Aren’t Can’t Don’t: As a formerly incarcerated person, I know that denying the right to vote violates respect for human dignity, sending the message that absolute rehabilitation is impossible, writes Awatea Mita. This post was first published 28 November 2018. It’s 11.00pm and I am returning to Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility as a “release … Read more
Aren’t Can’t Don’t: Contrary to popular opinion, lots of young people care deeply about politics and are desperate to have their voices heard, writes youth journalist and activist Azaria Howell. On September 24th, 2018, I rushed to the mailbox to see what I had received for my 17th birthday. To my delight, a card (that … Read more
While the suffrage anniversary offers real cause for celebration, not everyone exercises their right to vote. In the second of two films in our Aren’t Can’t Don’t series, made with the assistance of NZ On Air, women explain why they don’t vote. One hundred and twenty-five years after women voted for the first time in a … Read more
Aren’t Can’t Don’t: 125 years after New Zealand women won the right to vote, we take a look at what the first polling day looked like for Māori women… sort of. Today is the 125th anniversary of women taking to the polls to vote in the general election for the first time, 10 weeks after … Read more
On the 125th anniversary of women exercising suffrage for the first time in NZ, the support party has called for a change in the law that sees incarcerated people ‘unjustifiably denied the right to vote’. The Green Party has added its voice to a growing call for a change in the law that denies people in … Read more
Aren’t Can’t Don’t: The ban on prisoners voting is the worst kind of anti-democratic law – harsh, disproportionate and fundamentally at odds with the idea that human rights belong to all of us, write Tania Sawicki Mead and Ashlesha Sawant of JustSpeak Many New Zealanders would likely vote for fairness as our foundational virtue as … Read more
Aren’t Can’t Don’t: As a formerly incarcerated person, I know that denying the right to vote violates respect for human dignity, sending the message that absolute rehabilitation is impossible, writes Awatea Mita. It’s 11.00pm and I am returning to Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility as a “release to work” prisoner. I’ve earned a position of … Read more
While the suffrage anniversary offers real cause for celebration, in 2018 not everyone has the right to vote. In the first of two films in our Aren’t Can’t Don’t series, made with the assistance of NZ On Air, women explain what it meant to be denied an opportunity to vote while imprisoned. One hundred and twenty-five … Read more