Call for more women and diversity on local councils
‘‘Women in local government may be the minority, but you have made a difference.’’
Elaine Henry, former councillor
When Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese first ran for the role, she didn’t win, but she was encouraged to look on the bright side.
‘‘I was standing in the cathedral and a gentleman said to me, ‘It’s probably a good thing that you didn’t get elected mayor, because you would have been far too busy to be mayor and look after your family’ – and I was in the cathedral, so I just smiled at him.’’
Reese, the first woman to be Nelson’s mayor, said it was important for women to be mentors to those who came after them, especially in light of statistics indicating a decrease in women in local government around New Zealand for the first time.
She said she felt an ‘‘enormous sense of responsibility’’ for mentoring women and encouraging more involvement.
‘‘It is really important to stand for roles [in local government]. It is important for me personally, yes, but it’s also important to be a role model . . . Some things stay the same, and some things need to change.’’
She said women should be ‘‘encouraged always to strive’’.
Nelson city councillor Gaile Noonan said part of the reason she ran for council in the first place was encouragement from Reese, combined with her own interest in community work.
She said she had watched many council meetings from the public gallery of the council chambers, and was eventually convinced to run for election herself.
‘‘Being at the table is a lot more interesting than being in the gallery.’’
She said she didn’t consider council meetings in terms of ‘‘men versus women’’, but said it was important to have women at the table to really represent the wider community.
‘‘I’d love to see more women stand, and more people from our ethnic communities stand, because what we really want is to be representing the community, and we don’t really do that very well.’’
Noonan said that sometimes as a councillor, she needed to have a thick skin, usually not at the council table but on social media, which she said could be ‘‘cruel’’.
She said it was important for women to support each other.
‘‘We need to be kind to one another and support each other, even if we disagree. It should be OK to have a different view.
‘‘[Former councillor] Ruth Copeland said something about bringing the feminine side to the table: you can care and still be in charge.’’
Elaine Henry, who spent a total of 24 years on borough councils in what became Tasman district and, after amalgamation, on the Tasman District Council, said things had changed a lot even during her time at the table.
‘‘When I first went on the council, everyone smoked. All the men would be wearing suits, I was the only woman there, and after beginning the meeting the mayor would say, ‘Gentleman, you may smoke’, and everyone would take off their jackets and light up their cigarettes,’’ she recalled.
Henry was one of the women who worked on a booklet highlighting 52 women in the region’s local government history.
‘‘When you look at the age range, the diversity of backgrounds, there are still things in common. Tenacity, to stick with it in good times and bad,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s not that we feel that the council should be all women, although that would be interesting – we need more women and more ethnic representation.
‘‘Women in local government may be the minority, but you have made a difference.’’
This Sunday is suffrage day, marking 124 years and 354 days since women in New Zealand voted in a national election for the first time.
The year-long celebration of the 125th anniversary of universal suffrage in New Zealand has been marked in Nelson city and Tasman district with everything from white camelia craft events to a re-enactment of a suffrage march down Trafalgar St.
In September, a booklet was published documenting the history of women in Nelson and Tasman local government bodies, the first time a single document collected the history of those 52 women.
This year, women make up 23 per cent of Nelson City Council, and 21 per cent of Tasman District Council.
The two longest-serving women in local government in the region recently spoke at an event celebrating the women who worked in councils in the region.
Nelson councillor Kate Fulton said it was important for women to have their voice heard, and to carry on the legacy that the suffragists had left.
Fulton recently discovered that she was a descendant of an outspoken Nelson suffrage campaigner, Mary Ann Mu¨ ller, who was one of if not the first suffragist in New Zealand.
She said she liked to think she was carrying on the legacy Mu¨ ller started under the pen name Fe´mmina, even before she knew she was Mu¨ ller’s descendent.
‘‘For example, as far as I know, I was the first woman in my college to get my PhD with children. At the time, the college just didn’t know what to do with me.
‘‘There was equality and women’s rights, but if you were getting educated, then you didn’t have children. You couldn’t do both.’’
Fulton said she had been a large part of the first available daycare facility for women attending that college, and she brought that same focus on family to her politics.