The governor-general is a woman. So too are the prime minister and her predecessor, the chief justice, attorney general, head of the largest company, a third of the cabinet, and until recently, the leader of the opposition and the mayor of the biggest town. Why have women in New Zealand led the western world in breaking through to the top?
There are many theories. Some talk about the kind of toughness required in a small "frontier" country, others say it is a coincidence and that women will not always predominate.
Those that believe historical factors are relevant point to the fact that New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, back in 1893, at a time when pioneer women worked alongside their men in the early decades of European colonisation. Christine Fletcher, a former minister, believes in "inspirational grandmothers... who travelled to the other side of world, often as young women or girls, and proved their worth." But, if the legacy of the pioneers is an important factor, why haven't women in Australia-which has never had a woman prime minister, governor-general or leader of the opposition-fared better?
Unlike Australia, New Zealand was never a convict colony. Rather, missionaries, farmers, craftsmen, teachers and labourers predominated among the early European settlers and a relatively stable and sophisticated society took root. Silvia Cartwright, the high court judge who in 2001 became the country's second woman governor-general, says that in Dunedin, the town where she grew up, there was a strong emphasis on education-and on equal access to it for all children-among its mainly Scottish settlers.
Charlotte Macdonald, head of the history department at Wellington's Victoria University, points out that the early winning of the suffrage for women was not built on-women did not gain the right to stand as candidates until 1919 and none were elected to parliament until 1933, well after Britain. Macdonald is one of those who believes it is a coincidence that women at present hold so many of the top jobs. "In five years' time it is unlikely we will have such a clean sweep," she says.
Many also caution against assuming that the high proportion of women leaders is reflective of the general status of women in New Zealand. "People equate all the women in leadership positions to equality," says Jan Logie, executive director of the YWCA in New Zealand. "But the main measure for freedom in society has to be relative earnings, health statistics, gender-based violence, these kinds of things."
New Zealand's score on relative earnings is as poor as that of other OECD countries-on average, women's salaries are about 80 per cent of men's. It was only last July that paid maternity leave became mandatory as it is in every other OECD country except Australia and the US. Equally, while women have made their mark in public life, they have yet to do so as a group at the top of the corporate world, again faring no better than the OECD norm-they account for just 14 per cent of board members in the private sector, against 35 per cent in public sector bodies.
So, has having women with political power helped advance women's issues at all? Laila Harr?, leader of the Alliance party and a former minister for women's affairs, says that with more women ministers there is an expectation that women can deliver to other women. "The women ministers are more likely to have networks among women, so are more likely to hear issues and therefore more likely to put forward those views in cabinet," she says.
Jo Brosnahan, chief executive of Auckland, says that in her eight years as head of the country's biggest council both the number of women employees and the percentage of women managers have shot up. She is also retaining women who have become mothers-by offering them flexible hours, part-time work, telework or transfers to less demanding positions while their children are young. "The key thing is not pay but flexibility-like the ability to take a week off at short notice," she says. "It means we're not losing so many women in their late 20s or early 30s anymore."
A positive feature of women's advancement in New Zealand-unlike the US-is that many women leaders have also managed to have a family. Brosnahan has two children as do Laila Harr?, Christine Fletcher and Jenny Shipley, the country's first woman prime minister.
A final explanation. Helen Medlyn says the fact that New Zealand is a small and isolated society is the key to the relative success of its women. She is a comedian and a leading opera singer, a combination, she says, that would be impossible elsewhere. "There is less pigeonholing here. No one minds you trying different things as long as you do them well."
"In a bigger country, there are more layers to get through to get to the top. It's as simple as that," adds Catherine Savage, managing director of a New Zealand fund management group.
If New Zealand's size-there are fewer than 4m inhabitants-has helped the rise of women, then it also suggests that, now there is a critical mass of women leaders, they should be able to stay and make more lasting changes than they might in a bigger society. Watch this space.
