DR GWEN STRUCK ‘More part-time jobs’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33985, 28 October 1975, Page 19

DR GWEN STRUCK ‘More part-time jobs’

The Government, as New Zealand’s biggest employer, should make more part-time jobs available for men and' women, to give each the opportunity of dividing time more equitably between working and looking after the family—the nucleus of community life. This is the view of a Nelson ecologist and mother of three daughters. Dr Gwen Struik, who will contest the Nelson seat as the Values Party candidate. Dr Struik, and her ecologist husband. Dr Roger Bray, are renowmed beyond the shores of New Zealand — to which they came in 1963 from Canada — as ecological authorities. They are New Zealand citizens. Although she is not a “women’s libber” in the now generally accepted sense of the term — Dr Struik believes women have a much greater role to play than merely the bearing and raising of children. Men, too, she feels.

could play a greater role in the family, but to do so they would require parttime work. If the mothers had part-time work also, the ideal would have been achieved, the family circle strengthened and the community as a whole benefiting. Like the “libbers.” Dr Struik is against discrimination, but she makes it plain she is against discrimination of any description against women, or men. As an ecologist, she speaks with authority on such subjects as transport, the environment, sewerage problems and conservation. The present transport system, she says, is wasteful. As evidence of this she points to the run-down in public transport in Nelson, yet the City Council is spending $BOO,OOO on car parking facilities for private motorists. If this money had been put into public transport, there would have been consequent savings in many facets of Nelson life. Dr Struik firmly believes the natural resources, sun and wind, should be put to work in producing solar

heating and power from wind generators. More money, she feels, should be spent by the Government in investigating ways of re<ycling sewage that is being pumped out into the sea. “In Nelson, as in my own family, many parents'share home-making while each has a chosen profession. I fully support this liberation in women's and men’s social roles and will work

for greater job opportunities and equal pay for both sexes. But this liberation is futile without maintaining the family and stabilising the economy,” says Dr Struik.

“Inflation has hurt many Nelsonians who now are looking at the Values Party economic policy with its emphasis on minimum and maximum income levels, community-based enterprise and freedom from overseas controls. “I would like to see the growing authoritarian power of government curtailed and more responsibility returned to local bodies, communities and individuals. For this reason, I oppose the Wanganui Computer Centre, and would like to see nonpersonal bureaucratic files opened to the public and the legislation of victimless ‘crimes’,” she says. “The Values approach stresses control from the bottom up, husbandry of the environment and the need for a stable economy and population in a world of limited resources. As an ecologist, I believe that Nelson’s pleasant environment can only be maintained by such a programme,” says Dr Struik.