New Zealand: It's reigning men, media portrayal and betrayal of 2 women PMs

By Blair Williams,

During her nine years as New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Helen Clark was held in high regard for her skill and courage as a politician and advocate for nuclear disarmament and public health policy. She wasn’t the country’s first female PM – Jenny Shipley, who she defeated in1999, took that honour – but her gender didn’t define her time in office.

Across the ditch and two years after Clark resigned, Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female PM – and her gender did define the torrid three years she spent in office. Why two women from such culturally and politically similar democracies should experience such polar opposite responses says a lot about the make-up of media ownership, as Blair Williams explains.

Click here to read the full article published by Broad Agenda on 30 March 2020.