Most years women attend early breakfasts on Suffrage Day [tomorrow, Tuesday, 19 September] to listen to speeches from high profile women celebrating the successes of women in business, the Public Service and politics.

After all we currently have 58 women in the New Zealand Parliament, making up 48% of MPs. And women make up just over 50% of those on New Zealand public sector boards.

But while women at the top are doing well, little has changed for those women who clean the halls of power, sole women bringing up their children, or women in retirement struggling to survive on the pension with little or no savings.

Co-leader Jill Ovens says women’s rights have been eroded in recent years by legislation that puts women’s and girls’ privacy and safety at risk, the erasure of the word “women” from our language, and workplace policies that prevent women from speaking out.

“In the name of ‘inclusivity’, women and girls are being excluded from schools, universities, political parties and workplaces,” Ms Ovens says.

That’s why the Women’s Rights Party is commemorating Suffrage Day tomorrow with actions that recall the determined efforts of those who won the right for all women to vote, both here in New Zealand, and in the United Kingdom, where universal suffrage was not attained until 1928.

“We will be unfurling banners over motorway bridges, collecting signatures on a replica Suffrage petition, and joining with LAVA (Lesbian Action for Visibility in Aotearoa) who are rallying outside the Ministry of Women’s Affairs,” Ms Ovens says.

She also plans to chain herself to the historic gates to Parliament, opposite the Kate Sheppard Apartments in Molesworth Street.

“It’s a symbolic action,” she says. “We have no intention of disrupting anyone or even staying long.”

Chimene del la Varis, Women’s Rights Party co-leader, is producing a second edition of the podcast “The White Camellia” focussing on women’s suffrage in Aotearoa.

Suffragists gave white camellias to their supporters to wear in Parliament during the passing of the Electoral Act in 1893. Since then, the flower has become the symbol of New Zealand women’s suffrage movement.

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