MP Maryan Street, Labour Party NZ

Profile:

Age: 59 Ethnicity/Nationality: Pākehā Highest Education: MPhil (First Class)

Background:

Maryan Street is a list MP for the Labour Party based in the Nelson region. Her official Labour Party profile page is available here. On her page, you will see that Maryan is gay, has a partner, and a daughter who contributed to her decision to become an MP in 2005.

While Maryan is the Labour spokesperson for State Services, Tertiary Education, Disarmament and Arms Control, Associate Foreign Affairs (ODA/Human Rights). She also has interests in equality for women, pay equity, eradication of poverty and gender-based violence, working conditions, peace and disarmament, and international affairs.

Maryan first became interested in politics when she started teaching in 1978 because she believed change was needed. She was motivated to join the Labour Party in 1984 following her work history and union participation and leadership. She had been meaning to join for a while at that time and was then approached and asked to join by another woman.

Maryan is a social democrat and was inspired in her political career by Helen Clark, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mary Robertson and Hillary Rodham Clinton. She also describes herself as a feminist and proudly announces that:

“I am old enough to remember the second wave of feminism and to have participated in it! I have always seen it as a movement for social justice – equality on all levels: economic, social, institutional, constitutional”

Women’s Issues

On women’s reproductive rights 

Maryan is prochoice and considers that:

“access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the right to safe abortion, are fundamental to women’s equality. If we can’t plan when and how often to have children, we can’t ever have equality. I support this kaupapa through the NZ Parliamentarians group on Population Development (NZPPD), of which I am Vice-Chairperson”

On women’s economic contributions (other than paid work)

Maryan considers that women’s contributions to the economy include the:

“Social and economic stability through the maintenance of families and child care – women still remain the primary caregivers predominantly”

And also that the voluntary sector is dominated by women.

On wage disparity

She is also concerned about wage disparity in NZ and considers one approach to help amend this deficiency is to re-establish the Pay Equity Commission and ‘get to the bottom of the disparities and effect methods of changing them’.

On support services for women

Maryan believes that the current support systems we have in place to assist all women who: are solo or first time mothers, victims of crime, imprisoned, struggling with addiction, suffer from mental health and/or chronic illness or physical  disabilities are inadequate and that:

“more is always required in each of these areas and it needs to be better targeted and more appropriately applied”

General Q & A:

What is the one skill you wish you had (that you don’t already)?

“Brevity.”

In everyday life, what is your pet peeve?

“People not being punctual.”

What do think is the biggest problem facing the world right now?

“Security – of food supply, of safe food, of women from gender-based violence both in war and in peace, of water, from escalating nuclear tensions, from war.”

What is the best gift you’ve ever given?

“A trip to Europe to my daughter – with me!”

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

“My daughter”

Describe a time when you wanted to quit, but you didn’t:

“Yesterday – but there is too much to do!”

If you could have a special power/magic what would it be and why?

“Restoration of the environment.”

You can see more of Marayan on: 

Facebook:  Maryan Street

Twitter:   @MaryanStreetMP 

Please check the About page if you are interested in the question selections. 

MP Catherine Delahunty, NZ Green Party

Profile:

Age: 60 Ethnicity/Nationality: Pākehā Highest Education: Half BA, Certificate of Adult Literacy Tutoring

Background:

Catherine Delahunty is a list candidate for the NZ Greens. Her official Greens profile page is available here. On her page, you will see that Catherine is ‘deeply motivated by a sense of justice’ and considers one of the greater challenges of being an MP is being able to ‘reflect, and not just act’.

While Catherine is the Greens spokesperson for Education, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Mining, Toxics, West Papua, she also has particular interests in women’s issues, social justice and Te Tiriti issues, the environment and caring economics.

Catherine considers her political rigour as inherited from her left wing upbringing in Wellington. She was motivated to join the Greens subsequent to her work as Green Campaign Manager in Auckland during the 1999 election.

Catherine describes her politics as Green Left Feminism and is a committed Te Tiriti activist. She insists that:

“patriarchy is bad for everyone and feminism affirms life and power with others not power over others”.

