Ladies in the House

I would have had this up soon­er but some­thing hap­pened with the site and we lost it for a bit. But it’s back! And now I can tell you all about the event that was Ladies in the House, put on by The Welling­ton Young Fem­i­nists’ Col­lec­tive.

First­ly a huge thanks and con­grat­u­la­tions to the WYFC for a great forum. It ran far more smooth­ly than tele­vised ‘debates’ where politi­cians are forced to shout each oth­er down and noth­ing is actu­al­ly said. We got to hear the actu­al opin­ions and par­ty stances on issues and poli­cies that are rel­e­vant to every­one vot­ing on Novem­ber 26th.

I have far too many notes so I’ll try and keep this as con­cise as pos­si­ble.

The Politi­cians:

• Paul Fos­ter-Bell              (Nation­al Par­ty Can­di­date for Welling­ton Cen­tral, @PARFosterBell)
• Jor­dan Carter                  (Labour Par­ty List Can­di­date, @jordantcarter)
• Stephen Whit­ting­ton    (ACT Par­ty Can­di­date for Welling­ton Cen­tral, @Steve_Whttngton)
• Hol­ly Walk­er                  (Green Par­ty Can­di­date for Hutt South, @hollyrwalker)
• Jan Logie                         (Green Par­ty Can­di­date for Mana, @janlogie)
• Ben Craven                      (NZ First Can­di­date for Welling­ton Cen­tral, @_Ben_Craven_)

Paul spoke very high­ly of  Hekia Para­ta who he said is doing great work. He said that under the Nation­al gov­ern­ment there’d been a decrease in the pay gap between males and females 10.6% to 9.6% and that “any gap is too much”. This was lat­er refut­ed by Hol­ly who stat­ed that the most com­mon mea­sure of gen­der pay gap showed that it now sat at 13% and was­n’t get­ting small­er.

Jor­dan stat­ed that Labour was found­ed on the prin­ci­ples of equal­i­ty. “Lib­er­al­ism is not enough”. He quot­ed the Labour line of mak­ing “the hard deci­sions for tomor­row, not the soft deci­sions for today” and that for the most fair and more diverse gov­ern­ment we should vote MMP in the ref­er­en­dum.

Stephen stat­ed that he believes the biggest issue for women is social dis­crim­i­na­tion and stands behind the ide­al that every­thing should be fair before the court of law. He went on to say that the gen­der pay gap was not some­thing the gov­er­ment could fix as it was a result of social expec­ta­tion but that the pater­ni­ty leave pay encour­aged pay­ing women less…

Hol­ly then spoke high­light­ing the fact that cur­rent­ly the Green par­ty has the most bal­anced gen­der make up includ­ing the co-lead­ers Rus­sel Nor­man and Metiria Turei. She bought up the gen­der pay gap stat­ing that for uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ates, with iden­ti­cal degrees, the gap rose from 1% one year out of uni to 17% after five years. Hol­ly stat­ed Greens would bring in 13 months, 100% paid parental leave and rein­state pay for solo par­ents study­ing at uni, not just at Poly­techs.

Jan spoke and said she want­ed to focus more specif­i­cal­ly on one major issue — gen­der based vio­lence. I guess she had this advan­tage as Hol­ly had already done a lot of pro­mo for the Greens poli­cies. Jay said that not just one pol­i­cy could fix gen­der inequal­i­ty — it needs a holis­tic approach. She strayed from her main focus slight­ly but raised a valid point that not every­one iden­ti­fies as male or female and this need­ed look­ing into. Jay stat­ed the Greens had a num­ber of poli­cies to help those affect­ed by domes­tic vio­lence — using ben­e­fits as a safe­ty net, bring­ing in the $15 min­i­mum wage, and work on state hous­ing and more, eg Wom­en’s Refuge.

Now to arguably the most inter­est­ing speak­er of the evening — Ben from NZ First. He stat­ed as soon as he stood up that the peo­ple who were meant to be there (Brett Pier­son and Marise Bish­op) pulled out and he was very under­pre­pared. It showed. Ben was “stoked about” the fact that 4 out of 10 of the top MPs were female, con­tin­u­al­ly point­ed out that ‘there are lots of ladies in NZ First”  and even brought up a pre­vi­ous faux pas where he said there were “a lot of women behind the scenes” at NZ First. Prob­a­bly did­n’t need to draw atten­tion to it… Ben got con­sid­er­able mur­murs from the crowd, say­ing that NZ First will cut off the wel­fare of those who com­mit offences against women and chil­dren, seem­ing­ly ignor­ing the idea that it was pos­si­ble those not on wel­fare could also be per­pe­tra­tors. Ben real­ly did seem out of his depth. I felt sor­ry for him in the end and I’m sure I was­n’t alone. He just did­n’t have the abil­i­ty to cor­rect­ly express his views in a suit­able fash­ion.

