On Thursday May 14th, I had the honour of attending one of three sessions moderated by the United Nations Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem to consult on assessment, prevention and protection of violence against older women. The sessions were intended as a follow-up to the written submission process in April this year to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Violence Against Older Women, in which NCWNZ participated.

Each session was three hours, involving different participants. At the session I attended, there were a total of seventeen women from Europe, Africa, India, South America, the Middle East, Australia and two of us from Aotearoa New Zealand. We were advised of the topics ahead of time.

Ms. Reem made clear in her preamble to the session that although sessions were recorded and transcribed, these materials would not be made available to participants. We introduced ourselves, said who we represented, then dived into the first question. I spoke first, making sure to highlight that I was presenting the contributions of our members. There were some very smart people on the call, and Reem guided everyone competently and efficiently, while also being approachable and warm.

The Health Select Committee has now reported back on the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. Overall, the Bill represents a significant improvement, and many of NCWNZ’s concerns, outlined in our submission on 16 September 2024 (.pdf file, S24.15, on the NCWNZ website), have been addressed in some form. In particular, the strengthening of the rights and interests of children born through surrogacy is welcome. However, protections for surrogate mothers have been addressed less comprehensively.

Below is a series of topics that need further attention.

1. Primacy of the child’s interests

NCWNZ recommended amending the HART Act 2004 to explicitly state that the child’s interests are paramount. While this was not adopted directly, the Committee strengthened child‑centred safeguards, including:

• mandatory Oranga Tamariki reports for all surrogacy approval applications;
• expanded ECART powers to cancel approvals where conditions are not met;
• confirmation that courts must consider the Verona Principles when determining the child’s best interests; and,
• amendments to citizenship law to ensure surrogate‑born children retain New Zealand citizenship by birth.

PWC has been working at pace this calendar year coordinating the NWCNZ submissions process: researching opportunities, distributing Action Items, editing and lodging written submissions, and supporting oral submissions. As I type this update the 20th written submission for 2025 is in progress, with the Education Action Hub responding to the Proposal to replace NCEA. NCWNZ submissions are made publically available on our website, see Submissions - National Council of Women of New Zealand.

In addition, our oral submissions will total seven. The very recent three are:

• the Economic Independence Action Hub on the People's Select Committee on Pay Equity (see separate article by Rosemary Du Plessis);
• the Safety Health and Wellbeing Action Hub on the Healthy Future (Pae Ora Amendment Bill (S25.19 on the website), and
• the Online Safety Coalition (convened by NCWNZ) on the Inquiry into the harm young New Zealanders encounter online (see S25.17 on the website).

Rosemary Du Plessis – on presenting to the People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity

I presented the NCWNZ oral submission during the third hearing of the Committee on Monday 25 August, as lead writer Irene Ryan was unavailable. Although actively involved in the full submission, coordinating the Ōtautahi Christchurch Branch response and as an Economic Independence Action Hub member, it was a bit daunting to present to such a high-powered set of women, and to condense our key points to the allocated fifteen minutes in total -- and we needed to leave time for questions/discussion.  For submissions and recording see:

• NCWNZ Submissions: NCWNZ Submissions;S25.15_ORAL_People's_Select_Committee_on_Pay_Equity.pdf and  S25.15_People's_Select_Committee_on_Pay_Equity.pdf
• Select Committee recording: YouTube https://share.google/CR4YgbDYcvab71f2z see 2.09.50 - 2.29.06

Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025

On 6 May 2025, the Government passed the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 under urgency, replacing the 2020 legislation without consultation or a Regulatory Impact Statement. This abrupt legislative change discontinued 33 active pay equity claims—some close to settlement—and made future claims significantly harder to pursue. The new law raised the threshold for female-dominated work to 70% over 10 years (previously 60%), introduced a 10-year bar on repeat claims for the same employees, and gave employers greater control over claim eligibility and the right to opt out of multi-employer claims. It also restricted the selection of comparator occupations, making it harder to demonstrate pay inequities across sectors, and prohibited review clauses in settlements—undermining long-term accountability.