The two most influential people with regard to her politics are Veronica Black and Betty Williams, from Hauraki.

Women’s Issues

On women’s reproductive rights 

Catherine is pro-choice andsupports political and policy change to decriminalise the abortion process.

On women’s economic contributions (other than paid work)

Catherine considers that ‘women are the unpaid economic reality that makes the world go round’ and recommends Marilyn Warring’s book Counting for Nothing to fully appreciate the valuable unpaid work women do.

On wage disparity

She is also greatly concerned about pay disparity and has written a members bill, currently in the ballot, to address some of those issues. Catherine is ‘outraged by the gender pay gap and inequality of wages for all but especially women’.

On support services for women

Catherine considers support services for women in New Zealand, to be severely deficient. She considers that we need more resources, support and importantly, respect with regard to women in vulnerable situations, such as solo or first time mothers, victims of crime, women inmates, addiction,  mental health and/or chronic illness, and physical  disabilities.

General Q & A:

What is the one skill you wish you had (that you don’t already)?

“A memory for facts involving numbers”

In everyday life, what is your pet peeve?

“Casual racism”

What do think is the biggest problem facing the world right now?

“Patriarchal violence in all its forms”

What is the best gift you’ve ever given?

“Giving time to other people when they need support”

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

“My life, my daughter and my grandson”

Describe a time when you wanted to quit, but you didn’t:

“Most weeks since Nov 2008 when elected to Parliament”

If you could have a special power/magic what would it be and why?

“The power to keep my clothes clean for more than ten minutes”

You can see more of Catherine on: 

Facebook:  Catherine Delahunty

Twitter:   @greencatherine

Please check the About page if you are interested in the question selections. 

Arena Williams, Labour Party NZ

Photograph

Arena Williams and Labours candidate for Rotorua Tamati Coffey at the Rotorua local electorate committee AGM. [image sourced from Arena’s public Candidate Facebook page – see link at end of post]

Age: 24 Ethnicity: Māori Religion: Haahi Ringatu Highest Education: Bcom/LLB

Arena Williams is standing for the first time as the newly elected Hunua candidate for the Labour Party. Her interests include Youth Education, Training, and Work. Arena’s official Labour Party page is available here. On her page, you will see that she proposes to stand for “jobs, homes and opportunity” and considers that “change starts with talking to people”.

Background:

Arena grew up in a politically active household. She describes her parents as “Labour people who live their Labour values by serving their communities”, her mother as a GP in Papakura and her father a teacher before becoming a journalist and as such considers that community ethic to be in her blood.

Arena joined the Labour Party in 2005 after the “foreshore and seabed raruraru“. She explains that:

“I saw leaders who I respected turning their back on a group of their loyal supporters, and I felt ashamed of that – but I wouldn’t be a Labour person if I thought the way to deal with that was to throw stones from the outside. I started by volunteering for Māori MPs who worked hard and stood up. I then got involved with Young Labour and with Policy Council, and put in the work so that we don’t go doing something like that again”

Arena describes her personal political ideology as adherent to the values of freedom and choice. In particular:

“the kind of freedom that comes with the security of a good education, a roof over your head and the ability to get decent work”.

She admires thinkers like John Rawls and David Harvey, but does not subscribe to their ideals as a complete prescription for her views.  Arena extols her family as the most influential people on her political thinking, explaining that:

“My father is a deeply spiritual and peaceful person, and it is his influence that makes me think before I react to political ideas. My mother has been a fiery activist in her time, for Women’s Lib and Māori rights, and I’ve learnt a lot from her”

On Women’s Issues

Arena also subscribes to feminism, insisting that:

“Everyone who wants a system that doesn’t disadvantage people just because they don’t identify as men should own the word feminist”

On reproductive rights of women

Arena is pro-choice and considers that abortion:

“should be a personal decision for women to make for their physical and mental health, supported by their doctor”

She remarks that most people would be surprised to learn that abortion is a criminal offence in New Zealand.

Arena would like to see more effort in “listening to young women who have been through abortions about the kind of support they receive” because she recognises and empathises that abortion is “a hard thing, but when it’s a criminal offence, there’s so much hurt and stigma that helps no one”.

