Marilyn Waring’s 'The Political Years'

The Team from Alexander Turnbull Library

Wednesday 22 May 2019
5.30pm - 8.00pm
National Library Foyer, corner Molesworth and Aitkens Streets, Thorndon.



In 1975 Marilyn Waring was elected to the New Zealand Parliament as the MP for Raglan.
Aged just 23 and only the fifteenth woman to enter Parliament, she served through the turbulent years of Muldoon’s government. During her time in Parliament she was chair of the Public Expenditure Committee, before crossing the floor to support nuclear-free legislation which ultimately led to the fall of the National government.

The Political Years is an autobiographical account of her time at the forefront of male-dominated public life and sits alongside Marilyn’s other books, including Counting for Nothing and Still Counting.


The talk will be chaired by Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw and is part of the BWB Talks series.

About the speaker
In the years since she retired from Parliament in 1984, Marilyn Waring has published numerous books as well as continuing to contribute to the public service through university fellowships around the world, development in consultancy for Asia and the Pacific, contributions to boards and councils in New Zealand as well as her work in academia.

In 2008, she was awarded a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for services to women and economics, and in 2011 she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Glasgow Caledonia University for research in international feminism and female human rights.

Marilyn Waring is, today, a Professor of Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology.

Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw is a New Zealand researcher and communicator, and good science advocate. She is co-director of think-and-do tank The Workshop, and a senior research associate at the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland.

In 2018, she published BWB Text A Matter of Fact: Talking Truth in a Post-Truth World.



Image: Cover of The Political Years by Marilyn Waring (BWB 2019)