one end of the country to the other.

I have selected some examples from the plan to highlight how important it is and how wrong it is that National would divert us from this important work:

• increase women’s earnings through pay and employment equity initiatives, initially in the state sector;
• improve and increase women’s participation in employment, as well as promote work-life balance through extensions to paid parental leave and improved access to early childhood education and care;
• achieve greater gender balance in decision-making in the social and economic sectors by increasing the number of women participating in leadership roles;
• improve the co-ordination and provision of government services, particularly in rural areas, including access to health and justice services;
• reduce the incidence and impact of violence on women and children;
• improve women’s health, particularly sexual and reproductive health and mental health, as well as implementing targeted initiatives to prevent and reduce obesity, smoking and unplanned pregnancy.

These are all important aspects of achieving economic independence, work-life balance and health and well-being.

I am not saying that women’s interests are all the same. In fact, the reason I attended the forum in Christchurch more than 20 years ago was because as union women we were concerned the women we represented might get lost in the debate. For example, we were not opposed to job-sharing as a concept, but we wanted academics and professional women to consider the reality of job-sharing when the hourly rate was only $5.00.

We also felt that it was important to understand that mothers were in the paid workforce for different reasons ranging from economic necessity to wanting to earn, what we called in those days, "pin money".

We also felt that it was all very well to talk about the right to return to the paid workforce after the birth of a child when it was a job women wanted to return to. But, what if it was a mundane, underpaid, undervalued job the person hated, but it was the only job on offer that fitted in with the household obligations?

And, what if we want to take a bit more time off work and re-enter the workforce later on? Can women re-enter the workforce where they left off? One American study of graduate managers indicated that absence of three years or more meant women lost on average 37 per cent of their earning power. Could we find better ways of helping women remain connected to the workforce while they were at home? Could there be retraining, or skills updating courses any parent who has spent time at home could access in the time leading up to a return to the workforce?

Many of these questions are being addressed as we explore work-life balance issues and it is vital that there is a gender analysis to support the decisions being made. Not because it is politically correct to do so, but because it is necessary to do so.

And the same is true of domestic violence. There has been a bit of media coverage this year about the research that shows that women are equally violent as men. That may be true, to use an insurance term, on a knock-for-knock basis, but it is important to realise that there is a world of difference in terms of consequences – it is the women who feel the fear; it is the women who are hospitalised and it is the women who die. Domestic violence is a gender issue.

Resolving this is a top priority of the government and we have a highly motivated, action-oriented Taskforce that includes the judiciary, the Families Commission and the police, as well as the key government and non-government agencies. But what I keep coming back to is that much of what needs to be done is not about the legal framework and the response of agencies, it is about how we prevent this violence from occurring in the first place. And that is about changing attitudes, building zero tolerance to violence in our communities and teaching our young men and women how to have respect for themselves and others and how to protect themselves against those who do not.

I met a woman lawyer earlier this year who told me that she had seen the worst case of domestic violence in her 30 years as a lawyer. She said that this woman would not give evidence against the man who hospitalised her. And that she would go back to him. Not because she was a simpering woman, who cannot take care of herself, but because she expected to be treated that way.

We need young girls and women to know that to protect themselves from violence that they believe that there is no second chance and that once is once too often, and if violence occurs they must not go back for another round.

And that starts with text messages, the internet and other environments where our young people are not safe, because they don't know the motives of the people they are talking to or meeting with. Turning the story around for the next generation might mean writing a simple script for them to read so they know how to protect themselves against those who will impose their will on them and control what they think and do. That is an enormous challenge.

When David Lange opened the Ministry of Women's Affairs 20 years ago he said that its mission was to demolish the structure of inequality.

We still have some way to go before we reach that goal.

But there is only one government that can provide women with the assurance that we are focussed on that mission and that is a Labour-led government. That is why we are here this weekend and why we Labour women will commit to delivering the women's vote in 2008. Our social and economic future as a nation depends on it.