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Women's suffrage in New Zealand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Women's suffrage in New Zealand was an important political issue at the turn of the 19th century. New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to give women the vote in national elections.[1] The Electoral Bill granting women the franchise was given Royal Assent by Governor Lord Glasgow on 19 September 1893, and women voted for the first time in the 1893 election, on 28 November 1893 (Elections for the Māori seats were held on 20 December).
Women's suffrage was granted after about two decades of campaigning by women such as Kate Sheppard and Mary Ann Müller and organisations such as the New Zealand branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. They felt that female voting would increase the morality of politics; their opponents argued that politics was outside women's 'natural sphere' of the home and family. Suffrage advocates countered that allowing women to vote would encourage policies which protected and nurtured families.
From 1887, various attempts were made to pass bills enabling female suffrage; each bill came close to passing but none succeeded until a government strategy to foil the 1893 bill backfired. By 1893 there was considerable popular support for women's suffrage, and the Electoral Bill passed through the Lower House with a large majority. The Legislative Council (upper house) was divided on the issue, but when Premier Richard Seddon ordered a Liberal Party councillor to change his vote, two other councillors were so annoyed by Seddon's interference that they changed sides and voted for the bill, allowing it to pass by 20 votes to 18. Both the Liberal government and the opposition subsequently claimed credit for the enfranchisement of women, and sought women's newly acquired votes on these grounds.[2]
New Zealand women were not given the right to stand for parliament until 1919, with the Women's Parliamentary Rights Act. The first woman to become a New Zealand Member of Parliament was Elizabeth McCombs in 1933.
- ^ Pitcairn Island gave women universal suffrage in 1838, but was not a self-governing country; nor was the Isle of Man which enfranchised female ratepayers in 1881, or the Cook Islands, which passed a women's suffrage bill days after New Zealand but held their election over a month earlier. Various American state and territories also enfranchised women before 1893. Atkinson, Neill (2003), Adventures in Democracy: A History of the Vote in New Zealand, pp.280-1.
- ^ Atkinson, pp.84-94, 96.
- New Zealand women and the vote at nzhistory.net.nz: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/suffrage-briefhistory