{"story":["In early colonial New Zealand women were excluded from any part in politics. Māori men gained the vote in 1867 and almost all other men in 1879, and in 1878, 1879 and 1887 bills or amendments to give the vote to women, or at least to women ratepayers, narrowly failed in Parliament. The campaign gathered force after Mary Leavitt of the American Women's Christian Temperance Union arrived in 1885 and a New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed, the country's first national women's organisation. Many temperance supporters believed that if women had the vote there would be a national majority for prohibition. In 1887 Kate Sheppard of Christchurch, a founding member, was appointed national superintendent of the WCTU's franchise and legislation department. She wrote pamphlets and letters to the press and co-ordinated the local unions, arguing that 'All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome'.","The WCTU and its allies organised petitions to Parliament, signed by more than 9000 women in 1891 and more than 19,000 in 1892. In both years the House of Representatives passed bills that would have given the vote to all adult women, but opponents in the Legislative Council, the appointed upper house, sabotaged them with amendments. The liquor industry, fearing women would support prohibition, lobbied MPs and organised counter-petitions. Premier John Ballance supported women's suffrage in principle, but when he died in April 1893 he was succeeded by Richard Seddon, a friend of the liquor trade and a strong opponent. In 1893 the suffragists collected 13 petitions. The largest, with about 24,000 names, was made of more than 500 sheets glued into a single roll more than 270 m long, and it was unrolled across the chamber of the House. When Sir John Hall presented the petitions on 11 August, he noted that they held 31,872 signatures, almost a quarter of the adult European female population.","After the third petition a new electoral bill passed easily in the House, and attention turned to the Legislative Council. Liquor interests petitioned the council to reject it. Suffragists held rallies, sent telegrams to members and gave their supporters in Parliament white camellias to wear. Seddon again tried to defeat the bill, but two opposition councillors who had previously opposed women's suffrage changed their votes to embarrass him, and on 8 September 1893 the Legislative Council passed it by 20 votes to 18. Some councillors then petitioned the governor to withhold his consent, and anti-suffragists gave their parliamentary supporters red camellias to wear. On 19 September Lord Glasgow signed the Electoral Act 1893 into law, making New Zealand the first self-governing country in the world in which women could vote in parliamentary elections. It applied to women aged 21 and over who were 'British subjects', including Māori; that requirement excluded some groups, such as Chinese women.","Seddon sent Sheppard a telegram conceding victory, and Glasgow presented her with the pen used to sign the bill. The general election was held ten weeks later, on 28 November 1893. NZHistory records that 109,461 women, about 80% of those eligible, enrolled, and that 90,290 of them voted, a turnout of 82% against 70% among enrolled men; Te Ara's biography of Sheppard says 65 per cent of all women over 21 voted. The Māori seats polled separately, on 20 December; there were no electoral rolls for them, but women cast perhaps 4000 of the 11,269 Māori votes that year. Earlier that year Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia had asked the Kotahitanga parliament to let Māori women vote for and sit in it, a right they did not win there until 1897 (see Te Kotahitanga — the Māori Parliament). On 29 November Elizabeth Yates was elected mayor of Onehunga, the first woman in the British Empire to hold such an office.","Women still could not stand for Parliament. The Women's Parliamentary Rights Act passed into law on 29 October 1919, but none of the three women who stood that year was elected, and Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman MP in 1933, winning a by-election in Lyttelton after the death of her husband. Sheppard was the first president of the National Council of Women, formed in 1896, and died in Christchurch on 13 July 1934. The main 1893 petition was transcribed by volunteers from the Society of Genealogists for the suffrage centenary in 1993 and can now be searched online, and Sheppard's contribution is acknowledged on the $10 note. NZHistory notes that in 2023 women made up 51% of members of Parliament, compared with 9% in 1981."],"sources":[{"title":"Women and the vote","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Women and the vote – Brief history","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/brief-history","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Women and the vote – Women's suffrage milestones","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/suffrage-milestones","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Women and the vote – About the suffrage petition","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/about-suffrage-petition","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Kate Sheppard","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/kate-sheppard","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Women vote in first general election","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/women-vote-first-general-election","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Women can stand for Parliament","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/women-can-stand-parliament","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia addresses Kotahitanga Māori parliament","url":"https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/meri-te-tai-mangak%C4%81hia-addresses-kotahitanga-m%C4%81ori-parliament","publisher":"NZHistory, Manatū Taonga"},{"title":"Sheppard, Katherine Wilson","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s20/sheppard-katherine-wilson","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"Women’s movement – Women’s Christian Temperance Union","url":"https://teara.govt.nz/en/womens-movement/page-2","publisher":"Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand"},{"title":"1893 New Zealand general election","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1893_New_Zealand_general_election","publisher":"Wikipedia"}]}