Jill Ovens

We want to give women, and men, an option on the ballot paper if they no longer have a political home because the mainstream parties have stopped listening to women and our concerns.

With 20 other women, Jill started the Women’s Rights Party in the week after Kellie Jay Keen’s visit to New Zealand, 25th March. This was a turning point for those who were at Albert Park in Auckland to hear Kellie Jay Keen speak, and for everyday New Zealanders who were appalled at the violence that day.

Jill resigned from the Labour Party that night. She had been an active member of the Labour Party, including a period on the Labour Party Council, but she had become increasingly off-side as women’s voices were not being listened to.

Jill has been involved in the women’s movement since the early 1970s when she attended Auckland University. She lived in the U.S. for 10 years till 1987 where she was actively involved in home birthing advocacy, breastfeeding support, the anti-nuclear movement, and the struggle for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.

She attained a Masters Degree in Journalism at the University of Kansas and went on to become a senior lecturer in journalism at Auckland University of Technology. Jill recently retired after a 36-year involvement in the union movement which included leading positions in ASTE, a tertiary education union, SFWU, E tū, and MERAS, the midwives’ union.

She has since thrown her energy into the Women’s Rights Party as National Secretary and in June she was elected as Co-Leader