Wellington Her Business Network

Duxton Hotel
Wellington

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to “Her Business Network – Wellington”. I am well aware that Julie Davidson has set herself a goal that I am confident she will achieve, and that is to make this network ‘the most powerful women’s resource in the region’.

The reason that I am confident that she will achieve her ultimate goal is because she stated that goal in her invitation to me to speak tonight. I say this because, Julie asked me to give you a ‘signature’ tip in the course of my talk and she has done it for me. You cannot reach your destination, if you don’t know where you are going. Goal setting and planning to achieve those goals is absolutely critical for everything we do in life. And fundamental to success is the belief that you can achieve those goals. So that is my ‘tip’. Know what you want, how to get there and believe in yourself.

What I want to do this evening is tell you a bit about life as the Minister of Women’s Affairs, what the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is all about and why it is important to have a strong well-informed voice for women at the Cabinet table.

I also want to tell you what an excellent synergy I have found between my three portfolios of Commerce, Small Business and Women’s Affairs.

Starting with my role as Minister of Women’s Affairs, as I have said it is vital that women have a strong, well-informed voice at the Cabinet table.
Some people still ask me today why this is necessary, but when you consider that many of the gains that have been made for women have occurred in our own lifetimes, it means that we must be vigilant to protect against their challenge and, let’s face it, despite those gains we still have work to do.

The legislation says equal pay – so why is that women still earn on average 12 per cent less than their male counterparts? It is true that occupational segregation explains some of the gap, but does that mean that work traditionally done by women is undervalued? I think it does. I helped a constituent take a petition to Parliament a couple of years ago, because she wanted an increase in her pay as a home help earning less for enabling elderly people stay in their own homes, than she had been earning eight years before as a worker in a condom factory. She rightly asked the question about the ‘value’ of her work. Fortunately there has been additional funding injected into this area, but there is still an issue around pay and employment equity that needs to be addressed.

One of the earliest pieces of legislation dealt with by Parliament when I was first elected in 1990 was the repeal of the Employment Equity legislation. I was elected on the 27th October and the law was gone by Christmas. Why? Because in the New Year there would have been a comparison between police and nurses pay undertaken, and that would have exposed how much the differential between the two was down to the gender make-up of the respective professions. The fact that most nurses were women and most police were men would not have explained the total difference, but it would have accounted for some and this study would have quantified that and required it to be addressed.

Following hard on the heels of the repeal of this law was the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act, which saw nurses (along with most other occupations except police, teachers and the core public service) lose their industry coverage, and along with it the ability to negotiate on a nationwide basis. A lot of people don’t realise that this meant that nurses had to negotiate with 23 different employers, because that was the number of Crown Health Enterprises.

That is why public hospital nurses went backwards in the 1990s and why it has taken a government that supports multi-employer collective bargaining and been prepared to fund a significant pay increase for DHB nurses that they are only now back on track for participating in the pay and employment equity reviews being instigated by the Minister of Labour.

I mention this because I am frustrated that we have had to spend considerable time and resources recovering lost ground, rather than advancing the cause of pay and employment equity in the past few years. Of course there is the happy exception of paid parental leave, which has been introduced – now standing at 14 weeks and now applying to self-employed parents. So there has been progress, but challenges remain.

For me to be an advocate for women, I need to be ‘well-informed’. This means I need a Ministry that is able to provide policy advice that is well-researched, evidence-based and sound. I often make the point that the Ministry is not an advocacy organisation - that’s my job; nor can it provide policy advice on everything. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs with a Budget of just over $4m and a staff of 34, is in fact the smallest arm of government. This makes it consider its priorities very closely and it looks very carefully at where it can add value. There is no point the Ministry duplicating what is available in other ministries or departments, (for example health, which has dedicated advice on women’s health).

The Ministry’s functions focus on the Action Plan for New Zealand Women, policy advice to me as Minister, support to government agencies, including the capacity to provide an overview across government agencies on women’s issues and gender analysis on specific policy areas.

The Ministry has also developed a database which is able to match the skills of women to the needs of nominating agencies seeking to make government appointments to boards and committees.

The fact that the government has achieved 41 per cent participation rate for women as compared to the private sector’s sad and pathetic 7 per cent, suggests that the issue is not that the women are not available, but that they are not being considered at all.

I personally think that has a lot of it has to do with the shoulder-tapping that goes on when positions arise and the people who get shoulder-tapped are the people existing board members have worked with at a governance or senior management level. So the make-up of the boards become almost self-perpetuating.

It will take more than an old girls network to redress the balance, given that the 7 per cent actually equates to less than 50 women. However it does show the potential for Her Business and other women’s networks to ensure that women are on the radar.

I make the point that this is not about tokenism. Overseas research indicates that diversity on boards is good for business. This makes good sense when you think about it. If everyone comes from the same background and essentially shares similar views and values then it’s hard to imagine they would be alert to all the potential risks and opportunities that a more diverse group would identify.

The other role for the ministry is to provide leadership on an international basis and we should never under-estimate the hope that we offer women from countries where women’s rights are not developed, by virtue of the support we offer them in international forums. New Zealand holds itself to account to international scrutiny and we have lodged our 6th report as a signatory to the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and will be fronting up to the committee this year.

It is a privilege to represent our country in a forum such as this because there is so much that we have achieved that we can be proud of, particularly in light of our focus on the Action Plan for NZ Women.

