Anne Daniels, President
NZNO Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa

Attacks on women by the current Coalition government, in recent weeks, are unprecedented. The silencing of women’s voice to push back through lack of accepted legislative process (e.g. select committee submissions) has gutted our right to be heard.

Two weeks ago, I presented at the NZNO Neonatal College of Nurses Aotearoa Conference. The main thrust of my presentation was that there is an expectation, by those who hold power over us, that ‘nurses play nice in their sandbox’. In other words, nurses, midwives, health care assistants, kaiawhina and student nurses should ‘stay in our box’ as David Seymour would have it and let others decide and speak for us. I countered this narrative and said it was up to us to change that by being the first one in the room to stand up, even when no-one else would and expect that the rage inherent in the oppression and inequities we experience, to galvinise action by rising up. Maranga Mai!

And here we are being told that we need to be civil by a government who has just ripped the pay equity legislation process out from under 33 ongoing claims, 10 of which were ours (NZNO), and told that the goal posts had shifted higher, to make it near on impossible for hundreds of thousands of undervalued, under privileged women, many of whom are our members, to achieve equity albeit pay equity, kiwisaver equity, equity of opportunity or anything else you can think of. Calls for ‘civility’ in politics are used by those in power who are engaged in systems of oppression to silence dissent, maintain hegemonic power structures, and retain patriarchal, capitalist norms.

History shows us that when women are galvinised by anger to overthrow oppression, we will never shut up until the change we need for ourselves, our families and our communities, occurs. Why are we angry? Why are we attending quickly organized protests all around the country? Why were there thousands of us standing on the parliament lawn on budget day afternoon?

$12.8 billion dollars, set aside for women’s pay equity claim processes, have been stolen from 180,000 low income, female-dominated workforces, many of them work in health care. But the changes to the legislation have also stolen the human right to be paid equally to a man for the same work, from our future generations. That’s $71,111 stolen from each of those 180,000 women today and too much to count for the future. Theres’ more. Budget day saw the promised ‘money in the back pocket’ disappear, never to be seen again. Women are paying the price. Pay Equity was a campaign win for women after decades of fighting, speaking up and protesting in this country. We will not stay silent, nor will we stay still until our right to be equally valued in all spheres of our lives are embedded in everything that matters to us.

One strategy that every member, everywhere can engage in is the ‘Peoples Select Committee’ led by past MP Marilyn Waring (put link here). We will not accept decisions being made about us, without us.

Why do we need to think about this. Poverty is a public health problem and requires a properly funded public health response. Marc Daalder (Newsroom) said this budget is a fiscal timebomb of unlimited liabilities.

The cuts made by this government will impact on the health and wellbeing of most of us. Without a fully funded infrastructure that supports education, affordable access to publicly fully funded health services and care, provided by culturally appropriate healthcare professionals and care givers, where and when its needed, healthy homes for all, jobs for all paid with at least a living wage that supports choice, the costs to the health system and this nation will be exponential downstream.

Our nation is calling out for all of us to Stand Up and Fight Back. Together we must win. We cannot wait for others to do it for us. Sisters must do it for themselves.