Arena is involved in ongoing discussions within the women’s sector of the Labour movement, including Young Labour, about  the kind of reform those women would want their party to champion. She expresses her commitment to doing everything she can to continue that conversation and to work toward developing a solution that works for young women.

On Womens Economic Contributions

Arena claims that:

“women’s participation at all levels of decision making isn’t a fluffy add on – business has been realising the commercial benefit of diversity yet we lag behind for women’s representation in governance and in Parliament”

In respect of unpaid work, she considers that “entitlements to paid parental leave at the current level” do not “reflect the societal benefit of parents, mostly mothers, spending time with their young children and preparing them for ECE then school”.

Arena thinks that “extending paid parental leave will go a long way to addressing the deficit”.

On Wage Disparity

Arena considers there to be “deep structural inequalities that stand in the way of success for working women”. She explains by example that in the industry she works in, “women are paid around $18 less per hour” than her male colleagues on average and thinks its “simply unacceptable”.

To address the wage disparity issue, Arena would like to see more support for flexible working arrangements in the professional sector. She thinks that industry should lead on that, and if they don’t then central government has a responsibility to step in.  She maintains that:

 “government has a role in promoting women’s involvement on corporate boards, as a way of changing organisational culture which tacitly accepts this kind of discrimination”

On Support Services for Women

Arena considers that support services for women are under a “constant squeeze” because of the “competitive funding environment”. In her experience with Student Unions, first as Auckland President and later the national Women’s Rights Officer, she explains that she was “constantly grateful for the NGOs and community groups who could be called on to support women students in need” despite the obstacles to accessing funding.

Arena is particularly interested in supporting women in education. In her view, it is “a fundamental part of freedom for women”. Arena would like to see the student loan repayment scheme remodelled because she thinks that currently it unfairly disadvantages women who earn less on average and subsequently take longer to repay their loans. She believes that cuts to the tertiary training allowance have been instrumental in limiting the ability of many mothers to access tertiary education to build on their life experience and feels strongly that access to tertiary education is essential to empowering women of all ages.

General Q & A

What is the one skill you wish you had (that you don’t already)?

“I wish I could think in te reo Māori. I think I have a reasonable vocabulary and can follow Māori TV, but when it comes to forming an answer to a question, I have to switch to English”

In everyday life, what is your pet peeve?

“Wasting food. Wasting anything!”

What do think is the biggest problem facing the world right now?

“Inequality”

What is the best gift you’ve ever given?

“Two pieces of pounamu to my friends who got married this year and moved to Melbourne. The pieces will always be an anchor for them, to keep a little bit of them in New Zealand. They’ll have to come back!”

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

“My grandmother left me her tea cup collection when she passed away. It’s a jumbled set of bits and bobs she cobbled together during her travels. I can’t bring myself to use them, but every time I see them I’m reminded of this fierce wahine toa who was so ahead of her time and the adventures she had.”

Describe a time when you wanted to quit, but you didn’t.

“During my time as president at the Auckland students’ association there were plenty of times I wanted to quit. The hardest battles are the ones fought behind your own lines. I finished my term with a result I’m proud of, but I’m most proud of the people I worked with then who’ve stepped up since and become wonderful leaders for an organisation I care deeply about.”

If you could have a special power/magic what would it be and why?

“I’d like to be able to stop time. I’d get 8 hours sleep and be able to say ‘yes’ to requests from the people I care about!”

You can see more of Arena on:

Facebook: Arena Williams – Labour’s candidate for Hunua

Twitter: @arenaa

YouTube: Arena Williams for Hunua

Please check the About page if you are interested in the question selections. 

MP Holly Walker, Green Party

Photograph:

Holly with her daughter Esther Lucy Haines at a PPL event.  

Profile:

Age: 31 Ethnicity/Nationality: Pākehā Highest Education: MPhil in Development Studies (University of Oxford)

Background:

Holly Walker is a list candidate for the Greens. Holly’s official Greens profile page is available here. On her page, you will see that she has only recently become a new mother and during 2014 she considers she ‘will be combining the equally important roles of parenting and Parliament’.

