100% Pure You? Poor Anna Faris

It’s official, New Zealand is no longer 100% Pure.

Tourism New Zealand recently launched a new advertising campaign that pushes the 100% pure emphasis off of the country and onto the individual that visits it.

Shame then that Anna Feris didn’t feel 100% Pure when she was in NZ shooting the movie  Yogi Bear.

She attracted the wrong sort of attention from middle aged men in cars whilst walking through Auckland, when they shouted a barrage of highly offensive and sexual abuse at the popular Hollywood Star.

The  travel section of the Syndey Morning Herald covered New Zealand’s new 100% Pure You campaign saying

Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said research suggested New Zealand could increase its appeal as a holiday destination by personalising its marketing message and focusing on more than scenery.
“We have identified people around the world already considering travelling here and the addition of You to the successful 100% Pure New Zealand advertising message is a logical step that will benefit the tourism industry by highlighting the individual experiences on offer,” Bowler said.
Tourism New Zealand’s new marketing campaign…includes online banner ads and TV commercials showcasing the experiences of a young woman jetboating, a middle-aged father taking his children tramping, and a young woman horse-riding. All the commercials feature the 100% Pure You tagline.

But Anna Faris has  highlighted another very individual experience that young women are being offered in New Zealand. Sexual Harassment.
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The Herald reported on an interview she gave in the US, in which she recounted her experiences of visiting  New Zealand

“I’m walking home, I’ve got my backpack on, got my jeans on, and this carload of guys – they were like in their 40s, from what I could glimpse – they said, ‘f*ck you, as*hole’.”
Lopez asked her why they had shouted the obscenities.
She replied: “I don’t know, and, like, three minutes later, a car full of older gentlemen said, ‘show me your tits, you stupid bitch’.
“I was like, you tell me where you are at – I’m going to go home to your place and I’m going to show you a good time with that kind of treatment? Oh, yeah.”

Surprising then that instead of apologising to Ms Faris for her experience and offering to give her some more positive memories to take away about New Zealand,  Ian Long – a spokesman for Tourism NZ -  chose instead to denigrate her further and with one swift move plunged the status of women in NZ back into the dark ages.

Is it normal to’ blame the victim’ like this in NZ?

According to the Herald report

Tourism NZ spokesman Ian Long said no one would take Faris seriously.
“In the same segment, she accepts an award for being a pothead stoner of the year and she’s quite clearly had a few. I don’t think she has any credibility,” he said.
Long’s attack on Faris was echoed by New Zealanders approached in the street, some of whom appeared to blame Faris for the abuse.
One man said that if she was famous she must expect “attention”; a woman said she “gets her tits out” in movies so shouldn’t be surprised at the public reaction.

And then went to include some thoughts from the public at large which included this one

Sam Aki, Male, 25
“She looks like the type of woman who would get that sort of attention. She’s giving Kiwi blokes a bad reputation. If she’s famous she must expect that everywhere she goes.”

Hardly surprising  is that the new tourism campaign has cut little ice in Australia, perhaps the Aussies know a fake when they see one?  Some of them commented to the SMH:

• Normally I have no problem with change, but I don’t like this change! It sounds tacky. The original one was honest, and sold the beauty that is New Zealand. Now it sounds like something a car salesman would come up with.

• If I take the time and trouble to go overseas, it’s because I want to see people and places that are different to my usual experience. Why would I go overseas for “me”? I can see me at home.

• I was there for a week – first time and last time. SO cold, raining all the time, absolutely horrible if you take out the view which is the only thing going for it. 100% “poor” you, if you go.

Why should the type of women depicted in the ads want to travel to New Zealand and risk subjecting themselves to the unwanted abuse that Anna Faris attracted?


Hardly surprising is it that New Zealand has the highest number of women as a percentage of the population victimised by sexual assault - Nationmaster data. Read some of our posts Violence against women in New Zealand

For more about the women’s issues in New Zealand click  here or read some of our following blogs

Parents Furious At Dean’s “Slut” Comment
Womens’ Rights Slipping In New Zealand post for International Women’s Day

“Sex & Power” – Women’s Participation In NZ Stalled
Another Pregnant Woman Told To Leave New Zealand: Pregnancy Now Equated To Sickness In Human Rights Abuse

Today's posts - click here

Women's Rights Slip Further In New Zealand

The New Zealand Human Right Commission has just released of their 2010 Census of Women’s Participation, a biennial survey, published today.

It follows the progress, or the lack of it, for women across the corporate and private sectors at governance and management levels in New Zealand.

You may like to read the following blog in conjunction with an earlier blog we posted in March 2010 for International Women’s Day titled - Women’s Rights Slipping Away in New Zealand.

