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In 1974, Ven Young, who was an opposition member of Parliament, was going to introduce a homosexual law reform bill. The Prime Minister at the time, Norman Kirk, said he couldn't support it because he couldn't support anything that wasn't normal behaviour. I read that headline of the Dominion in the Victoria University Library, uh, in the Dominion, yes, in the Dominion, and I got up from the [00:00:30] table and I walked straight down to Lampton Quay and joined the National Party. Uh, I then, subsequently, I was offered a job in the Opposition Research Unit. So that was National and Opposition between 1972 and 1975. One of my colleagues there was a gay man called Robin Stewart. And Robin wrote.. The National Party [00:01:00] justice policy for the 1975 election, and that included the commitment to the Human Rights Act. At the time, while I was in Parliament from 75 to 84, we were never able to expand the grounds to include sexual orientation. That came later, and that was led by my successor. In the city, in the seat of Y Park, Catherine O'Regan [00:01:30] in 1976, when I was 23 years old and a back bench member of the national government, I was outed, uh, by truth newspaper who ran the story for something like six weeks. Um, I expected, frankly, to be run out of town. Uh, the response from New Zealanders was extraordinary. [00:02:00] Absolutely extraordinary. They were so angry that this had been picked on, that a young woman had been picked on, in a context where, prior to this, pretty much MP's private lives had no space or place in this kind of public announcement. When the newspaper published, I was called to the Prime Minister's office. And Muldoon said to [00:02:30] me, We've shut the whole party down. There will be no statement from any party official in any part of the country. You are to remain silent. I will remain silent. If you don't talk and I don't talk, the story will go away. Any question about your remaining a member of parliament will be in the hands of the National Party [00:03:00] in your constituency. In 1977 there was a change of boundaries. My constituency of Raglan disappeared entirely and no majority part of Raglan went to any of the new electorates. So I was, um, invited to stand for the Waipa electorate. It included about 40 percent of my old constituency. [00:03:30] And of course I was challenged by three men who described themselves all as upright family Christian men. I defeated them on the first ballot. So it was fairly obvious that even the rural conservative area of Waipa had no complaints about my work and very little judgment. Um, in 78 to [00:04:00] 81, I was the only woman in the National Party Caucus. From 75 to 1981, I was the only woman Member of Parliament from the North Island. Uh, I left, or I announced that I was resigning in March 1984, and subsequently an early election was called by the Prime Minister. Which was a very good idea. And yes, I played a part in that. [00:04:30] Fortunately, Catherine O'Regan, who had been my electoral agent, none of them were paid for in those days. Those of us who had research offices or electoral agents were paying them out of our salaries. Um, and Catherine worked for me for all of that period. In 1977, she'd become the first woman elected to the Waipa County Council. And in 1983, when I told her I was going to [00:05:00] retire, Um, I said, you know, I'm letting you know really early in case you'd like to run for it. And she did. And she won. What that meant.. When she came into Parliament though, and especially when she became the Associate Minister of Health, and particularly, uh, um, worried about, um, transmission of diseases. It [00:05:30] meant that when the government introduced an amendment to the Human Rights Commission Act, she did something really extraordinary. As a minister, in that government, she moved an amendment to expand the grounds of discrimination, to include sexual orientation, and those who were suffering from [00:06:00] HIV and AIDS and other, uh, transmittable notifiable diseases. And she would have had no issues whatsoever in Waipa in doing that. So it seemed unusual for someone coming from, um, what was seen as a provincial rural constituency to advocate in those areas, but she was always supported and very proud of that work.[00:06:30] .
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