NATIONAL EXECUTIVE MEETING 2009 NCW
ENSURING WOMEN COUNT

REPORT FOR CATHOLIC WOMEN’S LEAGUE BOARD

Venue Brentwood Hotel Kilbirnie

Friday night: The meeting started at 6.30 pm with a Mihi Whakatau- Karakia, NCWNZ Prayer, National Anthem and Remembrances.
The president- Elizabeth Bang welcomed everyone on the behalf of the Board and introduced Wellington’s Mayor Kerry Prendergast to give her welcome and to open the Executive Meeting.

Mayor Prendergast welcomed everyone to Wellington and hoped people would have time to look at the city. She touched on the history and work of the NCWNZ and praised them for their work on the” Cotton On” T shirts. The Mayor encouraged us to be active, to learn and to give.

Business Session 1

The meeting was introduced to the board and the National Office Staff by the President.
Roll call was then taken with each member standing up when their name was called.
The meeting was referred to the meeting procedure as written in the booklet. Voting strength was 51.
The confirmation of the amendments to the 2008 minutes were presented and passed [a copy will be sent separately].

President’s Report:
Elizabeth’s full report was in the booklet so she gave us highlights and bought us up to date on what had happened since it was written. She told us to make use of the website which is regularly up date by National staff, Girl Talk and CEDAW.
We need to rethink the way we approach Leadership, to become innovated, move with the times and listen to the voice of the younger people.
Elizabeth introduced the Conveners of the Standing committees and congratulated them and their committees on the work they do.

National Treasurer –
Correen Rodgers presented the Financial Report and said that without the generous grant and sponsor NCWNZ would find it difficult to function. There were not many questions and the report was passed.

Parliamentary Watch Committee: Beryl Anderson
Beryl explained the Process of Parliament; - a three day delay from the presenting a Bill,
-1st reading-Initial debate.
-Select committee-6mth
-hearing public submissions
-recommending amendments,
-reports.
-2ndreading
-Debate-recommending changes,
-vote on changes.
-Committee of the whole House where the Bill is debated clause by clause.
-further amendments made,
-supplementary papers may be published.
-3rd reading
-voting.
Royal Assent,
- Government .General.
List of all the Bills looked at are in her written report.

Economics; - Katherine Ransom
Most economists are living in an unreal world;-real economics look at the real world where we live. –completely unpredictable reality, not a world looked at through rose coloured glasses. Her full report makes interesting reading.

Education;-Rae Duff
ACE the cutting of this fund for Adult education is of great concern and one that NCWNZ must fight against. A remit will be presented to Conference under urgency later in this meeting.
Another discussion paper coming up in OCT/Nov is on Special Education funding under Awl’s.
Submissions have been made on the Student Repayment scheme- low income women will be disadvantaged.

Health Report - Sheryl-Fitzpatrick
More worries with the Health and Disability Commission on the unfair differences in disability payments and help with those of ACC. People do not always understand all the legal requirements and without an advocate to speak for them they do not get or ask for the right information and little has been done to improve things in these hard times.
DNA sampling by the police is another matter under review, where more victim support is needed.
Maternity plans for more in-depth services in NZ are also under review.

SATURDAY
Suffragette Day. All the green walk men around the Parliament crossings now have flashing green women.

Business Session 2
Employment: - Juanita O’Brien
A look a few Bills since her report were written;
Holidays Act, Infant Feeding in Employment,
Paid Employment Equity- How can this be achieved? Unfairness, a breach of human rights, women’s worth not appreciated. The invisible women who work long hours, women’ work not valued, especially those working with the elderly. These were some of the arguments being discussed.

Environment; - Sara Ann Dickons.
Awareness is growing of the effects of climate change must be addressed.
-Fontera importing palm seed for feed when we have a surplus of barley which could be used.
-Need for farmers to think of new ways of farming and us new ways of living.
Mother earth is not always kind to the dominate species. We are taking ourselves out along with other species. Wanganui have started vegetable gardens and there is a Tool Kit on environment available.

Remit 2 was passed 56/1
Remit 3 was passed 57 for.
There was lively discussion on both remits, mostly for.

Family Affairs;-Belinda Greenwood
Allowances for Grandparents as Parent is still a concern and Greypower has now come on board to help.
Child Abuse is an on going concern.