It's been a busy few months in the lead up to, and during the holidays period, with submissions including the Mental Health Bill and Evidence of Family Violence Bill.

The pace has continued with eight submissions completed in 2025 to date:

• Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill - written and oral submissions
• Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill - written and oral submissions
• Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill
• Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill
• Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora Planning, Funding & Outcomes Change Proposal (PFO)
• Proposal to fund the contraceptive pill Desogestrel (Cerazette)

Submissions are one of the ways NCWNZ works to inform and influence law and policy. They represent the views of our members, and require a collective and collaborative effort.

We need to grow our writing team to sustain this important mahi. You may be a subject matter expert or have a broad interest in gender equality. You need an ability to analyse and present complex information in accessible language, to be collaborative and have great time management.

The training will include two 2-hour online workshops and buddying with an experienced writer as needed. Dates are to be confirmed for May.

The Auckland Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children - established in 2006 and including the NCWNZ Auckland branch among its members - has been lobbying for many years to amend the Crimes Act legislation. The Coalition has been consulted several times by Ministry staff and MPs have visited them in person. A draft bill, written in most part by Coalition members Alison Towns and Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law. Many drafts were reviewed by members of the Coalition as well as several NCWNZ Action Hub convenors, before it was submitted to various Ministries prior to this particular bill's development.

With the release of the proposed Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill at the end of 2024 and Parliament's Justice Select Committee now receiving submissions on the same, we are hopeful that real progress will be made this year. In its current state, however, the Bill contains a number of flaws that have the potential to make arrests and prosecution for stalking even more difficult than is the case with existing legislation.

Photo from Wikipedia of Soviet Union Red Army soldiers talking to the children just liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp in January 1945. The boy on the left was telling the soldiers how to identify the surviving Nazi guards hiding in prisoner clothes. Nazis had swastikas tattooed under their left armpits.

In 2005 the United Nations designated January 27th the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp and crematoria as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Since then, the U.N. calls each year for the world to honour and remember the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, and all the victims of the German Nazi regime and its collaborators.

As a representative of NCWNZ, I joined many members of the Government, Diplomatic Corps, NGOs and representatives of the Jewish community -- all who stand against antisemitism, discrimination and apathy in the face of genocide. We met on 28 January 2024 in the Banquet Hall, Parliament Buildings, Wellington. We were encouraged to work to prevent future acts of genocide through education, documentation and commemoration.

On 1 February 2024, Bernice Williams of the NCWNZ Health, Safety & Wellbeing Action Hub presented an oral submission to the Parliament's Justice Committee | Komiti Take Ture who are working on expanding the courts' power to better protect the victims of family violence in Legislation Bill 285-1. The members of the Justice Committee who heard the submission were: James Meager (Chair, National); Todd Stephenson (ACT); Marama Davidson (Green); Ginny Anderson (Labour); Dr Duncan Webb (Labour); and, Tracey McLellan (Labour). The recording with Williams' presentation can be found on the Justice Committee, New Zealand Parliament website at the minute mark 32.34 and runs about 10 minutes: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/scl/justice/news-archive/watch-public-meetings-of-the-justice-committee/.

Get on out there! Whether you are a member of a local NCWNZ branch or of an NCWNZ Action Hub, we rely on you to help with collaborations across organisations with a similar mission to get things done at the local, regional and national levels. As stated in the NCWNZ 2020 report A Sustainable Future - Free from Gender Discrimination: "Our strength comes from our membership, which includes individuals, branches, and organisations from unions and NGOs to community organisations." 

Currently, we have 13 local branches and more than 200 member organisations, as well as individual members. In addition, we have members and non-member volunteers who serve on six Action Hubs. The Parliamentary Watch Committee, an evolution from one of the original components of the NCWNZ since its founding in 1896, coordinates the writing of official submissions and our combined input into consultations with Parliament or with international organisations such as the United Nations' international treaty, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).