Resignation Of Chief Executive Of Ministry Of Women's Affairs

The State Services Commissioner, Michael Wintringham, today announced the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Judy Lawrence, has resigned in order to take up the position of Director of the Climate Change Office in the Ministry for Environment.

Ms Lawrence has been Chief Executive of the Ministry of Women's Affairs since 1995. Prior to this she was the Environment Strategy Manager, NZ Dairy Research Institute (seconded to the NZ Dairy Board) and held various management roles at the Ministry for the Environment.

Ms Lawrence spent eight months on a secondment to the OECD from September 2000 to April 2001 as a consultant on the Sustainable Development Project. She is currently the Convenor of the Ministerial National Science Strategy Committee on Climate Change and has a MA Hons in Geography from Victoria University.

"Ms Lawrence has had an extensive career working in the state sector and I am pleased that her management experience and wide knowledge of environment issues will continue to be utilised by the Government," Mr Wintringham said.

Mr Wintringham said that, under Ms Lawrence's leadership, the Ministry of Women's Affairs had overseen policy advice leading to the introduction of major pieces of legislation around reducing domestic violence, matrimonial property rights and paid parental leave, which are making a positive difference in women's lives.

"Ms Lawrence has also overseen the development of a new gender analysis framework and tools which enable policy advisors to better reflect the lives of women in their advice to government. To support this she has taken a lead role in ensuring there is a greatly increased range and amount of gender specific statistics available for policy advice including securing the completion of New Zealand's first Time Use Survey and new statistics on the status of Maori women.

"Recently the Ministry has published its 5th United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) report, which is a comprehensive analysis of the status of women in New Zealand.

"Ms Lawrence is regarded as having a strong voice for women's issues internationally and has made an effective international contribution through work to integrate gender into the APEC process," Mr Wintringham said.

Ms Lawrence will step down from the chief executive's position in mid April. Mr Wintringham announced that he has asked Anne Carter, the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Youth Affairs, to be the acting Chief Executive of the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Ms Carter will retain her role as Chief Executive of the Ministry of Youth Affairs.

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