The 2010 Census of Women’s Participation opens with:

Chapter 1 Sex and Power – A Report Card

“The bad news is that in a number of significant areas, women’s participation has stalled and is sliding backwards. Significantly, this is occurring in the state sector which has traditionally been a leader for women’s advancement in public life.
New Zealand made a promise internationally of 50% gender parity in government-appointed bodies by 2010, which has not been met and has now slipped to an 8.5% gap.” read the full census report here

A NZPA press report said “The National Government is failing women” according to Labour MP Sue Moroney.

“It says women comprise 32 percent of MPs, 30 percent of Cabinet, 72 percent of teachers and 47 percent of school principals.
There are only three female editors out of the 26 daily newspapers, while 26 percent of the country’s judges are women, as are 29 percent of the New Zealand Police force.
Although 59 percent of the workers in public service are women, only six out of 34 public service departments have a woman chief executive.
The report identifies a 15.4 percent gender pay gap in the public service, which is greater than the total labour force gender pay gap of 13 per cent.
Equal Opportunities Commissioner Judy McGregor said in some areas women’s participation had stalled and was sliding backwards. read the full report here

Here are some press releases that have already been issued today by interested parties:

Pay and Employment Equity Coalition

The findings from the Biennial Census of Women’s Participation show that gender pay issues are moving in the wrong direction in the public sector, said Pay and Employment Equity Coalition Spokesperson Angela McLeod today. “The Human Rights Commission is doing a good job monitoring the gap but is working in a vacuum caused by government inaction,” she said.
There is clear evidence of serious slippage in the state sector with 24 public service departments having gender pay gaps greater than the total labour force and the highest reported one being 39 per cent. “This is appalling,” said McLeod. “The state sector is vitally important for leading the way in improving gender equity. And so it should be given more than half its workforce are women.”
“The Government’s dismantling of the Pay and Employment Unit has derailed progress and is likely to have contributed to these results. We were seeing some good progress being made in the state sector. The effects of government abandoning this issue are now coming home to roost.”
“Minister Pansy Wong may claim she is taking action on gender equity but the limited amounts of tinkering she is overseeing are not effective in improving the gender equity for the three-quarters of a million women now in the New Zealand workforce. They have no real plan for ensuring that women get the same rewards and workplace conditions as men,” said McLeod.
“This census report is very comprehensive and provides valuable and specific information but it has to be a spur to action,” said McLeod. “The Minister needs to meet with pay equity experts, trade union leaders and public and private sector employers to develop a plan of meaningful action to improve gender equity and reduce the gender pay gap.”
“We are ready and willing – is she?”

New Zealand Nurses Organisation:

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), as a professional organisation and trade union with a 95 percent women membership, is appalled at the deterioration in female participation in governance, professional and public life, as revealed in a Human Rights Commission report released today.
The 2010 Census of Women’s Participation shows that gains made in past decades are being eroded and it shows that women in the public service earn 15.4 percent less than men for doing the same or a similar job.
“The census shows that unless the government takes a very active role in gender equity issues, women’s position in the workforce deteriorates. This Government disbanded the Labour Department’s Pay and Employment Equity Unit and the results in this report indicate that decision has had a negative impact on working women’s rights,” NZNO president Nano Tunnicliff said.
“Nurses working in district health boards (DHBs) have had to fight to boost their pay rates to those of comparable professions and they have to remain vigilant to maintain that equity. Many nurses and health workers in other areas of the health system still do not have these pay rates. Nurses know that unless there is a real commitment at government level to ensure equity for working women, it doesn’t happen,” Tunnicliff said.
These equity issues are even more acute for Māori women workers, Te Runanga o Aotearoa NZNO kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said. “We have been campaigning for years for nurses and health workers in Māori and iwi health providers to get the same pay as nurses and health workers in DHBs. We still haven’t achieved that.”
Tunnicliff and Nuku believe that if this Government is genuinely committed to pay and employment equity for all women, it will develop a comprehensive plan dedicated to achieving that goal.

