Hon Lianne Dalziel
Minister of Commerce, Minister for Small Business,
Minister of Women’s Affairs, MP for Christchurch East

19 September 2007 Media Statement

Women reminded of history on Suffrage Day

Suffrage Day is a good time to reflect on the lessons of history with regards to political support for women's rights, Women's Affairs Minister Lianne Dalziel says.

The right to vote was hard won by the suffragists 114 years ago and the best way to honour their achievement is for women to exercise that right so that the interests of women continue to be upheld, Lianne Dalziel said.

Using the General Debate in Parliament today to promote the advances women have made, Labour women MPs highlighted the Labour-led government's initiatives aimed at helping women and families that the National Party had opposed including:

- paid parental leave
- four weeks holiday
- fairer employment laws
- improved access to early childhood education
- interest-free student loans
- affordable doctors visits and improvements to health services
- the return of apprenticeships through the Modern Apprentices Scheme
- health and safety laws
- equal employment opportunities and pay equity, and
- increased income for families through the Working for Families tax credits

"Women should use their vote to ensure the pathway to equity that has been restored under this Labour-led government is not destroyed again as it was by the government policies of the 1990s," Lianne Dalziel said.

"We had a legal framework for pay equity – equal pay for work of equal value – for a few months in 1990, but before it had a chance to be implemented it was repealed by an incoming government and it was gone by Christmas.

"The reason it was repealed so quickly is that public hospital nurses were about to have their pay compared to that of police and, although all that would have done would be to identify how much of the difference was down to the fact that most nurses were women and most police were men, it would not fit with the intent of the Employment Contracts Act 1991. Breaking up a single national award into 23 separate employment agreements was what set nurses back more than a decade in their quest for proper recognition," Lianne Dalziel said.

To get public hospital nurses back on track, the Labour-led government:

- introduced the Employment Relations Act
- strengthened multi-employer collective agreements
- injected funding into the DHBs for the pay jolt, and
- introduced pay and employment equity reviews in the public sector.

"The National Party's new concern for women's issues is interesting but rings hollow in light of their past record. It doesn't matter how you define it, their introduction of policies such as the ECA pushed women's equality back decades.

"National has flip-flopped before on women's issues, and I have no doubt they will do it again.

"Kate Sheppard and the suffragists didn't win the vote to fight the first time, but they never gave up the fight, despite repeated defeats, because they believed that women should have the right participate fully in society and politics.

"Using the vote is the best ways for women's voices to be heard and for women's issues to be taken seriously. I hope all New Zealand women will remember the lessons of history each time they exercise their precious right to vote."

ENDS

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