While Holly is the Greens spokesperson for Children, Housing, Students, Open Government, Electoral Reform, Arts Culture and Heritage, she also has particular interests in women’s issues, parenting, education, inequality and social justice.

Holly’s motivation for entering politics was recognising the opportunities afforded to her through state assistance. She explains:

“for the first few years of my life my mum was on her own with me. We benefited from state welfare, housing, and education support, and I want to defend those supports and strengthen them for children growing up in New Zealand today so that every child can enjoy the opportunities I did.”

Holly grew up in a household that encouraged political debate and participation. She developed her political values at high school, and later at university. She describes her politics as ‘progressive with a strong commitment to green principles of appropriate decision-making, social justice, ecological wisdom, non-violence, and a commitment to upholding the Treaty of Waitangi’ and also identifies as a feminist.

Although her parents were ‘strong Labour supporters’, Holly gravitated towards the Greens as she considered them the ‘only party that recognised the links between the economy, the environment and social justice and builds those links into everything they do’. She was also attracted to the Greens because she felt she would never have to ‘modify or compromise’ on her principles and values with them.

Women’s Issues

On women’s reproductive rights 

Holly is pro-choice and believes that ‘it is time for our abortion law to be updated and for it to be removed from the Crimes Act and treated as a health issue’.

On women’s economic contributions (other than paid work)

Holly considers that women contribute to the economy through unpaid work in many ways including (but not limited to):

“leading community organisations, governing schools and playcentres, volunteering for NGOs and charities, breastfeeding their babies, caring for children, sick and elderly relatives, supporting their partners in paid work, starting up their own businesses, upskilling themselves through training and study, creating art and music.”

On wage disparity

Holly is hugely concerned with wage disparity in New Zealand and considers it ‘one of the biggest challenges of our time’. She maintains that ‘there is clear evidence that growing inequality harms us all, not only those at the bottom, and New Zealand is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world’.

On support services for women

Holly believes that we could do more to support women in vulnerable situations, such as, first time or solo mothers, victims of crime, addiction services, mental health services (to mention a few). She states that:

“we need to recognise that investment in early intervention – whether it be support for new parents, early childhood education, public health campaigns, or preventive mental health services – saves millions of dollars down the track in reduced need for remedial health, education and justice services. This is particularly true for women who are often more vulnerable to begin with.”

 Holly further explains that:

“As a new mum myself, and the daughter of a sole parent, I have nothing but admiration for mothers who raise children without the support of a full-time partner. I am passionate about making sure that every child in New Zealand gets the best possible start in life – from improved maternity care and support for breastfeeding, to a universal child payment, more paid parental leave, free healthcare for all children, and subsidised ECE and after-school care. Policies like this would make a huge difference to first time and sole parents.”

General Q & A:

What is the one skill you wish you had (that you don’t already)?

“Fluency in Te Reo Māori. I’m working on it”

In everyday life, what is your pet peeve?

“A messy kitchen”

What do think is the biggest problem facing the world right now?

“Climate change”

What is the best gift you’ve ever given?

“I was recently able to donate a large amount of frozen breastmilk for a friend struggling to get her supply established and wanting to avoid giving her newborn formula. That felt pretty good”

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

“For one birthday, my partner Dave made a treasure hunt of new books hidden around the house for me. To find each one I had to solve a cryptic crossword clue. It took me days to find them all”

Describe a time when you wanted to quit, but you didn’t:

“Crossing the finish line of my first half marathon with a nose bleed and at the end of a gruelling three week Outward Bound course in 2004”

If you could have a special power/magic what would it be and why?

“To be in two places at once: in Parliament working for good green change, and at home with my baby!”

You can see more of Holly on: 

Facebook:  Holly Walker

Twitter:  @hollyrwalker

Please check the About page if you are interested in the question selections. 

MP Tracey Martin, New Zealand First

Photograph:

Tracey Martin [pictured right] presenting Jessie Wigglesworth [left] an award for a fully paid trip to Parliament following an essay competition through the local Business and Professional Women’s group as part of a membership drive.

