Address NCW: Contrasting Cultures, Cohesive Communities

Address to National Council of Women – ‘Contrasting Cultures, Cohesive Communities’
Scotlands Hostel, New Plymouth Girls High School, Mangorei Road
3.10pm, Friday, 26 September 2003

Rau rangatira maa,
tenei te mihi ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te ra.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

[Distinguished guests, greetings to you gathered here for this purpose today. Greetings once, twice, three times to you all.]

Thank you for the invitation to be here. It is a pleasure to be addressing your national conference for the second year in a row.

I want to acknowledge your national president Beryl Anderson, and board members Christine Low, Barbara Glennie, Margaret Barron, Margaret Cook, Elizabeth Bang, Bronwyn McFarlane, and (in her absence) Dorothy Meyer.
At your conference a year ago, I asked NCW to enter into a partnership with me as Minister of Women’s Affairs. You agreed, and the last 12 months have been very fruitful. I want to say how much I enjoy and value this relationship.
Theme
Your conference theme, ‘Contrasting Cultures, Cohesive Communities’ is very pertinent, given public debate on issues like immigration, our foreshore and seabeds, and the way we treat our children. Underlying all these issues is a genuine concern to determine the kinds of communities we want to live in and be part of.

Women in the community
Women are most often the glue in cohesive communities. The Time Use Survey commissioned by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in 1999 confirmed what most of us knew – that not only do we do the lioness’s share of work at home and supporting our families, on top of our paid employment, but also that we do the greater share of voluntary work in the community.

This work is often unacknowledged and taken for granted, yet its value is immeasurable and its impact on society as a whole, profound.

Civil society
You hear the term ‘civil society’ used a lot around the world these days.
It’s a simple term to encompass the wealth of voluntary activity that occurs outside the business and government sectors.

Everyone in this room clearly realises the importance of participation and civil society – you wouldn't be here if you didn't.

The role of civil society has been illustrated by Harvard Professor Robert Putnam in his study of regional governments in Italy. He has tried to understand why some regions developed more successfully than others, and concluded:

"These communities did not become civil because they were rich. The historical record suggests precisely the opposite. They became rich because they were civic."

The essential ingredient in successful regions is the high level of participation that people have in their community – they are active volunteers, they are active community participants, they build healthy, positive communities, and from this strong civic base they create wealth.

In other words, interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. Having a sense of belonging and the concrete experience of social networks (and the relationships of trust and tolerance that can be involved) can bring great benefits to people.
Putman says that most day-to-day issues in our communities – public health, crime rates, race relations, community development, teen suicide, economic productivity, even simple human happiness – are all demonstrably affected by how (and whether) we connect with our family and friends and neighbours and co-workers.

Office for Community and Voluntary Sector
The community and voluntary sector’s huge contribution to New Zealand has been recognised by the government in the launch of a new Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector just last week. Its Minister is Tariana Turia, who I see is your guest speaker along with Manying Ip tomorrow, and I am sure she will have plenty to say about the office then.
A key role will be to raise the profile of the community sector within government. One of its first tasks will be to help government departments to develop relationship plans with the non-government organisations they work with and alongside.
A new online resource - www.goodpracticeparticipate.govt.nz – has also been launched to help public servants to engage successfully with community, voluntary and tangata whenua organisations.
Other items on the new office’s work programme are the coordination of improvements to government funding arrangements with community sector organisations (a subject I know is dear to your many of your hearts), and a project on risk management, liability and insurance for volunteers and their organisations.

Treaty of Waitangi
While we’re on the theme of ‘Contrasting Cultures, Cohesive Communities’, I would like to reiterate the government’s commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi.
We recognise the treaty is this country's founding document, providing a basis from which strong and mutually respectful relationships can be developed and strengthened.

It is appropriate that the first of six key government goals guiding public sector policy and performance is to ‘strengthen national identity and uphold the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi’.

In the last Budget, $6.5 million was also earmarked over three years for a programme of public information, which aims to assist both Pakeha and Maori to arrive at a better understanding of the treaty and its relevance to contemporary issues.

The funding will cover the development of new resources for distribution to educational institutions, libraries, community centres and other interested groups. The resource information will also be provided through a website on the government's portal.

Women’s Affairs portfolio
Now I would like to spend some time talking about key issues in my Women’s Affairs portfolio - the future of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the CEDAW report, the Women’s Action Plan, and where we go from here.

