Ministry of Women's Affairs

http://www.mwa.govt.nz/news-and-pubs.../soi-2008-2011

This section describes what our work involves, and our contribution to the outcomes in the Action Plan. It lays out our policy work programme.

The diagram below illustrates how ‘what we do’ helps us to achieve our vision. For example, an area of focus of our nominations function is to achieve 50 percent women on state sector boards and committees by 2010. This in turn helps us achieve our objective of improving leadership for women, and our vision of a thriving society with resilient women who have real choices. Our policy work in particular has a strong link to the outcomes in the Action Plan for New Zealand Women; the advice we give, and the influence we have, helps to improve the well-being, economic sustainability, and work-life balance for New Zealand women.



What are our priorities for the next three years?

We help enhance government policies and programmes
Policy advice and development to maximise the potential of women will focus on the following Action Plan outcomes:

Action Plan outcome area: improving economic opportunities and choice
Women will attain economic independence when they:

* have access to a full range of opportunities for paid work and employment
* are equitably rewarded for their work
* have access to an adequate minimum level of income
* have optimal access to, and use of, their financial resources.

The key areas on which we will be focusing over the next three years for this priority outcome are:

* asking how women can make a contribution to lifting the value of the economy
* improving the participation of women in the context of changing skills, technology and employment patterns, eg modern apprenticeships and industry training
* reducing the extent to which gender stereotypes and gaps in information limit career choices (across the age range from girls at school to young women)
* assessing whether gender-based occupational segregation impacts on wider economic performance
* considering the implications of population ageing and diversity on women’s economic and employment goals.


Across all our work relating to economic and employment outcomes, our priority focus will be to improve the opportunities and remove the barriers for the most disadvantaged groups of women and those who are lagging behind the others.

Action Plan outcome area: balancing caring roles with paid work
Women will attain their preferred work-life balance when they:

* can successfully integrate paid work into their personal and family lives
* can easily make the contribution they desire to their whānau/community
* can access support and services to allow them to meet responsibilities to others.

The Ministry’s focus in this area to date has been on improving the accessibility and quality of out of school services. We will continue to focus on that area over the next three years, particularly in relation to low income families.

However, we are now turning our attention not just to the balance of paid work with caring roles for women, but also to the balance of caring responsibilities between men and women. A significant piece of work we will be undertaking will be to explore further men’s role in caring. And in 2010 the ten-yearly survey on New Zealanders’ use of time will be completed. We will be analysing this rich set of data with a particular focus on work-life balance.

Action Plan outcome area: quality of life and well-being

Well-being could almost be said to be the overarching outcome for the other outcome areas too, given that arguably, work-life balance and economic independence are determinants of overall well-being and quality of life. Well-being is an expression of maximised potential.

Women will enjoy a quality of life that allows them to achieve their desired well-being when they:

* are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy
* are safe at home and in their communities
* can meet their social and cultural needs.

Some of these immediate outcomes are clearly beyond the scope of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The areas we have selected for our work programme focus are the areas where some groups of women (eg women with disabilities) face particular disadvantage. These are:

* reducing the impact and incidence of violence against women (sexual violence and family violence)
* finding out what interventions work for adult victims of sexual violence
* exploring issues relating to young women that may set them on a pathway of disadvantage and marginalisation (including young women and violence; young women as parents; young women as victims).

We will also be considering:

* the extent to which New Zealand’s high rate of teen pregnancy impacts negatively on outcomes for women
* how changing demographics (eg fertility, ageing, diversity) might impact on groups of women
* how to ensure women make healthy and safe transitions between different roles during the course of a lifetime (eg student, mother, working woman).

Our major piece of research over the next two years is the work on effective interventions for adult victims of sexual violence. The research will provide an evidence base for policy development and identify ways to improve service delivery.

Working with other agencies on Action Plan activity

We will continue to work with other agencies that have actions and responsibilities under the Action Plan for New Zealand Women. The focus for the Ministry is on monitoring indicators and reporting on an overall picture of the combined impact that actions of all relevant departments have made towards achieving the outcomes of the Action Plan.

We help increase women’s participation on state sector boards and committees
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs’ policy focus includes improving women’s participation in all spheres of leadership, such as private sector governance, and in the community and family.

We have a particular focus on increasing women’s participation on state sector boards and committees. The government aims to increase women’s participation in this sector towards a goal of 50 percent by 2010. The Ministry is not solely accountable for successfully attaining the 50 percent goal, but contributes to its achievement.

Increasing the pool of suitably qualified women from which Ministers make appointments
The Ministry continues to identify and recruit suitable women for possible appointment, particularly those who have high levels of senior management or governance experience.

The Ministry provides Ministers and requesting agencies with the details of suitably qualified women for appointment to state sector boards and committees. In doing so we will:

* rigorously target our service so that nominees who best fit the criteria are provided, in order to achieve greater success
* in areas where this is a more appropriate process, inform suitably qualified women of vacancies so they can apply directly themselves
* prioritise our efforts on sectors or boards and committees where participation of women is low.

Disseminating evidence-based research

The Ministry annually compiles a whole-of-government stocktake that measures women’s participation on state sector boards and committees. The results of the stocktake are widely circulated to government agencies, Ministers, and the public. The stocktake is a powerful driver for change as it reports on the differing levels of women’s participation across all government portfolios.

We also disseminate international research highlighting the benefits of diversity on board performance. We engage with decision-makers and leaders in the public and private sectors to share that information and to gather information to help us develop policy on increasing women’s participation in leadership.

Our international priorities
The Ministry is the lead agency for managing New Zealand’s international obligations on the status of women.

The focus of the work in 2008/09 will be supporting ministerial attendance at international meetings, including the annual Commonwealth, States, Territories and New Zealand Ministerial Conference on the Status of Women (MINCO) and the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW); and to progress work on the recommendations from the 2007 CEDAW meeting.