Public Issues; - Joan McDonald
Bill under review;
- Anti money laundering
- Privacy law of Terrorism
- Cluster munitions Coalition
- Liquor Law- amendment
- Road safety 2

Small group meeting;
After introducing ourselves and the organizations we belonged to, we started to look at the Strategic Plan. We ran out of time be for any real discussion and decisions were made.

International
GEAR is a new group set up at the UN, made up of UNEFEM, Office of Geneva DOOR, and IRTI {I hope I have the initials right.} The group is to improve Women’s rights, to enable more women to take up professional responsibilities and to support the family.
Women around the world have waited along time for confirmation of women’s rights.
Cluster Munitions Coalition
These land based Bomblets that are dropped causing human devastation. Any that does not explode, are like anti personal bombs, but are unable to be disarmed and need to be blown up where they are.
Ratification of this Coalition needs to be made by the end of the next Convention
NZ agreed to the treaty in 2000 and were among the first to sign in 2008. This is being discussed now and submissions will be heard next week.
NCW_ Women’s Issues internationally;
-Sexuality of children
Advertising, marketing and purchase. This can cause eating disorders and depression and age inappropriate behaviours.

Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women- CEDAW
Beryl Anderson
Bill of Human Rights Protection Treaty on Women was signed by NZ in 1988. It covers any thing pertaining to women, Equality, Non discrimination, State Obligations, Violence, Health and many others.
CEDAW acts as a monitoring committee which overseas all report making on these subject under the Treaty, making recommendations and amendments on the government report before the treaty is ratified by the government and the world Leaders and UN.
More on the Web site
Procedure;
Staging Regional consultation meeting, write reports
-Write updates- fact sheets
UN updates; Where meeting to be held, recourses needed and copies of CEDAW reports.
-Question Women’s Affairs final report to UN’- identify problems in the report and questions for clarification
-Focus –men’s backlash no longer discrimination of Government women in NZ.
Research –statistics, womens Law Students, Alcohol Health watch and Problem Gambling. Direct and indirect discrimination of women and the social impact on women.
Work is on going and a full report to UN will be presented in 2011CEDAW have a neg network of 11/2million Christians ¾ are women.
They now need to concentrate on 4 modules of the treaty starting with Articles 3 to16 and then in June Article 2
A census will cover, age, geographic, sex social economics, education and ethnic. Who will suffer the most?
Hot spots;
-Pay equity-disbanded- collecting data, unions and parliamentary debate.
-Trafficking-prostitution
-Women on boards –quotas
-Domestic violence
What are UN putting out?
-Discrimination-divorce and separation.
-Disability of older women.
CEDAW is not about attacking Government but highlighting problems before they get out of hand.

Diana Crossan – Retirement Commissioner
The Commission has been around since the early 1900. Dianna has been Commissioner since 2000. The work of the commission covers a wide range;
Financial Education, Retirement Homes/villages- Disputes and residents rights. Retirement Strategies-Where is Super going review next year and women will be the focus in this review. Our super is one of the best in the world.
The main work of the commission is Financial Literacy and Education. Personal financial wellbeing for NZ- talk to everyone and present to Government… Diana has been invited to talk in Washington next week on this subject.
Saving is important, we need to start as young as we can.
1-10 school- squirrel books teaching saving.
18years Student loans, financial education, pre –education and trade training.
30’s mortgages, financial Literacy.
The Sorted Website is the best in the world and needs to be used by everyone –it is free.
55-70 need a new name as many do not fit into the category of retired or senior citizen.
Any group may use any information from the web site in their news letters;
dianafinancialliteracy.org.nz
Women need to look after themselves from a young age.
Issues Girls can do anything but;
Lower pay, cost of childcare, and student loan debt, all affect her saving power.
Can we afford Super? Yes with changes.
Do you and your family want to live on Super?

Workshop Women in Super; Helen Mc Kenzie and Carlina Grove
They produced a very good handout which I include. This was a very interesting and instructive session.

Justice and law Reform; - Christine Reymer.
Bills that the standing committees are looking at;
Limitations Bill
Legal-aid Review-does it work and what changes are needed?

Consumer Affairs;-Jan Brown
Items under review by the committee: Radio NZ AM, Consultation on baby’s formula, Folic Acid Consultation and restraint in car seats.
Consumer’s constant pressures by business. Healthy food expensive and people tend to buy not by choice but by price, which is usually not the healthy food.
Country of origin labeling.-Made in NZ means ingredients could come from anywhere.
_product made in NZ means just that.
Focus needs to be on the consumer’s right to be concerned for the health of women and family as well as the community.
Watch out for the COOL NZ campaign.