Profile:

Age: 49, Ethnicity/Nationality: NZ Pakeha, Highest Education: University Entrance 

Background:

Tracey Martin is Deputy Leader and list candidate for the New Zealand First Party (NZF). Her motivation for joining NZF was predominantly her reaction to the economic reforms of the 1980’s (under the Labour Party) and 1990’s (under the National Party) which she observed ‘hit people hard’.

Tracey’s official NZF profile page is available here.  On her page, you will see her reason for joining NZF specifically is that she considers their policies and values ‘set the interest of the country and all New Zealanders above interest groups and foreign agents’.

Prior to joining NZ First, Tracey was already politically active in supporting her mother’s political campaigns for Democrats for Social Credit and later NZF. Tracey deems her parents the most influential people with regard to developing her own set of political ideals through many, sometimes heated, discussions with them.

Tracey describes her personal political ideology as largely socially conservative, but acknowledges that this is not definitive of her views. She also identifies as a feminist because she is committed to the objective of gender equality.

While Tracey is spokesperson for Education, Science, Crown Research Institutes, Youth, Women, Arts and Culture, IT and Communications and the Volunteer sector, she also has particular interests in Women’s issues, Youth education and employment, and Māori.

Women’s Issues

On women’s reproductive rights 

Tracey is pro-choice and would like to see more work done to find out ‘how women find themselves in the situation where they require these [abortion] services’. Additionally, Tracey would like to see greater efforts in identifying and supplying the support services women require to avoid the need for these services altogether.

On women’s economic contributions (other than paid work)

Tracey was ‘a stay at home parent for 15 years prior to entering parliament’, and through her experience considers the economic contributions that women make ‘to support this country (all countries)’ are too innumerable to list but she is adamant that economy would fall if women stopped all the unpaid work they do.

On wage disparity

Tracey worries about wage disparity in NZ and has a few ideas on how to address the issue.

One idea is requiring employers to advertise jobs with ‘the pay the job will receive’, because she considers this would go some way toward removing ‘the ability [of employers] to pay a man more for the same job’.

Another idea involves the work she is doing ‘on how to support cohorts of women into non-traditional work environments which pay more because they are usually male dominated’.   Tracey reasons that lifting the pay of traditional employment areas for women such as nursing or child care acknowledges their ‘true monetary value’ and may also lead to the ‘balancing of the sexes in these roles’.

She is also contemplating the idea of ‘making it necessary for paid parental leave to be split between the parents’ because it may assist to ‘remove that barrier to women of child rearing years because their partners/husbands will also have to take part of that time off’. Tracey suggests an added advantage might be that it also helps ‘with bonding and better gender split of workloads at home as well’.

On support services for women

While social services are not part of Tracey’s portfolio, she considers that there is a lack of cohesion between the many support services available. Tracey believes that the money poured into many of these support services produces a large degree of duplication with few outcomes. She states that while not all support services are ‘necessarily underfunded’ the ‘purpose of helping may well have been lost through an environment of tick a box and move them on’.

General Q & A:

What is the one skill you wish you had (that you don’t already)?

“I would like to remember people’s names. I recall faces but names often escape me or take a while to find in the filing cabinet that is my mind”

In everyday life, what is your pet peeve?

“If you take it out then put it back – around the house mostly”

What do think is the biggest problem facing the world right now?

“Wow – that is a big question. Growing population, looming food crisis, looming water crisis and the powers that as they need these things will seek to take them.  Pollution of the planet”

What is the best gift you’ve ever given?

“My son’s Christmas gift which was outward bound in 2012”

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?

“A passion fruit vine by my husband on one of our first Valentine Days”

Describe a time when you wanted to quit, but you didn’t:

“Probably around once every three months I come home and say to my husband that I just don’t think I am cut out for this.  He always pours me a wine and tells me to get over it    :-)”

If you could have a special power/magic what would it be and why?

“I would like more time in a day to catch up on my current work load and to do some of the other things I would like to get done”

You can see more of Tracey on: 

Facebook: Tracey Martin MP

Twitter: @TraceyMartinMP

Please check the About page if you are interested in the question selections.