The Women�s Parliament: The National Council of the Women of New Zealand 1896-1920

by Roberta Nicholls

Publishers: Victoria University Press Victoria University of Wellington PO Box 600 Wellington.

Three years after New Zealand women became the first of any country to win the vote, a group of leading feminists established an organisation which survives to this day. The National Council of Women, dubbed the 'Women's Parliament', was founded in 1896 and lobbied for radical change. It recognised that women needed more than the vote to have an influence in parliament - it demanded the full participation of women in the State as the equals of men, through legislative and social reform.

In accordance with feminist beliefs of the time, the Council sought to take the 'mother influence' into politics, to encourage politicians to be more caring and moral. It also pushed for more radical notions - some, such as the economic independence of married women, which were still issues in the second wave of feminism in the 1970s, and others which are being battled over today, like equal pay for equal work.

Roberta Nicholls' lively account of the early years of this long-lasting feminist organisation seeks to explain the Council's recess in 1906 and the reasons for its revival 12 years later. Nicholls provides vivid biographies of the women at the heart of the Council: Anna Stout, Kate Sheppard and Margaret Sievwright, and shows how these powerful women shared many of the concerns of feminists of the present day.

ROBERTA NICHOLLS has an MA in History from Victoria University of Wellington. She co-edited with David Hamer The Making of Wellington 1800-1914 (Victoria University Press, 1990), has published numerous articles and essays, and is now an editor at the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.