Sunday 15 December 2019
Wednesday 27 November 2019
AIA Supreme Award Winners 2019 White Camellia Awards - Parliament
2019 White Camellia Awards at The Grand Hall, Parliament
The NZ Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) committee were delighted to have The Honourable Julie-Anne Genter, the Minister for Women, host the White Camellia Awards at Parliament on the 17th of September when we celebrated the work of businesses and organisations that are putting gender equality strategies into their workplace.
The partner organisations of the NZ WEPs committee (UN Women Aotearoa NZ, the Human Rights Commission, Business and Professional Women New Zealand and Zonta International District 16) wish to congratulate the winners of the 2019 awards for their achievements in working to promote gender equity.
During June and July NZ WEPs signatories were asked to complete a questionnaire looking at how they are progressing in implementing the seven principles. This survey is hosted and analysed by the NZ Work Research Institute and from the results of the survey a judging panel determines who wins each of the awards. The report on the 2019 annual survey (with some examples of innovative practice) can be downloaded at http://www.weps.org.nz/
Awards are made for excellence in implementing each of the seven principles and a supreme winner was also chosen by the judging panel. The awards were presented by the Minister, the Hon. Julie-Anne Genter, the EEO Commissioner Dr Karanina Sumeo and Traci Houpapa.
The award winners for 2019 were:
Principle 1 (Leadership promoting gender equality): AIA New Zealand (previously named Sovereign Assurance)
Principle 2 (Equal opportunity, inclusion and non-discrimination): Coco Cola Amatil NZ
Principle 3 (Health, safety and freedom from violence): AIA New Zealand
Principle 4 (Education and Training): Bell Gully
Principle 5 (Enterprise development, supply chain & marketing practices): Westpac New Zealand
Principle 6 (Community leadership and engagement): KPMG
Principle 7 (Transparency, measuring and reporting): AIA New Zealand
Small business/organisation Award: Otago Chamber of Commerce
Supreme Award Winner: AIA New Zealand
AIA New Zealand won three of the Principle sections and was in contention for several others. The judges were impressed with their excellent performance across the WEPs survey and agreed that they were a clear winner of the Supreme Award.
Many of the award categories were very competitive and the NZ WEPs committee is delighted with the number of businesses doing great work to empower women by ensuring women progress into leadership roles and that comprehensive talent identification, support and training opportunities are in place for staff at all levels.
All our award winners are to be congratulated on their innovation, commitment and vision in building gender equal workplaces. WEPs is helping NZ businesses raise the bar on business practices and turning more and more workplaces into welcoming and empowering environments for women entering employment.
Congratulations to our winners and congratulations too for so many other signatories who made big strides in their gender equity journey over the past year. They can feel very proud of the part they play in building holistic workplace policies that empower women and for the ripple effect this is having through our communities.
Keynote speaker for the evening was Traci Houpapa, award winning company director and a recognised industry leader. She is also a trusted advisor to Māori, Government, public and private sector entities on strategic and economic development. Traci spoke of her journey and the inspiration she had received as a schoolgirl that she “could be anything she wanted to be”. An important reminder to all of us to be generous with our words and to uplift our young women and girls.
Professor Gail Pacheco, NZ Work Research Institute, spoke of the trends emerging from the 2019 survey. Our thanks go to the NZ Work Research Institute for their sponsorship of the survey and their ongoing support of the work of the NZ WEPs committee.
My thanks also go to our NZ WEPs committee made up of women from UN Women Aotearoa New Zealand (Sue Kedgley, Tara Singh and Suzanne McNabb), Business and Professional Women (Hellen Swales, Mary Hope and myself), Human Rights Commission (Dr Karanina Sumeo and Joanna Maskell), Zonta International District 16 (Souella Cumming, Janette Irvine and Marie Thompson) and our WEPs administrator, Genevieve Brown. Together we are working to promote and administer the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles and we are pleased to see the influence the principles are having in New Zealand workplaces.
Vicky Mee
Chair NZ Women’s Empowerment Principles committee
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