Resolutions passed into Policy 2025
- secbpwnz
- May 11
- 4 min read
I1: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc updates the voting criteria for Life Membership to align with current voting for other matters:
Voting between conferences for Honorary Life Membership requires:
Those entitled to vote for an Honorary Life Member to be:
Executive
Past Presidents of BPW NZ who retain their Club/Individual Membership
Honorary BPW NZ Life Members
Executive members, Honorary Life Members, and Past Presidents have one vote and may not vote in any other capacity.
Clubs/Individual Members voting strength shall be determined as follows:
Up to 10 members – 1 vote11 to 20 members – 2 votes21 to 30 members – 3 votes31 to 40 members – 4 votes41 to 50 members – 5 votes51 members and over – 6 votes
A quorum by postal/electronic vote shall be 80 per cent (80%) of the eligible voters.
A majority of 80 per cent (80%) of the votes shall be required to ratify conferring Honorary Life Membership
I2: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc having undertaken a review of the Awards and criteria recommends the following changes
to the Awards Manual:
That BPW NZ retires the Pauline Gapper Nepal Literacy Award
That the Daphne Chapman Award criteria be altered to state this award can be conferred once only on a recipient
That BPW NZ accrues annually a set amount for the Margery Toulson Award
That BPW NZ expands the Young BPW Sustainability Award to include acknowledging outstanding work achieved by a Young BPW member and criteria accordingly.
I3: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc affirms our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi by ensuring it is reflected in BPW NZ
governance documents and actions.
E1:THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc urges the Government to ensure continued access to school buses for children who live rurally or who do not have access to suitable public transport to the closest school which caters to their needs.
E2: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc urges the New Zealand government to place a high level of emphasis across all government ministries and agencies to address bullying at all levels of the community.
E3:THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc urges the government to ensure:
all families have timely access to funded external support and resources, and in particular specialists and therapists, including diagnostic support.
the creation of an organisation or structure responsible for centrally co-ordinating the full range of consistent and holistic support needed by neurodivergent children.
more funding across the education sector, such as:
upskilling support staff, teachers and school leaders
more investment in special education particularly in lower socio-economic areas,
reducing teacher-student ratios and employing more teaching assistants and specialist resources,
supporting the implementation of school-wide policies and procedures that are fair and responsive to the needs of neurodivergent students
E4: That the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc. urges the Ministry of Social Development to support disabled persons to receive all
applicable entitlements by:
Ensuring that each office of Work and Income NZ (WINZ) appoints at least one staff member who will have full knowledge of all entitlements available to disabled people, including but not limited to services, resources, funding and their rights. This person is tasked with enabling understanding and application for resources and engaging colleagues throughout their branch to do the same
Providing training for at least one staff member to ensure that person has full knowledge of the diversity of disabilities and the needs of each, understanding appropriate language usage and communication skills, and
Advising disabled people how to access information through the Ministry’s and WINZ websites, to provide information in an accessible format, and for these websites to be regularly updated as policy is amended or
Providing comprehensive information for application of funding or other supports to disabled people who do not or cannot use an e-device and
Collaborating between agencies to enable flow of information and a common language between agency policies.
E5: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc
call on the Government to align and extend existing access to medical records kept throughout Aotearoa New Zealand geographically to ensure a single repository of information is maintained to support practitioners nationwide in providing a high quality of care throughout all levels of healthcare in Aotearoa New Zealand.
E6: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc urges the Government to improve access to primary health care in rural areas by implementing measures to attract and retain primary healthcare practitioners (including midwives) to rural areas, not limited to:
allocating sufficient funding for attractive salary packages,
retaining funding for nurse practitioner training,
introducing post-qualification requirements for healthcare graduates to practice rurally for a set period, and
ensuring work/life balance issues are addressed for rural health care providers.
E7: THAT the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW NZ) Inc
call on the Government to address increases in the costs of living by implementing an annual mechanism for review of:
benefit rates based on the higher of the movement in the average wage or the Household Living-Costs Price Indexes (HLPIs),
abatement thresholds to increase the amount beneficiaries can earn before their earnings are deducted, and
the Accommodation Supplement to update the asset base allowed for recipients of the Accommodation Supplement, and the rate of supplement relative to actual costs.
