Kia ora, Kia Orana, Talofa, Mālō ni, and warm Pacific greetings to you all!

As we move towards International Women’s Day on 8 March, I am reflecting on how ‘international’ for NCWNZ has a good dose of ‘Polynesian region’ focus. While we add our voices to global issues, we can have more impact with a focus closer to home, by being good neighbours and supporting collective endeavours.

For example, we welcome the appointment of Rhia Taonui (a member of PACIFICA Inc) as NGO representative to accompany the NZ government delegation to CSW70 in New York in March – she will be a visible reminder that the UN is supposed to be inclusive even of those nationalities that are subject to US current travel restrictions.

We will be following with interest, and supporting when asked, the Cook Islands NCW reporting to CEDAW this year.

And we will be participating in the work being led by the Māori Women’s Welfare League, as the International Women’s Caucus (convened by the Ministry for Women) discusses how to implement Te Tiriti partnerships in the Caucus. For this last work, the Board has a mandate from the NCWNZ membership through (among other things) the 2019 Resolution that we, as an organisation, are committed to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This has been a useful Resolution that has stood the test of time. But what other types of policy are useful for us? Think about our various advocacy approaches, including submission writing, panel discussions, letter writing, and collaboration on campaigns.

The Board is working on this issue in at least two ways. One is by considering how to design policy-making sessions at this year’s Conference on September 12-13 in Manakau, Auckland-Tāmaki Makarau – how to structure them, what we want to produce from such sessions. The second way is through developing a strategy to provide coherence and coordination.

One of the starting points of the strategy was to articulate the values of NCWNZ. I particularly like the one where we agreed that “our actions are courageous”. This speaks to having NCWNZ having the courage of our convictions, and standing up for our policies in public. We showed this when Aleisha Amohia and I presented in-person to the Select Committee on the Treaty Principles Bill, a highly public event. We showed it again when Rosemary Du Plessis presented to the People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity. And again when I recently appeared at a Human Rights Tribunal hearing to explain NCWNZ’s policy on recognising the rights of trans women as women – an action that provoked backlash at both myself and NCWNZ. However the Board was well prepared for such action, we had considered that and made the decision to be courageous and publicly stand by our policies.

Being courageous comes in smaller actions as well. It shows when members gently call out disrespectful behaviour in other members. It shows when someone in an Action Hub dares to give an alternative view to enable the group to think critically about something that initially seemed ‘obvious’. These courageous actions in our midst support robust decision making and enhance our collaborative way of working.

On 1 March, there will be an Art Day in Tāmaki Makaurau at the public sculpture 1001 Spheres, and if you’re in that town you might like to pop in. NCWNZ was one of the 23 Voices invited to write some words that were engraved on a disc to be installed within a sphere in 2023. A copy of this disc is now on the wall at the NCWNZ National Office in Wellington. I leave you with the inspirational words we (Carol Beaumont, Kerri Du Pont and myself) contributed to this project:

To read more articles from The Circular (January-February 2026) issue 655, click on the tag below.