Suffrage Day, 19 September: celebrating women’s right to vote

On 19 September 1893 New Zealand women won the right to vote in elections. As a result, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to extend this right to all women. Suffrage Day celebrates the aims of the movement for gender equality and is a reminder of the ongoing issue of equality for women.

The road to suffrage

In early New Zealand, women were excluded from any involvement in politics. The right for women to vote, known as the suffrage movement, had been talked about in Parliament since the 1870s, but it had not been taken seriously. In the early 1890s, the movement, led by Kate Sheppard, with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and women’s franchise leagues, made it a national issue.

Fierce opposition to women’s voting

Bills to allow women to vote were introduced into Parliament in 1891 and 1892, but were blocked by the Legislative Council (the Upper House). Premier Richard John Seddon and some of his ministers were opponents of women’s suffrage and happy to have the Legislative Council obstruct the measure.

At the time, Māori campaigner for women's suffrage, Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia made a speech called ‘So that women can get the vote’ to the Māori Parliament – the first woman known to have done so. She requested that women be allowed to vote for the Māori Kotahitanga Parliament and also sit as members, but the matter lapsed.

The suffrage petitions

A number of extremely large petitions were organised and presented to Parliament in 1891 and 1892. In 1893, a petition gathered nearly 32,000 signatures – almost a quarter of all adult women in New Zealand at the time.

At 270 metres long, the petition was unrolled across the Chamber of the House during the debate on the proposed Electoral Bill with dramatic effect. The bill easily passed in the House with support for the enfranchisement of Māori as well as Pākehā women. The Electoral Bill was passed by 20 votes to 18.

Women voted at their first election 10 weeks later, casting their votes alongside men. 

Early female representation

Other democracies, including Britain and the United States, did not grant women the right to vote until after WWI. Even so, New Zealand women still had a long way to go to achieve political equality.

A law passed in 1919 enabled women to stand for Parliament. In 1933, Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman elected to Parliament, in the Lyttelton seat. And in 1949, Labour’s Iriaka Rātana became the first female Māori MP, in the Western Māori seat.

Representation today

Today, 129 years later, women have held each of our constitutional positions: Prime Minister, Governor-General, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Attorney-General, and Chief Justice. The number of female MPs first reached double figures in the mid-1980s. In today’s Parliament women make up 48 percent of MPs.

Parliament’s suffrage commemorations

Many features commemorating women’s suffrage can be seen when visiting Parliament, including:

• ‘Kate Sheppard’ white camellia shrubs in the grounds, gifted by the National Council of Women, which were planted on the centenary, along with a commemorative time capsule nearby (white camellias were worn in the buttonholes of suffrage supporters in Parliament; anti-suffragists wore red camellias)

• a bust of Kate Sheppard (displayed in the main foyer of Parliament House, donated to Parliament by the New Zealand Women’s Christian Temperance Union

• various artworks, including sculptural flowers on the walls of the Chamber

• a select committee room dedicated to women in Parliament.

Further details on the daily public tours can be found via the related link on this page.