New Zealand Educational Institute

A new report showing women losing ground in terms of pay and employment equity should shame the government into action, says the education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa.
The Census of Women’s Participation by the Human Rights Commission shows that women’s participation in governance, professional and public life has slipped. It also shows that women in the public sector are paid 15% less than men for doing the same of similar work.
NZEI says the figures are particularly disheartening as the Government has clear evidence of pay inequity for thousands of education workers, yet refuses to do anything about it.
A pay investigation involving around 800 Ministry of Education support workers who work with special needs children, found they are significantly underpaid when compared to male workers in other sectors who have similar skills levels and responsibilities.
A separate report of the Pay Equity Review of the Compulsory Schooling Sector found that across all occupational groups in schools, there were areas where women were not being treated fairly or were being discriminated against in terms of pay, career advancement and value of their work.
NZEI National Secretary Paul Goulter says “it is astonishing that in 2010 New Zealand finds itself in a position where equality for women in the workplace is actually slipping rather than improving and the responsibility lies squarely with the Government.”
The National-led government has undone a lot of the progress made by scrapping the pay and employment equity unit and halting all further pay and employment investigations in the public sector.
The Human Rights Commission Report says New Zealand is unlikely to meet its international obligations to have pay parity in the public sector by the end of the year.
“Failing to address pay and employment equity marginalises women and shuts them out of the economic recovery. The government should be ashamed,” says Mr Goulter.

Today's posts - click here

Gillard Pulls A Shipley And Becomes Australian Premier

Julia Gillard took over today as the first female Australian Prime Minister, in a move that has been likened to the rise to power of the first female Kiwi Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley.

Shipley ousted Jim Bolger in December 2007, gathering support for her nomination whilst he was away at a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Despite good economic growth her government became unstable and she lost the support of NZ First after Winston Peters was sacked from cabinet.

The NZ press was today speculating whether Gillard will be taking Kevin Rudd’s place on an official visit to New Zealand next week, when he was due to speak in Parliament.

Gillard, who was born in Barry, Wales, is the daughter of a coal miner and suffered from broncopneumonia when a child. Her family moved to Australia in 1966 for the warmer climate, settling in Adelaide.

Australia currently has two female state premiers – Anna Bligh, who was born in Queensland and Kristina Keneally, who was born and educated in the USA and only became a naturalised Australian in 2000.

New Zealand has had two female Prime Ministers, both born and bred Kiwis. The last of which was Helen Clark, who won three consecutive terms in office. On loosing the election in 2008 she promptly left the country and became the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme on April 17, 2009.

A description of Ms Clark was given in a biography written by Denis Welch

“Ms Clark, who had no children, also fought the construct that her unconventional lifestyle was not ordinary enough for New Zealanders.
In a 1995 interview she once baulked: “I saw a line in a Christchurch Press editorial that New Zealanders like their leaders to be ordinary like them.”
“For God’s sake, I am not prepared to make myself ordinary.”

It’s great to see a British woman do so well as an immigrant in a far land, we think it will be a long time before a female immigrant is able to do the same in New Zealand.

We wish Ms Gillard the very best for the future.

See also: Women’s rights slipping in New Zealand – written on International Women’s Day

 Today's posts - click here

Another Pregnant Woman Told To Leave New Zealand: Pregnancy Now Equated To Sickness In Human Rights Abuse

Another pregnant woman, Virginie Breuzard (photo above) has been told to leave New Zealand. Earlier in the year a number of other women were also told to leave, among them Sun Won Kim and Jurga Skiauteris who would not be allowed to have their babies in NZ, even though the latter had complications that would've made travelling dangerous for her. After the press got hold of their stories the government backtracked and allowed them to stay.

Human Rights Abuses
The Human Rights Act 1993 prohibits "discrimination due to pregnancy", but there is a specific provision to exempt immigration matters. But within the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are provisions for protection based on gender. If throwing out a woman because she's pregnant isn't a contravention of that what is - is the 1993 Act contrary to international conventions?
According to Kerry Williamson in the Dominion Post:

"Virginie Breuzard will be forced to return to France in three weeks, have her baby in her home country, then return to Nelson to finish her studies.

She feels she is being discriminated against because she is not sick – just pregnant. "I'm not sick, not at all. It's because I am pregnant that they are kicking me out."

Ms Breuzard, 28, came to New Zealand in September to complete an NZQA-registered aromatherapy course in Nelson, the only one of its kind available in the Asia-Pacific region, after a year of distance learning from Indonesia, where her husband ran a company.

She admits she was pregnant when she arrived in the country on a visitor's visa, but was unaware that it would be a problem. As part of her application to Immigration New Zealand, she sent a letter from her insurer and Nelson Hospital stating that her medical costs would be met.

Her school, Aromaflex, also wrote to Immigration telling them she needed to be in the country for six months to complete the course and sit an exam.

Seven weeks later, Immigration wrote telling her she had been refused a study visa because she did not meet health requirements and that she would need to leave the country to give birth. Ms Breuzard must leave by November 24, because doctors say she should not fly after that due to her pregnancy.

"I'm very angry," she said. "And because I've told the truth about being pregnant, they are kicking me out. They have told me, `You give birth somewhere else and then you come back.' It's discrimination."

