{"story":["New Zealand women won the vote in 1893, but for decades few of them reached Parliament. Te Ara notes that in 1970, despite 77 years of voting and 51 years of being able to stand, women were only a tiny minority of politicians, and only 11 had ever been elected to Parliament. By the 1980s more women were being elected to local and national government, and both major parties had had their first women presidents. Jenny Shipley, born Jenny Robson in Gore, Southland, grew up in rural Canterbury and worked as a schoolteacher before winning the Ashburton seat for National at the 1987 election. In February 1990, while she was still in her first term, the party leader, Jim Bolger, named her National's spokeswoman on social welfare. She became a close ally of Ruth Richardson, National's finance spokeswoman, whose politics she shared.","When Bolger led National to power in 1990, Shipley became Minister of Social Welfare and Minister for Women's Affairs. Benefit cuts announced in the December 1990 mini-budget came into force on 1 April 1991: the unemployment benefit fell by $14 a week, the sickness benefit by $27 and the domestic purposes benefit by $28, and the universal family benefit was abolished. From 1993 she was Minister of Health, carrying on the health reforms of her predecessors, and from 1996 Minister of Transport. NZHistory describes her work in these portfolios as 'radical and sometimes controversial reforms' driven by Richardson's policies, dubbed 'Ruthanasia'. Meanwhile National's ratings slumped as voters asked what had become of 'the decent society' Bolger had promised in 1990. After the first MMP election in 1996, Bolger formed a coalition with New Zealand First, led by Winston Peters, who had said during the campaign that he would not accept Shipley in a social welfare portfolio.","According to NZHistory, Shipley shared the National caucus's resentment of Peters and of the government's direction; Wikipedia's account adds that she grew frustrated with its cautious pace. She began gathering support to replace Bolger in mid-1997. Later that year, while Bolger was overseas at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, she persuaded a majority of her National colleagues to back her. NZHistory calls it 'a carefully planned coup'. Bolger resigned as Prime Minister rather than face being voted out, and Shipley was elected as his replacement unopposed. She became Prime Minister on 8 December 1997, the first woman to hold the office and the first woman to lead the National Party.","National enjoyed a brief honeymoon, but in NZHistory's reading Shipley could not woo an electorate 'gun-shy of radical reforms'. The relationship with New Zealand First, which had held together under Bolger, became strained, and on 14 August 1998 Shipley sacked Peters from Cabinet. Wikipedia dates the end of the coalition to that month; NZHistory places its collapse in 'late 1998'. The government stayed in office, propped up, in NZHistory's words, by 'an assortment of independents and minor parties', among them Mauri Pacific, a New Zealand First splinter group. In 1998 it made further welfare changes, including cutting the sickness benefit to the rate of the unemployment benefit. In September 1999 Auckland hosted the APEC summit, and Shipley met the United States President, Bill Clinton, there.","Shipley led National into the 1999 election hoping to become the first woman elected Prime Minister in her own right. Instead her government was defeated by Helen Clark's Labour Party. Shipley remained Leader of the Opposition until October 2001. After leaving Parliament she moved to Auckland and became a company director, and she was made a dame in 2009. Among other roles she chaired Global Women NZ and co-chaired the national coordinating committee planning the Tuia Encounters 250 commemorations in 2019. Her rise to the country's highest political office came 104 years after women won the vote."],"sources":[{"title":"Jenny Shipley","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/jenny-shipley","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Women's movement – Economic and political equality","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/womens-movement/page-7","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Political parties – Small parties under MMP","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/political-parties/page-6","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"The road to MMP – Putting it to the vote","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/fpp-to-mmp/putting-it-to-the-vote","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Jenny Shipley","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Shipley","publisher":"Wikipedia"},{"title":"1999 New Zealand general election","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_New_Zealand_general_election","publisher":"Wikipedia"}]}