I was appointed as Minister of Women’s Affairs after the last election – so how is it for me? Well, it’s just great. I represent the electorate of Banks Peninsula, originally Lyttelton. My electorate elected the first-ever woman Member of Parliament, the first-ever Minister of Women’s Affairs, and has elected more women than any other electorate.

I came into politics through the women’s section of the Labour Party. I was elected as one of two women’s representatives on the governing body of the party in 1984, when Helen Clark and Elizabeth Tennet were on the executive and Margaret Wilson had just been elected as president. So I have a great history to look back on in my electorate, and have come into politics surrounded by strong women, and those women have continued to support and encourage me.

Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Looking at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs – I found them less focussed than is ideal, and less in touch with women throughout New Zealand than I wanted them to be. I was also concerned that they didn’t have the respect of other government agencies, or the links that were necessary to support and encourage departments’ active participation in policies and programmes impacting on women.

This is not surprising, given that they had gone through nearly a decade of being ignored under the National Government. So it was a key task for me to ensure that these issues were addressed.

Following a recent review, our government has decided the ministry will be retained and strengthened. We are advertising for a new chief executive, who will be charged with the particular role of addressing capability issues - improving policy development, management systems and processes, organisational culture, and cross-governmental relationships.

My goal is that, in a year or so:
·the ministry is leading and driving policy change for women;
·its reputation and credibility are enhanced; and
·it has close links with women’s organisations like your own, and other organisations, both inside and outside government.

Women’s Action Plan
As I said earlier, at your conference last year I asked you to enter into a partnership with me. Two areas in which we have worked closely are to develop a Women’s Action Plan and prepare our reports on the status of New Zealand women for the United Nations CEDAW committee, something we have to do every five years.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Anne Todd-Lambie and commend her leadership in the preparation of the CEDAW NGO report – as well as place on the record my thanks for her work at the United Nations in June.

Last time we reported to CEDAW, the New Zealand government had two reservations:
·The first was on the paid parental leave issue, which I am pleased to say we removed this time.
·The second was the restriction of women in the armed forces, which will be reviewed in 2005.

The other key points on the status of women in New Zealand that I reported were:
·our emphasis on the halting of privatisation of publicly funded social and health services;
·replacement of the Employment Contracts Act with the Employment Relations Act - this change recognises the inequality between employers and employees and promotes collective bargaining;
·the ‘whole of government’ approach called ‘reducing inequalities’ to reduce the inequities between Maori women and other women in New Zealand;
·the commitment to implement the Treaty of Waitangi;
·changes to human rights legislation which mean that all government legislation is now subject to the non-discrimination standard in the act;
·the Action Plan for Human Rights, being developed by the Human Rights Commission, which will promote a wide range of human rights, including civil, political, economic and cultural rights;
·the requirement that all papers going before our Cabinet Social Development Committee includes gender implications statements (and my intention to include this requirement for papers to other Cabinet Committees);
·establishment of a dedicated Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner within the Human Rights Commission;
·the inquiry into the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act;
·the passing of the Prostitution Reform legislation – aimed at safeguarding the human rights of women in prostitution and protecting them from exploitation;
·the fact that women hold the four constitutional positions in New Zealand, namely, the Governor-General, Prime Minister, Attorney General and Chief Justice;
·the increase in the proportion of women in Cabinet from 13 per cent to about 31 per cent.

I also told the CEDAW committee that this achievement of more women in key positions had created a double-edged sword. Some younger women were now complacent and believed that further efforts for women were unnecessary, while others believed that efforts for women had gone “too far”.

I find this latter point somewhat hard to analyse with logic. If I went around the country saying that I had a plan for young people – a plan that would give young people in New Zealand more opportunity, more security, a better quality of life and a chance to fully contribute to society, no-one would say: “That’s terrible. That’s to the detriment of older New Zealanders!”

They would say: “That’s great, because we all know that if we give young New Zealanders better opportunities, it’s of benefit to our whole society.”

Well, exactly the same applies to the Women’s Action Plan we are developing. Actions that benefit New Zealand women are to the advantage of us all – not to the detriment of men!

I reported that women in the paid labour force has risen over the past years, but that challenges to this include the persistence of a gender pay gap, occupational segregation and the increasing difficulty of achieving work-life balance.

I noted our change in approach to single parents and widows, which helped them into paid work rather than adopting a punitive approach.

I reported on our changes to property legislation and the Te Rito Family Violence Prevention Strategy.

So what did they say?