The Ministry will also continue to facilitate the meetings of the Caucus on International Women’s Issues, a domestic forum to encourage an exchange of information and experience among those working in international forums to address issues relevant to the well-being of women.

Just want to add this bit.

ACT New Zealand Women’s Affairs Spokesman Heather Roy today invited Minister John ‘Macho Man’ Tamihere to join with her in calling for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to be abolished.

“Mr Tamihere is right: Kiwi men are not treated the same as Kiwi women. But, rather than setting up a Ministry of Men’s Affairs, we should even things up by simply scrapping the Women’s Affairs Ministry,” Mrs Roy said.

“As the Minister said: we have Ministries for Women, Youth, and Horse Racing – even a Commission to tell us what a family is, what it includes and what it should do. The last thing New Zealand needs is yet another taxpayer-funded talkfest to tell us how to live our lives.

“The Women’s Affairs Ministry does nothing for women but tell them that the white, middle-class heterosexual male is to blame for everything – all the while treating women with patronising sympathy and telling them they need closer relationships with the Government.

“The reality is that no one needs a closer relationship with Government. Like men, women are doing well on their own and should be left to continue. While a little mis-guided, Mr Tamihere is on the right track – I would be more than happy to meet with him to discuss his role in getting rid of this politically correct feminist waste of taxpayers’ money,” Mrs Roy said.

http://www.act.org.nz/node/26054

"...and our vision of a thriving society with resilient women who have real choices..."""

thriving society based on resilient wimin - this is haute femint claptrap presented as an oxymoron typical to feminit spiel

but what do femints mean by "resilient" their dialogue is political correctness which is Marxist reinterpretation of objective meaning of words

like the word 'equality' as alluded to by George Orwell in his noel Animal Farm - some of the animal were more equal than others

I think they they mean
"resilient - pig arrogant and impervious of criticism of their doctrinaire nonsense of feminitism"

Oh, oh, oh. Just to add a bit more gossip.

No smacking Bill - what’s really going on?

Filed under: General — julie @ 2:47 pm
The velvet underground-Labour’s quiet revolutionaries

It used to be said the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Now, people whose hands have never been near a cradle are deciding what’s best for children, and the country.

Margaret Shields says, “We began to reorganise the Women’s Section of the Party so that it became an agent for change; through organising, training and encouraging women to take a larger, more strategic role in politics”


She says things are not done by accident. John Tamihere agrees saying that these people think in timeframes of 10 to 15 years. They don’t have families so they plot because they have nothing better to do.
Feminist and Communist Kay Goodger attended the first-ever feminist United Women’s Convention as well as Helen Clark, Margaret Wilson, Marilyn Waring and Silvia Cartwright along with nearly 2 thousand other women.

From this convention came the attack on the traditional family. It was concluded if they could crush the family, break it down or have it sidelined as irrelevant or portrayed as no better than other methods of child rearing, radical feminism could set the agenda for centuries to come.


Goodger’s 1973 plan was to make a utopian future for “Amazonian” reflecting what she believed was once a reality.
Family power is a real threat to radical feminism. It has been the plan of radical feminists to use anything in its power to destroy this power.


Goodger called on the radical feminists to do all they could within political parties, government departments and communities. Everyone backing the bill for “No smacking” is most likely a part of this radical movement.
Goodger back in 1973 knew that if women could work and children were raised in childcare the family would suffer a body blow. Radical feminists following this women are intending to have Government funded 24 hour a day childcare. As of 1st July we will have 20 hours free a week with women already seperated from the family structure being forced to work else they will lose their benefits. The single mothers.


This was the 30 year plan the sisterhood made from their list of demands.
Abortion to be free and on demand DONE
Sex education/Birth control at all levels DONE
An end to coercive family laws DONE
De facto relationships to have same status as marriage DONE
The rearing and education should be from society not parents DONE
Discrimination of homosexuals outlawed DONE
Abolish laws victimizing prostitutes DONE
Paid maternity of 12 weeks without loss of seniority or job DONE

Free Government paid 24 hours a day child care for all children from infancy
The only one left to go and Helen Clarke said she would go full steam ahead on this from the last election. So, is it over after this. No way.
From here on the Old School feminists are going afte the young girls through an education system they have hold on. These old school feminists have been upset for a while that the younger women do not appreciate their fight and what has been done for them. A new bach is constantly being manipulated. There is a whole network and politicking going on behind the scenes.


However you look at it radical feminists are only swapping the patriarchy for the matriarchy. From one extreme to the other. Still there is no balance and there never shall be under their control. Don’t think for one minute that many millions of women and men are aware of this.
This movement is very cleverly dictated.


Reference: Investigate Magazine, May 2005, page 39.


Kay Goodger is now a senior Government advisor on policy initiatives earning hundreds of dollars an hour in pay, still mixing with Marxist organisations in Europe and is mentioned in dispatches on the website of the Portuguese Communisat Party as recently as 4 years ago.


Margaret Sheilds is a former Minister of Customs and organised the 2005 conference for women.


Helen Clark is New Zealand’s Prime Minister.


Margaret Wilson first entered Parliament on the Labour Party list in 1999 and gained a Ministerial post immediately after her election. Her Ministerial positions included Attorney-General, Minister of Labour, Minister responsible for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and Minister of Commerce. She was elected the first woman Speaker of New Zealand’s House of Representatives in March 2005 and was re-elected Speaker in November, 2005


Marilyn Waring is Ruth Richardson’s replacement on the board of directors of the Reserve Bank.


Silvia Cartwright became the 18th governor general of New Zealand. She also became the first female high court judge.



6 Women mostly lesbians. Can't confirm everyone of them yet. They are tricky bitches.