Marilyn Waring

Her great-grandfather Harry (Arthur Henry) Waring had emigrated to New Zealand from Hopesay in Herefordshire, England, in 1881, and established the family butchery business at Taupiri.

In 1927 Harry Waring stood unsuccessfully for election to parliament in the Raglan seat for the Reform Party, the forerunner of the National Party.

A talented soprano in her youth, her parents had hoped that she would become a classical singer.

Dame Marilyn Joy Waring (born 7 October 1952) is a New Zealand public policy scholar, international development consultant, former politician, environmentalist, feminist and a principal founder of feminist economics.

The 1972 to 1975 National Opposition had not had a single female member in its caucus.

The other candidates were men: a County Council chair, a Meat and Wool Section chair of Federated Farmers, a National Party Divisional councillor and a popular local farmer who had stood as an independent in the 1972 election.

The selection meeting was held at Ngaruawahia High School assembly hall (she went there her first two years of secondary school).

She was the last candidate to speak; each was given two sealed envelopes with the same subject to speak on.

Party president George Chapman's subject was agricultural incomes - "not her strong suit" - and Party leader Robert Muldoon's was housing policy; a patsy question as he knew she was working on housing policy with Gair (as she pointed out to the meeting).

When her selection was announced Waring thought there had been "a dreadful mistake" but there was a round of stand-up cheering and Jim Bolger from the neighbouring King Country electorate raced up and embraced her on stage.

She was later told by a scrutineer that she was ahead from the first ballot, and slowly climbed to over 50%.

Her selection reflected her "obvious ability and ... well-articulated convictions", but was helped because the two best-known local candidates disliked each other, and when one was eliminated his support went to Waring to prevent the selection of the other.

One family block voted for her because another candidate had sold them a horse with a saddle sore concealed by a blanket.

Muldoon said at the subsequent party caucus meeting in Wellington how pleased he was that she made it: "We are going to win. I wanted a woman and I will help all I can".

In 1973, Waring received an Honours BA in political science and international politics from Victoria University of Wellington.

Waring joined the National Party while still a student at Victoria University.

She joined because she supported National MP Venn Young, who introduced a private member's bill into parliament for homosexual law reform; this was opposed by Norman Kirk, the Labour Party Prime Minister.

She quickly entered the Opposition Research Unit as a part-time advisor under George Gair, the Shadow Minister of Housing.

In 1975, aged 23, she became New Zealand's youngest member of parliament for the liberal-conservative New Zealand National Party.

As a member of parliament she chaired the Public Expenditure Committee.

Exacerbated due to 1975 being International Women's Year, it was to deep embarrassment among the National Party's established figures that no women had been selected for any seats in the upcoming election.

At age 22, Waring expressed some passing interest to Gair in standing for the party in the seat of Raglan, a very safe National seat that contained her hometown of Huntly.

Gair anxiously called former Prime Minister Keith Holyoake to tell him about Waring's interest and origins in the area itself.

An overjoyed Holyoake personally arrived within the hour to Parliament House, and offered her the selection without even formally introducing himself.

The two thereafter became very close, to the extent that on one occasion she kissed Holyoake on the lips in front of cameras.

She is thought to have helped soften Holyoake's ambivalent views on LGBT rights; after she was involuntarily outed by the New Zealand Truth in 1978, Holyoake worked with Prime Minister Robert Muldoon to quickly downplay the tabloid reports and to protect their friend.

Waring campaigned for selection by making house calls on party delegates, starting in her home town of Huntly, borrowing her mother's car (and some of her clothes).

She mentioned her opposition to sporting ties with South Africa.

26 of the 130 voting delegates were women; including Katherine O'Regan who became her electoral agent for eight years.

Her support of the opposition Labour Party's proposed nuclear-free New Zealand policy was instrumental in precipitating the 1984 New Zealand general election, and she left parliament in 1984.

On leaving parliament she moved into academia; she is best known for her 1988 book If Women Counted, and she obtained a D.Phil in political economy in 1989.

Through her research and writing she is known as the principal founder of the discipline of feminist economics.

Since 2006, Waring has been a professor of public policy at the Institute of Public Policy at AUT, focusing on governance and public policy, political economy, gender analysis, and human rights.

She has taken part in international aid work and served as a consultant to UNDP and other international organisations.

She has outspokenly criticised the concept of gross domestic product (GDP), the economic measure that became a foundation of the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSNA) following World War II.

She criticises a system which "counts oil spills and wars as contributors to economic growth, while child-rearing and housekeeping are deemed valueless".

Her work has influenced academics, government accounting in a number of countries, and United Nations policies.

Waring has had a long-time involvement with the Association for Women's Rights in Development, a progressive feminist organisation that advocates inclusive feminism, and served on its board until 2012.

In 2021 she was appointed by the World Health Organization as a member of the WHO Council on the Economics of Health For All.

Marilyn Waring grew up at Taupiri, where her parents owned a butchery.