One afternoon, looking for something to read on a flight, I saw her 2019 book; The Political Years. Waring’s role in our history isn’t well understood and after reading her book I searched around for her email and asked if I could have an interview.
“I live in Kerikeri so I will be online” she responded with some humility. I’d have flown to Jamaica to interview Marilyn Waring. Kerikeri is nothing.
My first question, in a dusty studio at the back of a surprisingly flash convention centre was why, back in mid 1970s, did the young feminist-minded Marilyn Waring join National? “The answer is on the first page” she reminded me. Which it was, but I wanted her to re-tell the story.
Waring’s political journey begins with Norman Kirk. He was a Labour Prime Minster for 18 months before his death, at just 51. He was ahead of his time in many areas, but made it clear that he would vote against any law that treated homosexuality as ‘normal behaviour’.
Incensed, she joined the opposition National Party and was working for them as a researcher when, as the 1975 election approached, she was tapped to run for the rural conservative seat of Raglan. National were facing the prospect of no female National MPs. Waring was a woman. You get the idea.
Being asked by head office to run isn’t the same as securing selection. Waring had to win over dubious and wary party locals. Which she did, and at 23-years-old entered parliament as Robert Muldoon began his reckless reign as prime minister.
For the next eight and a half years Waring focused on issues that mattered to her, whilst meeting the demands of her electorate and trying to ignore that she belonged to the same party as Muldoon.
Her 2019 book is much like Waring; matter-of-fact. It counts through the years from 1975 to 1984 with little fanfare. There is almost no preamble and ends without reflection when she leaves office. Her personal life lives silent between the lines while her politics, anger and despair are poured into the pages.
Waring was, and remains, someone of deep conviction and her time at the centre of political life became an education. Why, she began to wonder, are there so few women in business, in the media, in parliament itself? And why, her mind pondered, was the contribution of women not counted in the national accounts?
At a speech to a UN forum in 1980 she declared; “It can be said that existing theories of labour and capital do not adequately trace the linkages between women’s work as reproducers and producers and production systems in world economies.”
Waring perceived that we do not count unpaid domestic work. After her political career she developed this theme in academia. Her 1988 book, If Women Counted, is one of the pillars of Feminist Economics.
She quickly became a national figure, featuring in the Women’s Weekly; “An uninhibited, musical, sports-minded girl, brown-eyed, honey blonde, Marilyn Waring, 23, with a mischievous giggle…. She is a lot gentler, prettier than news articles and photographs have indicated.”
Yet she was involved in serious politics; and few issues were more incendiary than abortion. During her time in parliament the rules governing the termination of a pregnancy were restricted; despite the determined opposition of an informal coalition of liberal-minded MPs on both sides.
There were triumphs. Changes to the evidence act preventing the sexual history of rape victims being used by the defence and the establishment of the Family Court being significant; but Waring’s real legacy wasn’t legislative.
It was simply enough that she was who she was. An uncompromising, principled, determined woman demonstrating that she was the equal of her colleagues in competence and in terms of integrity and courage, they stood in her shadow.
The denouement of the book, and her political career, came in the winter of 1984. Tired of reconciling the commitment to her electorate as a National MP and her loathing of the government, she embarked on a plan.
Muldoon’s was committed to US nuclear-armed or fuelled military ships to New Zealand. Not for any military purpose. He just liked to enrage the peaceniks. It was good politics. Waring was willing to vote for opposition legislation to end this nonsense, an act that wouldn’t cause the Government to fall, but did induce rage in the prime minister’s office.
“Just what do you think you are up to now, you perverted little liar,” an incensed Muldoon spat in drunken anger. Waring sat calmly and ate an apple as the rotten edifice of a regime she had come to despise collapsed around her.
Waring was discussed as a potential prime minister. She retains a greater profile than many current MPs; yet walked away from it on her own terms.
Waring wasn’t uncompromising. It was politics after all, but she was never unprincipled, and that is a remarkable achievement that few who trek through the halls of parliament can maintain.
She retained her identity and integrity; disproving the adage that all political careers end in failure........The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
My first question, in a dusty studio at the back of a surprisingly flash convention centre was why, back in mid 1970s, did the young feminist-minded Marilyn Waring join National? “The answer is on the first page” she reminded me. Which it was, but I wanted her to re-tell the story.