Just to run quickly through the key aspects of the Action Plan and to highlight the role of the Ministry:

• Economic Independence, which includes pay and employment equity (relationship with NACEW) and occupational segregation (work on factors that lead to gender based occupational segregation (e.g. in apprenticeships));
• Work-Life Balance, which includes matters like Out of School Services (international literature research around outcomes for children); and
• Health & Wellbeing, which includes matters like sexual and reproductive health (catalyst for review of sexual and reproductive health education in schools), sexual violence (research on attrition and effective interventions) and domestic violence (deputy chair of Family Violence Taskforce made up of government agencies, NGOs and other agencies, including the Families Commission, the police and the Principal Family Court Judge).

I strongly believe that the Women’s Affairs Ministry is an essential part of the structure of government that ensures that women’s issues are not lost in the greater scheme things, and are actively promoted for the future advancement of women.

David Lange opened the Ministry 20 years ago last year with the challenge to demolish the structure of inequality – a big ask – and we have gone some way to achieving that – but we have not yet achieved that goal, which is why I consider my role to be important.

The other area that I wanted to touch on was the synergy between the portfolios especially given that the rate of women going into business now exceeds that of men.

Understanding the needs of Women in Enterprise is critical to ensuring that we don’t see repeated the gender inequities that exist in the field of paid employment. Unfortunately the studies that have been done indicate that this could be the case.

A couple of years ago, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Development – got together to better understand the nature of women’s businesses.

The resulting ‘Women in Enterprise’ study gave an insight into the issues women face when wanting to grow their own businesses, and looked specifically at what motivates women to go into business and the challenges they face.

So what did we learn:

• nearly half of self-employed women work part-time, compared with only 11 per cent of men;
• women in small businesses have significantly lower incomes than men, and are less likely to be employers, reflecting the reality, I believe, of family commitments; and,
• female business ownership is still primarily concentrated in industries such as retail and service, which probably explains why incomes are lower.

So businesses owned or operated by women tend to start smaller, remain smaller and generate less income than male-owned businesses. This leads me to the view that many women choose to run their own business, rather than taking up employment, thinking of it as a way to control the balancing of work and family responsibilities, such as the care of children; but we all know it can be harder to say no to a client than to an employer when family responsibilities arise.

Government has to be aware of the particular challenges women face to ensure that our policies and requirements support the growth of successful businesses and do not create barriers to that growth.
One of those challenges is the reality that women still undertake a greater share of household responsibilities even when both partners are working fulltime. This is why gender analysis is important, because the impact of policy can be quite different as a result of this single factor.

When families are surveyed about child rearing and household responsibilities most of us think there should be equal sharing of the roles when both parents are working fulltime, but the practice is a bit different.

The government has sought to address the needs of working families through the Working for Families package, access to quality childcare and paid parental leave as mentioned before.

A significant barrier for working parents, however, remains out-of-school hours and school holidays for school-age children.

Last week I announced the results of a study by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs that confirms that regular, sustained participation in quality out of school services has positive benefits for children.

The international literature shows that there are educational and personal benefits for the children. They have better attitudes towards school and perform better at school; they have higher school attendance, because they like school; and they tend to require less disciplinary action. They exhibit higher self-esteem and show greater leadership potential. They have less involvement with drug and alcohol use, less delinquency and violent behaviour. They have improved social skills and better skills for coping with peer pressure.

The findings support the results of the Families Commission’s consultation with parents and children that confirmed what it was they wanted. The study will be used to inform work on a five-year action plan for out of school services being developed by the Ministry for Social Development.

There’s no doubt that work seems to be taking up more of our time and energy than ever before. Juggling responsibilities can be hard for working families and the government is working on a range of policies to make it easier for women to work (if they choose) while still having a family life. But that doesn’t change the gender stereotypes that are behind the more limited opportunities women experience in business and in the workplace.

These are more difficult for government to address because we cannot legislate for attitudinal change.

I am concerned that there is a perception out there that, in New Zealand at least, women have already reached the dizzy heights of gender equality. I’m often told that “women are running the country” because of the presence of a few high-profile talented women in our top jobs.

Well, it was a magic moment in history but, sadly, a fleeting one. We’ve already lost our female governor-general and, if media reports are correct, our highest-paid chief executive is likely to be replaced by a man. My response has always been that when I look back down the layers I simply do not see women coming through in sufficient numbers. So – to paraphrase another’s wry observation – the glass ceiling may be gone but the floor remains very sticky.

I was recently asked for my personal definition of “leadership”. I toyed with all the usual platitudes such as leading by example, showing the way, helping others find their own potential, and so on. But I really feel strongly that true leadership is about taking people with you, not telling them where to go (although to misuse the double entendre I have to admit that this is sometimes very tempting).

Pulling up the ladder of success behind you so others cannot make their way to the top is inexcusable as well and does not define true leadership. Sometimes that means knowing it’s time to stand back and let others lead.

This issue of women in leadership is something that has been exercising my mind a lot recently. I am often asked to speak to women about running for local government positions and one of the things I tell them is don’t shy away from your background, because it is part of what makes you who you are today.

Women bring a different perspective to issues and it that perspective has value. We should not forget this.

Many young women today seem unaware of how hard our forebears had to fight for things we now take for granted. Many think that because this is the way things are, there is nothing they need to do to either protect or promote those rights. But until women are entrenched in leadership roles at all levels and all sectors of society – and have the realistic expectation that they can and should be leaders if they so choose – those gains remain fragile.

And on that challenging note, I would welcome questions or comments from the floor.