The Immigration website states pregnant visitors to New Zealand "are not considered to have an acceptable standard of health as it is likely you will impose significant costs and demands on New Zealand's health services."

An Immigration spokesman said that whether a person had health insurance was irrelevant, and that the policy was in place to limit demand on hospitals.

"Aligned to this there have been regional shortages of antenatal care in New Zealand in recent years."

Are the provisions for ante natal care really so tight that even privately funded births can't be accommodated? and what about the thousands of New Zealand women who give birth every year in countries overseas, thereby relieving pressure on their own health service? What would happen if they were all sent home?

I'm sure that in an ideal situation Ms Breuzard would far prefer to have her baby in France but had made the trip to New Zealand to study a very specialised course, her baby won't have NZ citizenship either so there's probably no 'agenda' here, there appears to have been no intention to deceive on her part.

It's time to improve the maternity provision for all women in New Zealand if it hasn't even got the capacity to accommodate privately funded women such as Ms Breuzard.

See also:
Pregnant women ordered out of New Zealand 

NZ Human Rights Record Under UN Microscope


Today's posts - click here

Women's Pay Discrimination Rally Today

Although New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world in which women were allowed to vote it's lagging behind on pay parity between men and women.

NZ women earn an estimated 12-15% less an hour less than men, but the annual earnings gap may be worse because many women spend more time than men bringing up children and move in and out of the labour force more often.

A rally is being held in Wellington today to protest this and also the government's scrapping of the Pay and Equity Unit at the Department of Labour, causing the loss of 7 jobs (ed. how many of them were women?) For details see link: Lunchtime rally

The Department of Labour cut an additional 18 jobs of staff who worked with with employers, educators and local government throughout the country to meet regional workforce needs.

Meanwhile plans are still going ahead for Work and Income to help with the recruitment and training of 7000 staff for fast food giant McDonalds.


For today's posts see: latest posts

Sung Won Kim - Korean Community Intervenes

The Korean community has made representations on behalf of horticulture student Sung Won Kim, who has to leave New Zealand by June 21 because she became pregnant.

According to the Herald newspaper Immigration New Zealand wrote to Ms Kim saying

"The fact that you are prepared to pay for all medical treatment has been accepted. However, NZ has a shortage of maternity care specialists and midwives, therefore you would be putting additional strain on our already short services."

More here: NZ Herald

For background see: Pregnant Women Ordered Out of New Zealand

Pregnant Women Ordered Out Of New Zealand

Lincoln Tan has written an expose in today's New Zealand Herald in which he revealed that women on temporary visas are being forced into leaving New Zealand if they fall pregnant.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that New Zealand was a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) a United Nations Treaty based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

New Zealand is one of the few countries that didn't incorporate the ICCPR into law, instead it supposedly gave effect to many of the rights contained within it by passing the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in 1990.
A report by civil rights lawyers to the United Nations says New Zealand law allows significant human rights failings and breaches of international treaties,

The shadow report written by former Council for Civil Liberties chairman Tony Ellis and a team of lawyers was submitted to the United Nations.
It said New Zealand could do better in many areas of human rights law and that there were several deficiencies in respect of New Zealand’s international human rights obligations.
The Human Rights Act 1993 prohibits "discrimination due to pregnancy", but there is a specific provision to exempt immigration matters. But within the ICCPR are provisions for protection based on gender. If throwing out a woman because she's pregnant isn't a contravention of that what is - is the 1993 Act contrary to international conventions?

It's deplorable that New Zealand openly practices eugenics in its selection of 'suitable' migrants, e.g. families with children with Downs Syndrome or Autism, or overweight mums are refused entry, without victimising women for exercising their basic human right to have a child.

Some will say that these women are a burden to an already overstretched health service struggling by on very limited resources, but the sad fact is that even if they offer to pay for private obstetric care they are still shown the door.

New Zealand is very content to rake in billions of dollars from foreign students (international education is worth over $2.3 billion a year, making it the fifth largest earner) and will tax skilled migrants to the hilt but it puts up the shutters when asked to provide something in return. Perhaps some of those dollars should be put into improving the health service for all.

Much was made recently of New Zealand placed sixth in the 2009 Save the Children's annual Mothers' Index (perhaps to draw attention away from its rather shameful position of 30 out of 43 in the Children's Index) the abuse of pregnant women's rights has got to be reflected in next year's index if it is to be taken seriously

One of the women has taken her case to the NZ Human Rights Commission but looks like she stands little chance of getting a satisfactory outcome.

What next, pregnancy tests at the border before visas are issued and women terminating their pregnancies to remain in New Zealand?

I suspect that the latter is already happening.