Well, the committee members were very engaged and engaging – it was an excellent discussion!
They “cautioned against complacency in a seemingly ideal situation” – which is a genuine reaction which we often take for granted in New Zealand. We are well ahead of other countries with regard to our valuing of women.

They said New Zealand had a good chance of becoming a good practice example to many countries of the world through ensuring respect for the cultural traditions and development of indigenous communities.

They also said they were impressed with the exceptional presence of women in constitutional and political offices - but as the first country to grant women the right to vote, that was to be expected!!

The committee said that, among the areas that still required attention were the issues of gender stereotypes; the situation of migrant and indigenous women, in particular, Maori and Pacific women; the financial repercussion of wage gaps; and high suicide rates among young women.

They particularly noted our lack of affirmative action programmes – targets and measures.

So, in spite of the progress we have made, the future continues to pose challenges for New Zealand women. There is still significant inequality between men and women and between different groups of women.

We need to recognise the special place and role of Maori women. Persistent inequalities continue to face many other groups of women, including Pacific, rural, refugee and migrant women, women with disabilities and low-income women.

Work-life balance
We need to tackle women’s family/whanau responsibilities.
We have worked hard in this country for women’s participation, particularly in the paid labour market and there have been great improvements in that area. What we haven’t done yet is get the right balance between paid and unpaid work.

As a measure of our commitment, our government is setting up an inter-agency steering group, chaired by the Department of Labour, to develop family-friendly and other policies promoting work-life balance. All policies and practices that have a direct and indirect effect on the ability of employees to balance paid work and other activities will be considered, and there will be substantial public consultation.

Work-life balance is not just an issue for women. Overall, a decade of a deregulated and competitive environment has reduced the quality of life for many workers of both genders. A lot of men have more stress in their lives than is healthy. But women have paid the greater price because of the additional level of stress that accompanies our role as carers.

Maori and Pacific women face particular stresses because of their broader family responsibilities, concentration in low paid work, higher level of community work and the younger age structure of their population groups.

Pay equity
Pay equity is another issue where there is still a lot of work to be done and I am delighted that the issue is back on the political agenda for the first time since the National Government repealed the Employment Equity Act in 1990 – its first legislative move after its election.

It is obvious that, left to its own devices, the market is not going to close the income gap between the sexes. But it is also obvious that the structures that we had to deliver pay equity prior to 1990 are no longer available to us.
Pay equity – equal pay for work of equal value – is about much more than simply weighing one job against another. If true equity is to be achieved in the paid workplace, the undervaluing of women’s work in general needs to be addressed, as do the particular inequities that face Maori, Pacific, migrant, young workers and workers with disabilities.

There are two main contributors to the gender pay gap:
·the time women take out of the paid workforce to bear and rear children; and
·the lower levels of pay for the caring, education and people professions where women are more likely to work.

But this isn’t the whole story. The gap exists not just when women reach the age when they spend less time in paid work because of their children, but right from the beginning of their careers. University graduate surveys show that male commerce graduates start out in their careers earning on average nearly $5000 a year more than women of the same age with the same qualifications.

The same applies in the legal profession. So what is it about commercial law that makes it so more “valuable” than family court work?

Some of the gender pay gap comes down to gender stereotyping in pay rates and negotiations.

The taskforce recently established by Margaret Wilson will look at the overseas work studied by the Department of Labour and the submissions on the pay equity document from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

It will make recommendations to the government soon about how we can implement pay equity in the core state sector, and health and education sectors. We will then look at how that model can be extended to the private sector.
Women’s Action Plan
It’s because of issues like economic independence, general well-being and work-life balance that we need a women’s action plan.
NCW played a key role in organising many of the consultation meetings around the country earlier this year, and I want to take the opportunity to thank all those involved.

We need a clear and whole-of-government approach to the issues that concern women now and agreement on action for the future.

We need to look at the number of women we appoint to statutory boards – 15 years ago, the figure was 20 per cent - now it’s around 40 per cent.

We need better data in key areas to monitor our progress.

We need specific affirmative action programmes for women.

We need a separate Ministry of Women’s Affairs to lead these issues.

We need a Minister of Women’s affairs to be our advocate around the Cabinet table.

Many of the issues are the same as those we faced years ago – but the solutions are not.

Our successes to date – and there have been many, well worthy of celebration – have been due to the women of New Zealand working together, setting priorities and making strong and steady progress to achieving them.

I appreciate the support and challenges that women give me and as your minister I look forward to continuing to work with, and for, you on developing and implementing our action plan for the future.

Thank you.