Waring’s political journey begins with Norman Kirk. He was a Labour Prime Minster for 18 months before his death, at just 51. He was ahead of his time in many areas, but made it clear that he would vote against any law that treated homosexuality as ‘normal behaviour’.
Incensed, she joined the opposition National Party and was working for them as a researcher when, as the 1975 election approached, she was tapped to run for the rural conservative seat of Raglan. National were facing the prospect of no female National MPs. Waring was a woman. You get the idea.
Being asked by head office to run isn’t the same as securing selection. Waring had to win over dubious and wary party locals. Which she did, and at 23-years-old entered parliament as Robert Muldoon began his reckless reign as prime minister.
For the next eight and a half years Waring focused on issues that mattered to her, whilst meeting the demands of her electorate and trying to ignore that she belonged to the same party as Muldoon.
Her 2019 book is much like Waring; matter-of-fact. It counts through the years from 1975 to 1984 with little fanfare. There is almost no preamble and ends without reflection when she leaves office. Her personal life lives silent between the lines while her politics, anger and despair are poured into the pages.
Waring was, and remains, someone of deep conviction and her time at the centre of political life became an education. Why, she began to wonder, are there so few women in business, in the media, in parliament itself? And why, her mind pondered, was the contribution of women not counted in the national accounts?
At a speech to a UN forum in 1980 she declared; “It can be said that existing theories of labour and capital do not adequately trace the linkages between women’s work as reproducers and producers and production systems in world economies.”
Waring perceived that we do not count unpaid domestic work. After her political career she developed this theme in academia. Her 1988 book, If Women Counted, is one of the pillars of Feminist Economics.
She quickly became a national figure, featuring in the Women’s Weekly; “An uninhibited, musical, sports-minded girl, brown-eyed, honey blonde, Marilyn Waring, 23, with a mischievous giggle…. She is a lot gentler, prettier than news articles and photographs have indicated.”
Yet she was involved in serious politics; and few issues were more incendiary than abortion. During her time in parliament the rules governing the termination of a pregnancy were restricted; despite the determined opposition of an informal coalition of liberal-minded MPs on both sides.
There were triumphs. Changes to the evidence act preventing the sexual history of rape victims being used by the defence and the establishment of the Family Court being significant; but Waring’s real legacy wasn’t legislative.
It was simply enough that she was who she was. An uncompromising, principled, determined woman demonstrating that she was the equal of her colleagues in competence and in terms of integrity and courage, they stood in her shadow.
The denouement of the book, and her political career, came in the winter of 1984. Tired of reconciling the commitment to her electorate as a National MP and her loathing of the government, she embarked on a plan.
Muldoon’s was committed to US nuclear-armed or fuelled military ships to New Zealand. Not for any military purpose. He just liked to enrage the peaceniks. It was good politics. Waring was willing to vote for opposition legislation to end this nonsense, an act that wouldn’t cause the Government to fall, but did induce rage in the prime minister’s office.
“Just what do you think you are up to now, you perverted little liar,” an incensed Muldoon spat in drunken anger. Waring sat calmly and ate an apple as the rotten edifice of a regime she had come to despise collapsed around her.
Waring was discussed as a potential prime minister. She retains a greater profile than many current MPs; yet walked away from it on her own terms.
Waring wasn’t uncompromising. It was politics after all, but she was never unprincipled, and that is a remarkable achievement that few who trek through the halls of parliament can maintain.
She retained her identity and integrity; disproving the adage that all political careers end in failure........The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
3 comments:
Some of us are old enough to remember living through that time.
Waring as you explain, was there to follow her own agenda. Not to represent constituents.
To label Rob as a drunk is scurrilous and others will see it was Waring who appeared to make the situation untenable.
BTW.The Family Court has been an unmitigated disaster.
Politics attract a certain type of person good at playing the game of Poli-tricks in the house of the mind control centre called Government (look up the root words)
All you need to know about this ex-politician and where her loyalties lay was, “At a speech to a UN forum in 1980”! Nuff said.
Enoch Powell once wrote ""All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” Muldoon's demise just took a little longer than most. But without Waring's threat to cross the floor, we might never have had the reforms of the Fourth Labour Government, the rock star economy and the resulting resilience to survive the GFC and the pandemic. For that, we should be eternally grateful to her, even if she could have had no idea what she was setting in motion. Funny old world isn't it?
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