ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the gender of the position of the executive in Aotearoa New Zealand at the turn of the millennium. It investigates the implications of New Zealand's radical structural adjustment and globalisation, including the settlements of Treaty of Waitangi 1840 breaches, for the position of prime minister. The chapter argues that the raced and gendered dynamics of these policies provided an opening for New Zealand's first white women prime ministers. Both international trade organisations and the private commercial sector have few women at senior levels and have retained or increased their masculinity, particularly in relation to the declining power of the Government and state. The chapter highlights these aspects of structural adjustment and free trade agreements. Structural adjustment proceeded roughly according to four stages: deregulation of commercial and financial markets; privatisation of state-owned assets and utilities; downsizing the remaining state sector; and deregulating the labour market and dismantling the welfare state.