Soapbox
These were varied and covered Photo Idendity,Grandparents as parents, Family Violence, International Mothering-recognizing mother’s unpaid work, Aerial poison Drops, Speaking like a pirate day, Guy Fawkes-terrorism, Add some colour to black, World Peace March 20th October.

The dinner was excellent but the speaker Pansy Yu Fong Wong showed us how well she had researched the history of the NCWNZ. A bit disappointing as we would have liked to hear more about her work in Parliament.

Sunday
As Deirdre Jolly and I had been to Mass we did not attend the Interfaith Reflection.

The Remit on ACE was put to the meeting under urgency. There was a long debate on this remit and it was suggested that we should mount a campaign like the Cotton On.
It was suggested that we do both. The remit was carried with 2 against. The board will look into a campaign.

Remit 1 This was well debated.
Similar concerns to Miramar were voiced. The remit passed with 1abstaining.

Family Commissioner- Jan Pryer
How the commission works;
Campaign for Action
White Ribbon Day- the ribbons are made by prisoners,
It’s not OK.
Research
Beyond Zero Tolerance2005.
Gravitas Reach 2006.
Elderly Abuse and Neglect 2008The task Force for Act on Violence.
Leadership-Government Agency, NGO, Chief family Commision, Safety, Accountability and Support.

Paid Parental Leave- Giving support to women to thrive in the roles within the family and Whanu- giving women a choice of extended paid leave for the first year of the baby’s life.
This gives the mother time to bond, breast feed all without worry of money.
To give mothers flexible hours and choice of working longer or shorter hours or weekends, child care needs to be available in non working hours.
Families need to have the means to make decisions about the balance of work and family.
The employer also needs support to offer flexibility to parents. , and we need to recognize the role of the grandparents.

Family Violence
Each year on average 14 women, 6 men and 10 children are killed by family violence and many more physical and mentally abused.
Jigsaw
To create a social climate for change nationwide with a 0800 number to call- mainly men do call.
Campaign for action-media. It’s not OK, but it’s OK to ask for help.
What makes up Family Violence?
Challenge men to think,
Empowers families to take and ask for help,
Show how to get help,
Encourage men to support men.
Remember the 4 brothers who rode their bikes to support men against violence?
Is it working?
Men are using the 0800 number and going to anger management courses.
Men are picking up on the slogan and using it, both Maori and Pakeha.
It is a long term campaign,

Giving Women Legal Protection,
Modern Reproduction and fertility treatment at an affordable price.
Surrogacy, not legal in NZ, but a lot of legal and moral issues in regards to parent rights, the mothers rights and the rights of the baby i.e nationality.
This is an emotional and complex issue. Do not forget the Grandparent in these issues.

Banking Ombudsman; Debora Battell
Her role is to work as an advocate for people with the bank.
-talk to the bank
-conciliate
And make a full assessment.
Complaints cover, Investment failure, mortgage sales- especially advice to the elderly.
Bank Fees.
People fail to get advice before entering into contracts, sign on the spot, lack knowledge, and don’t ask questions.
We need to up skill our Financial Literacy by
- doing our homework
- read investment statements,
- getting good advice
- Don’t sin up on the spot

Insurance Ombudsman Karen Stevens
Insurance and Savings Scheme
This service is Free and should be your first stop. It is an independent service for resolving insurance and saving disputes.
It covers all types of insurance,
- Life insurance and superannuation.
-claims up to $300 a week or $1000 a week if insurer agrees to the higher amount,
-Claims on behalf of the policy holder only.
ISO cannot provide goodwill payouts,
-Financial advice,
-3rd party disputes,
-Commercial claims and charges.
When taking out insurance give full disclosure, always tell the truth,
Health conditions for travel insurance.
Update any speeding tickets or other traffic violations every year.
Failure to not disclose everything could result in your loosing all your insurances.

Deirdre Jolly and I did not stay for the panel Discussion and closing ceremony.
I found this meeting very informative and interesting.
This is a very long report but there was so much to report on.

Carolyn Johns
Proxy for Tui Pasco CWL National President
24/9/09