THEN there were ques­tions from the audi­ence, I’m going to bul­let point answers as I realise this is hard­ly con­cise!

Why are women in NZ more like­ly to die at the hands of their own part­ner or fam­i­ly mem­bers than in a car crash?
Jan (Green) — it’s ingrained sex­ism. The All Black cov­er­age dom­i­nates the news­pa­per for weeks while the Sil­ver Ferns win gets shunt­ed to the back page.
Paul (Nation­al) — it’s cul­tur­al, hard for govt to change, Nation­al have giv­en more police, low­er crime rates, some of which will be domes­tic vio­lence. Those who com­mit these crimes pay a levy for vic­tim sup­port.
Jor­dan (Labour) — agreeed with Jan and stat­ed that this approach by Nation­al is a per­fect exam­ple of the ambu­lance at the bot­tom of the cliff rather than try­ing to pre­vent the issue. Point­ed peo­ple to their Wom­en’s Pol­i­cy on their web­site. Paul then asks peo­ple to do the same but…that’s more dif­fi­cult as there is no Wom­en’s Pol­i­cy on their site.
Stephen (Act) — peo­ple are less like­ly to talk/report domes­tic vio­lence than oth­er crimes. One way to aid this is through the shar­ing of doc­tors’ reports – in the USA women were found to more like­ly go to the doc­tor if vio­lence was tak­ing place & use it as a cry for help or as a way to raise the issue with­out ‘dob­bing in’ their part­ner.

To be fair to all par­ties — Wom­en’s Poli­cies can also be found on the Green Par­ty’s web­site, how­ev­er I could­n’t find one on NZ First or Act’s sites.

What are the par­ties going to do about Abor­tion? Will the Act be reviewed? Labour — you had nine years and did noth­ing and Nation­al — you’ve had three and done noth­ing.
Jor­dan — per­son­al­ly pro choice but politi­cians fear the pub­lic, it’s a very touchy issue that needs care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion.
Paul — again his per­son­al opin­ion is the same — pro choice
Ben — says he is Pro choice, but expressed that he was not keen on abor­tion for minor cos­met­ic defects. The audi­ence was sur­prised to say the least, and not only because he seemed to have total­ly missed the point.
Hol­ly and Jan — don’t believe it should be in the Crimes Act – which needs review­ing and that “it’s not about cos­met­ic issues but per­son­al choice”.

Sex Edu­ca­tion in schools — some peo­ple say we are teach­ing kids too much too young while oth­ers say we aren’t teach­ing them enough:
Jor­dan — a lack of Sex Ed is not a good thing & teach­ing absti­nence also not a good thing — edu­ca­tion need to be increased.
Jan — teach­ing should be encour­aged to be around con­sent & desire.
Stephen — says some­thing along the lines of  how we don’t want Catholics pulling their kids out of school and home school­ing them.

The Bloke Test, the Veitch inter­view and the ‘Hot List’ — direct­ed at Paul.
Paul — does the best he can. He says every­one has things they regret. Main­tains they’re not things he stands for. He does­n’t apol­o­gise though, and I don’t believe it’s his job to apol­o­gise for John Key’s actions. I also per­son­al­ly believe that the ‘Bloke Test’ is nei­ther John Key’s or Phil Gof­f’s fault but is the fault of Stuff, Fair­fax media and the New Zealand pub­lic who have come to believe this is what an elec­tion should be based on.

Adop­tion Act? Par­tic­u­lar­ly around adop­tion by gay peo­ple and sin­gle peo­ple.
Stephen — it needs to be reviewed. It’s ridicu­lous that gay cou­ples can­not adopt yet a sin­gle gay per­son can.
Jan — it’s a 1950s’ leg­is­la­tion and Greens will review it.
Jor­dan — Labour will review Adop­tion act
Paul — believes the Act does need review.

OVERVIEW: It was a great event. A chance to see local MPs in action dis­cussing their take on issues raised by the peo­ple vot­ing for them. Again thank you and well done to the WYFC who not only held the event and pro­vid­ed this oppor­tu­ni­ty BUT also offered cheese, crack­ers and juice at the end. The Greens got the most cheers, exclud­ing when Ben stat­ed he had a girl­friend, while both Ben and Stephen got the most mur­murs of dis­ap­proval. Both Jor­dan and Paul spoke well and did­n’t seem to step on too many toes while still main­tain­ing to express both theirs and their par­ties’ views. I real­ly hope that this can become a reg­u­lar event, not only for Nation­al elec­tions but for local elec­tions too.

Dis­claimer: All I have writ­ten here is what I furi­ous­ly typed into my phone. If I have missed some­thing — please com­ment. If I have mis­quot­ed some­thing — please com­ment. If you feel I have the wrong end of the stick — please com­ment. If you like the cut of my jib — please com­ment.