19 September 2016

Suffrage Day - Honour it and exercise your vote

Today, the idea that women could not vote is completely foreign to New Zealanders. Today we honour the women and men, led by Kate Sheppard, who fought long and hard to ensure that all women would have the right to vote in a parliamentary election.

Since then we have seen women attain some of our key constitutional positions: Prime Minister, Governor General, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Attorney General and Chief Justice. This is a high achievement indeed but these numbers are low and more women in key positions are needed.

National Council of Women President, Rae Duff says “Some might think that because women have attained these and other powerful positions in New Zealand that the job of gender equality is done. Well it isn’t. We cannot afford to be complacent. Statistics show that New Zealand is not making nearly enough headway. It is heartbreaking to see that while we were once a world leader in gender equality, now we have the highest rate of family and intimate partner violence in the world; women face a gender pay gap and are underrepresented in leadership and management roles. Progress is simply too slow and too patchy.”

“With local government elections around the corner all who are eligible must vote and honour our forebears. It’s timely to reflect on the fact that women are consistently underrepresented in both national and local government roles. According to the Ministry of Women only a third of these representatives are women. Having more women in decision making is vital if we are to ensure our voices are heard and that both parliament and councils are representative of their populations. We need diversity of gender and ethnicity and we need diversity of thought”

“It is important that we all exercise our right to vote and that we vote in an informed way to honour the women and men who fought so hard for us to be able to do so. Voting is our voice and it is the one place in New Zealand where the least powerful and most powerful are equal”

ENDS

Find out more about NCWNZ at www.ncwnz.org.nz

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