Wall’s gender equality ambassador role axed

The Government is ditching the role of ambassador for gender equality in the Pacific. MP-turned-diplomat Louisa Wall,

was the first appointee to the job in May 2022. She confirmed yesterday that her contract expired on March 1 and was not renewed.

Speaking from New York, where the United Nations is hosting its annual Commission on the Status of Women, the former Black Ferns rugby player said her work to advance gender equality would continue, but she would fund it herself.

Wall represented New Zealand at Sydney’s Pride festival, the Pacific Islands Forum, and in Nuie, Samoa, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. She also advocated for the country to join the Global Equality Fund, co-ordinated by the United States.

The value of the role came in working with ambassadors from other countries, including

Australia, the US, French Polynesia and within the European Union.

More than a dozen countries, including Australia, have gender equality envoys.

“A big step was about us consolidating relationships with other countries in areas where we’re all committed to human rights, like gender equality and LGBT rights. For me, that’s the biggest issue,” Wall said.

“I’m obviously passionate about role, but it’s not really about me.”

Wall’s appointment was controversial, coming only weeks after quitting Parliament after a 14-year career as a Labour MP.

She was celebrated for sponsoring the marriage equality bill, which passed in 2013, but later fell out with the party when she believed she was forced out of her Manurewa seat. She agreed to quit when the then-Government found her a suitable position.

Announcing the sinecure, then-Foreign the

Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the role would be central to “supporting gender equality and the advancement of women and girls in the Pacific” and “participation by women and LGBTQI+, and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making”. It later emerged that senior foreign affairs staff raised concerns about the scope of the role, given that LGBTQI+ rights are a sensitive issue in the region, with homosexuality still criminalised in several Pacific countries. Wall appeared undeterred by these doubts, and has made improving rights for those whose sexual orientations or gender identities fall outside the cultural mainstream a central part of her work, including meeting with church groups.

In Geneva, where she attended July’s Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, she also spoke about the impacts of the legacies of colonialism on the rights of LGBTQIA+ members of indigenous peoples, moderating a panel discussion.

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirmed there were no plans to appoint a new ambassador.

Peters has previously made clear his distaste for political appointments to diplomatic jobs, saying in 2016 that they should be “the absolute exception”.

He went on to appoint former police minister Annette King as High Commissioner to Australia.

The NZ First leader also campaigned on a contentious policy to exclude trans people from women’s bathrooms in Government buildings, and from sporting leagues.

“The ministry is committed to progressing gender equality and sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) rights, and is considering ways to continue to build momentum around this work,” the spokesperson said in a statement.