New Zealand’s cabinet achieved gender parity for the first time in the country’s history, with 10 women and 10 men sitting at the top level of government. The milestone came after Prime Minister Chris Hipkins promoted Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime, a minister of Māori descent, to cabinet — a decision he said was based on her skills and existing portfolios in conservation and youth.
At a glance
- Cabinet gender parity: New Zealand now has an equal 10-10 split of women and men in cabinet, the first time in the country’s history this has been achieved.
- Māori representation: Willow-Jean Prime’s promotion brings the number of Māori ministers in cabinet to a record six, building on gains from the 2020 elections.
- Women in parliament: New Zealand has the highest share of female lawmakers in the OECD, with 58 women elected to its 120-seat parliament in 2020.
A cabinet that reflects the country
“It is nice to have a cabinet that reflects the New Zealand population,” Hipkins said, calling it a “good milestone to reach.” The remark was understated — but the achievement behind it was not.
Prime holds the conservation and youth ministerial portfolios. Her promotion also means that, when ministers outside the cabinet are counted, women now outnumber men across New Zealand’s full ministerial ranks. That broader measure makes the shift even more significant than the cabinet headline alone suggests.
Hipkins promoted three women to cabinet in the space of roughly three months. Ginny Andersen and Barbara Edmonds, both from Wellington, joined cabinet in February 2023 C.E. Prime followed in April.
Built on a decade of progress
The 2023 C.E. milestone did not arrive in a vacuum. New Zealand elected one of the world’s most diverse parliaments in 2020 C.E. — a parliament with the highest proportion of female legislators in the OECD. About one in 10 of its parliamentarians identify as LGBTQ+, and 25 members of the 120-seat house are Māori.
That diversity reflected decades of deliberate work by advocates, party selection processes, and electoral reforms. New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote, back in 1893 C.E. — a legacy that has shaped the country’s political culture even as full representation took generations more to achieve.
What Māori representation means here
The record six Māori ministers in cabinet is worth pausing on. Indigenous peoples are systematically underrepresented in the governments of countries built on colonial structures, making every gain at the cabinet table more than a symbolic one. Māori communities have long pushed for political voice proportional to their place in New Zealand society, and this cabinet marks a step toward that.
Willow-Jean Prime is herself a product of that longer story — a Māori woman holding real ministerial power over portfolios that directly affect the land and the next generation.
Not the finish line
Reaching cabinet gender parity is a meaningful marker, but it does not resolve every structural barrier women face in politics. Globally, women hold just 26% of parliamentary seats on average, and New Zealand’s progress has not been uniform across all communities and regions. Pay gaps, care burdens, and harassment remain real obstacles for women seeking office in many democracies — including New Zealand’s own local government, where women remain underrepresented at the council level.
Still, the direction of travel matters. Research by UN Women and others consistently shows that more diverse governments tend to pass more inclusive policy. New Zealand’s cabinet, for this moment, is a working example of that principle in action.
Read more
For more on this story, see: BBC News
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- U.K. cancer death rates fall to their lowest level on record
- Marie-Louise Eta becomes the first female head coach in men’s top-flight European football
- The Good News for Humankind archive on New Zealand
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