Party women’s rule queried

Press, 26 June 1989, Page 3

Party women’s rule queried

PA Dunedin The constitutional requirement for 50 per cent of the New Labour Party elected officers to be women did not receive full support at yesterday’s Otago-Southland district conference.

At the Dunedin conference one more woman was required to be elected after the election of officers had been completed, to give a balance of nine men and nine women.

After that election one of the older women attending, who later asked not be named, said she objected to people talking about women “making up the numbers.”

She said she had stood on her "own merits” over the years and felt if she was not good enough she should not have got the position.

Earlier, the district policy co-ordinator, Mr Michael Hanifin, said the 50 per cent requirement was not a radical proposal. Without that requirement at the party’s con-

ference in Wellington, there would have been no South Island women elected on to the national executive, he said. “Even now there is only one to speak for all South Island women,” Mr Hanifin said. She is the newly-elected district president, Ms Francesca Holloway. Main funding of the New Labour Party would come for personal pledges from members, the convener of the party’s economic policy commission, Mr Chris Trotter, said. People would join the party with either a $2 or $5 subscription, but that was not the end of their commitment. “You will be asked to pledge funds, in relation to your income, on a regular basis,” he said.

That would allow party executive members to be involved in areas other than “incessantly raising funds.” That system had led to the demise of the “old” Labour Party as a political force. The way was open for trade unions and other organisations to affiliate to the N.L.P., but the days of card voting by those groups were over, he said. “The days of the Engineers’ Union having 12 delegates and 63 votes, and the Distribution Workers’ Union having 20 delegates and 102 votes at a political conference are over,” he said. The district council decided to field candidates in this year’s local body elections.