Unless you've been living under a rock the last few days you would know that Mt Albert MP Jacinda Ardern has become leader of the NZ Labour Party following the resignation of former leader Andrew Little. The resignation came after terrible poll results.
Ardern's ascent to the top job in the party was not instant. She had been a leader in waiting since she first entered parliament in 2008.
Unfortunately, it would seem that the New Zealand media has forgotten that she actually has quite a lot of experience behind her.
Instead they have relegated her to just being a female, and just being capable of having children. They've reduced her to being a uterus and a baby maker. They've completely ignored that she has actually held several important portfolios.
I won't bore you with the portfolios that she's held because that's not actually the purpose of tonight's blog. The purpose is to say how truly disappointed I am that in 2017, in a country that first had a female Prime Minister in 1998, NINETEEN YEARS AGO, women are still being treated as if they're not capable of doing a job just because of physical anatomy.
I'm not going to talk about how a male MP wouldn't be asked the question because that's been done to death and it's just a really boring response.
Instead I'm going to talk about workplace discrimination, gender issues, pay issues and sexism.
I don't like New Zealand. I make no secret of that and even though I'm renouncing my citizenship when I become an Australian citizen, I am, as a New Zealand citizen truly disappointed in what I've witnessed over the last couple of days. I was hoping that Jacinda Ardern would be asked about policy and her plans for when she is Prime Minister. For her to be asked about her family plans a mere eight hours into the job just isn't right.
So let's talk about what would happen if she was to get pregnant.
She's in a long term relationship with TV personality Clarke Gayford. I don't know his work schedule, but I do know that New Zealand has gender neutral parental leave and that his job, although important, isn't as important as hers. I would expect that he would take time off if anyone actually took time off. This assumes that they wouldn't take advantage of alternatives.
Now given the base salary that the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition gets, I have a sneaky suspicion that paying for childcare wouldn't actually be an issue for Jacinda or Clarke. It could be assumed that they could easily hire a nanny, possibly a live in nanny.
Now let's assume though that they didn't want to have a nanny, Jacinda has a family, so too does Clarke. What's to say their family wouldn't look over Baby Ardern-Gayford? It's pretty presumptious to think that one of them would need to take time off.
But, for argument's sake, let's say Jacinda did take time off, that's written into New Zealand law. All employees, whether they be public or private sector employees have a right to parental leave. Jacinda would not be excluded from that. If she was Prime Minister at the time then the deputy would simply take over, while she would obviously be available if anything massive happened.
The media commentators such as Mark Richardson and Mike Hosking seem to be living in the dark ages where there is only one option for women who do have children, but in 2017 that's not the case at all. Women, in fact all parents, do have options.
In short: if Jacinda Ardern has children while in office, it's not the end of her career, and nor should it be.
Now let's talk about the average woman though. The average woman doesn't earn as much as an MP and often due to limited childcare hours and funding, one parent will often stay at home, so shouldn't this debate actually be turned to childcare and early childhood education? Shouldn't it be turned to flexible working conditions?
Hell, if Jacinda Ardern did get pregnant in office, why couldn't she work from home? So many people do with the rise of new technology and it's not impossible.
Sure, it would be tough, but Jacinda Ardern knows what she signed up for when she agreed to be the leader of the NZ Labour Party.
Of course, on the other side of the equation, she can't have kids. It's a non issue, but that doesn't mean that it would be right for her to have been asked.
The question assumes that women are nothing more than baby factories and that there aren't options available for women to have both a career and children, when really that's not the case at all.
Given NZ was the first country to give women the vote, and one of the first to have a female prime minister, it's incredibly disappointing that Ardern's plans to have, or not have children was asked, and it is disappointing that the media ignored the options available to her and her partner Clarke Gayford, assuming they even remain together long enough to have, or discuss having children.
To conclude: This is 2017 and couples who choose to have children have options and parents have a right to parental leave. They do not need to leave their employment just because they become parents.
