On Tuesday 17th March, we had the privilege of gathering at Government House Auckland to celebrate and recognise four extraordinary wāhine as 2025 Life Members and Honorary Life Members of Global Women.
We extend a thank you to Her Excellency The Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, and the team at Government House, for hosting this special occasion.
This year, we were proud to honour celebrate our Honorary Life Member, The Rt Hon Helen Clark, and Life Members Dame Theresa Gattung DNZM, Dame Ranjna Patel, and Hon Margaret Wilson.
Read Dame Theresa’s speech here:
Morena Wahine ma!
it’s so special to be with you all today. I want to spend most of my few
minutes paying tribute to the three women I’m on stage with, all of whom I have
admired for decades.
Let me start with Helen Clark. Helen, in 1999 the first woman elected
Prime Minister of New Zealand, who went on to become one of New Zealand’s
longest-serving Prime Ministers.
Some of her many achievements during that time are institutions and initiatives
that New Zealand now could not be without.
They include:
– KiwiBank
– the New Zealand Super Fund
– KiwiSaver and
– the Free Trade Agreement with China, which was well ahead of its time.
In 2009 after leaving office she became the first female head of the United
Nations Development Programme. In 2010 she was awarded the Order of New
Zealand, New Zealand’s highest honour. Among many other awards she has also
been conferred with several honorary Doctor of Law degrees.
She was so successful as a Prime Minister that she’s made her way into popular
culture. I’m very much looking forward to watching Jennifer Ward-Leyland play ‘
Helen Clark in Six Outfit’s ‘ next month.
Over the years I have spent time with Helen in different situations, including
at our mutually beloved Waihi Beach.
In 2002 she invited me to lead the business delegation to Australia with her. I
helped organise a lunch with a lot of, it has to be said, male CEOs and Chairs
at a nice restaurant in Chifley Tower, Sydney. After she left , Trevor
Rowe, who was the Chairman of a large investment bank, turned to me and said,
“Wow she’s brainy.” Helen, brainy indeed.
I sat beside her once at a telecommunications event and she’d mastered the
brief so well in an area that was not a natural affinity for her that she
didn’t once need to look at her notes. Hell I needed to look at my notes and I
was the CEO of Telecom!
Helen, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for New Zealand and for
your decision to continue to base yourself here when there are many things that
could have taken you overseas.
Margaret Wilson. Margaret was the first woman President of the Labour Party in
the mid-1980s, the first woman Attorney-General in the early 2000s, the first
female Speaker of the House in the mid-2000s, and the first female Dean of the
Law School at Waikato.
The mid-1980s was the time when I was finishing university. I was doing
business studies and woman’s studies in the School of Politics at Waikato. Not
a particularly usual combination today and unheard of then , and Margaret was
so inspiring to me.
Throughout her time in politics she advanced gender equality and justice
issues;
– Ministry of Women’s Affairs
– Matrimonial Property Law Reform
– Equal Opportunities Commissioner
– Treaty Negotiations
That’s just a few of the very long list of things that she turned her
formidable mind to.
While Margaret may not be as extroverted as Helen or myself, she’s a person who
has many times stood her ground. In fact in June 2005 I believe she ejected one
Helen Clark from the Chamber for interjecting a male National Party MP.
Margaret, you’re a delight and absolute treasure. Thank you for everything
you’ve done for women in New Zealand to advance the cause of equality and
justice.
Ranjna Patel. Ranjna had several obstacles when she set up Tamaki Health Care
decades ago with her husband. She wasn’t a doctor; she was a woman; she was a
woman of colour. Together they created an incredibly innovative successful
model for advancing primary health care in New Zealand.
Since I’ve been Chair of Tend Health these past few years, I appreciate even
more now how difficult that would have been, what determination, persistence,
and strength of character that took. Ranjna has not just been a
successful businesswoman; she long ago coupled that with focusing on support
for her beloved Indian community and the community of women who are caught up
in domestic violence through her groundbreaking initiative Gandhi Nevis. She
took the insight that actually it’s the men who need re-educating to create
real patterns of change.
Ranjna is one of those people that just seems to know where she’s needed and
turns up at exactly the right time. She’s so powerful yet so humble and
continuing to mentor and support many women.
Ranjna I can still remember being at the Deloitte Top 200 Awards in 2016
when you were awarded the Visionary Leader of the Year award. Many people in
that room will not have heard of you. You got up and you delivered one of the
most inspiring speeches I’ve ever heard in my life.
I want to finish on a message for everyone in the room;
– Never doubt the power of what one person can achieve.
– Never doubt the power of what a group of people can achieve.
– Never doubt what a beacon of hope women’s leadership in New Zealand has been
, and is, for the rest of the world.
Right from suffrage ; being the first country in the world to gain the vote for
all women, not just women who owned property, not just white women, all women.
There’s a young British woman, Daisy Bolton, whose
great-great-grandmother was Jessie Williamson, one of Kate Sheppard’s fellow
suffragists. The Gattung Foundation is funding her for discovery and the start
of script development to make a movie about the lessons of Wahine Māori and
Pākehā women changing the world together.
I recently had a friend of mine stay with me. She’s American; it’s her second
time in New Zealand and she’s Indian. Her name is Neha Sangwan . Dr. Neha
Sangwan . She is a very accomplished doctor, engineer, and businesswoman who
coaches multiple CEOs in the US.
She gifted us a session for Global Woman members at the end of her trip.
When she got up to speak on a beautiful Friday in Tamaki Makaurau, she was
overcome and started to cry. She was talking about how she found New Zealand,
how civil the society was. She said, “You guys don’t all hate each other;
you actually talk to each other. Please don’t lose that.” She said it more
eloquently than that.
You don’t know how valuable something is until it’s gone.
We have amazing support for women’s leadership in New Zealand. We’ve had many
of our Champions for Change partners doubling down, renewing for three years.
Let’s not look out at the world and tell ourselves a story that all is lost.
Where women stand together, this would never be so.
