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.

The eye-catching headline in RNZ News on 11 February 2026, “Family violence reaches highest levels since 2018” inspired an examination of the Salvation Army’s annual report, subtitled Foundations of Wellbeing, Poipoia te Kākanao.

While all five chapters of the report - Children and Youth, Work and Incomes, Housing, Crime and Punishment, Social Hazards – contain valuable information - the focus for the Safety, Health & Wellbeing Action Hub was on Crime and Punishment, and on family violence in particular.

Note, the report’s statistics and data are drawn largely from publicly available sources, including the Ministry of Justice’s New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey, which “measures population prevalence including unreported crime.”

Kia ora everyone,

I’m Emma, a French political science student, and I am very happy to join NCWNZ as an intern until the end of June.

Back home, I’m the president of my university’s feminist association. We organise conferences and debates on all kinds of feminist issues, and we also try, patiently but persistently, to push our school to update its internal charters to make the institution more inclusive and safer for everyone. A lot of my time is spent somewhere between planning events, having big discussions about gender equality, and sending way too many emails.

On 1 February 2026, the International Action Hub sent a letter of support to the Rt. Hon. Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister - copying also to the Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Hon. Nicola Grigg, Minister for Women. The letter was sent upon gaining approval from the NCWNZ Board to welcome the Prime Minister's announcement that New Zealand declined the invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump to join the Board of Peace. 

U.S. President Trump had launched the founding charter of the Board of Peace during the 50th World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on 22 January 2026. Leaders and foreign ministers of 19 other countries attended the Board of Peace signing ceremony in Davos and signed the founding charter. The U.S. originally presented the Board of Peace as an oversight body focused on Gaza, and the U.N. Security Council adopted the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 on 17 November 2025 to give the Board of Peace a mandate to do so until the end of 2027. The Board of Peace charter indicated that the U.S. would serve as the fiscal depository and that President Trump would be approving all decisions. The charter does not contain the word "Gaza" which had been the original U.N. mandate. President Trump has asserted that he would like the Board of Peace to become the world’s preeminent conflict resolution body. 

Many thanks to International Action Hub member Megan Hutching (WILPF) for taking the lead in building the bulk of this statement. Read the letter of support from NCWNZ to the Prime Minister below:

The NCWNZ Wellington Branch recently hosted a free Women’s Self-Defence Workshop as part of our events raising awareness for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, and it was a fantastic success. A huge thank you to everyone who attended and to the Wellington Hapkido Academy for leading such an engaging and empowering session.

This is the fifth and final article of a series focusing on the NCWNZ Past Presidents Oral History Project with interviews by Carol Dawber in 2016. See the introductory article in The Circular at "NCWNZ Past Presidents oral history interviews from 2016" (August 2024).

Barbara Joan Arnold née Furness MNZM was President of the National Council of Women of New Zealand from 2012 to 2014. Her contributions reflect a form of leadership that is rarely celebrated but deeply consequential. Over decades of involvement at branch, national, and international levels, Arnold combined scientific expertise, governance capability, and feminist commitment to help sustain the organisation through one of the most difficult periods in its modern history.

Born in Christchurch in 1950, Arnold grew up in a household where civic responsibility was assumed rather than debated. Her father’s involvement in the Labour movement and local government, and her mother’s working life in clerical and accounting roles, shaped an early understanding that women’s participation in public life was both normal and necessary. When Arnold expressed an interest in science, she recalls being encouraged without qualification—her father simply telling her that she could pursue engineering if she wished. That quiet affirmation shaped her expectations of opportunity and equality.

The New Year honours for 2026 are a disappointment for women, with 55% of the awards going to men. This is especially noticeable with the higher awards where 83% of CNZM were awarded to men and 60% of ONZM. See the full list at the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office's website https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications/new-year-honours-list-2026. Here's the break-down for each honour by gender in the table below.