Jill Ovens



Jill Annette Ovens is a New Zealand trade unionist, politician, and anti-transgender rights activist. She is the founder and current National Secretary of the Women's Rights Party.

She was co-leader of the Alliance party before changing her allegiance to the Labour Party, and then later founding and co-leading the Women's Rights Party.

Union leader
Ovens worked as a public relations officers for the State Coal Mines Department for eight months from mid-1986 while the department was transitioning to be the Coal Corporation. Ovens led a group of women in Huntly to deal with the effects of the coal mine worker job cuts. As public relations officer, Ovens ran meetings at the Community Centre where local women organised ways to bring the community together to cope with the loss of 500 jobs. The meetings were also used as a forum to seek answers regarding the huge layoffs which occurred while the Coal Corporation took over State Coal.

Ovens served as the president of the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE) and was heavily involved in the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) Women's Council Convenor and attended the ICFTU World Women's Conference as one of two CTU delegates. At the 2003 CTU national conference she called on delegates to push for legislative change to improve work-life balance. Her suggestions for this included moving to a 35-hour working week and legal protections for people in part-time employment.

In 1999, as ASTE national president, Ovens was critical of the decision to merge Wellington Polytechnic into Massey University. Many polytechnic courses were scheduled to be phased out. Ovens led the union to oppose the cuts arguing many of the courses were valuable in training students for qualifications that led to jobs. The ASTE also worked to protect the interests of all staff under the merger so that polytechnic tutors would be retained and have no salary reductions.

The ASTE opposed a plan by Southland Polytechnic for tutors to settle for a bonus scheme rather than salary increases. Polytechnic chief executive Penny Simmonds defended the offer, claiming it to be in the best interests of students and staff. Simmonds argued that the polytechnic was "operating in an area of demographic decline and economic uncertainty" and had to make "long-term decisions to keep student fees low and protect staff jobs." Ovens argued that the deal was unfair to employees and warned that salaries of the polytechnic staff would fall further behind the rest of the sector siding with the staff who rejected the offer outright. A stopwork meeting was organised and Ovens warned that industrial action could follow if the polytech refused to budge. Staff voted to strike after holding a two-hour stopwork meeting. The union pushed for a 2 percent wage rise followed by a similar increase in 2000 rather than the offered one-off bonus of $800 with staggered adjustments to their pay scale next year.

In 2001 the ASTE and 12 polytechnics entered discussions for a multi-employer collective contract. A union ballot at polytechnics found strong support for a collective contract. Ovens was also supportive as many polytechs already had identical or very similar employment contracts and the recently passed Employment Relations Act 2000 had enabled multi-employer agreements.

Ovens opposed an overseas university setting up an English language school at the Upper Hutt campus of the Central Institute of Technology (CIT). After CIT closed in 2001, a short-term lease on a section of the campus was secured by Chosun University. She was particularly critical of the fact that the campus was new and built by Wellington Polytechnic students with local funding but the benefits of the buildings were being given to foreign students to use rather than local students.

In late 2002 she was involved in a pay dispute at Wellington College of Education when industrial action began by lecturers seeking better pay. A month later, after mediation, the lecturers accepted the offer of a 2.5 per cent pay increase.

Since her election to the Service & Food Workers Union Ovens has been occasionally blogging on left wing social media websites and supporting union activities primarily based in Auckland. In December 2014 Ovens helped lead a walkout of food service workers at Auckland City Hospital.

Ovens was co-leader of the Midwifery Employee Representation & Advisory Service (MERAS). After retiring as co-leader, she was the MERAS representative during public service pay adjustment talks in June 2022.

Alliance Party
Ovens was an Alliance candidate in Auckland's Mount Albert electorate in the 1999 and the 2002 elections, both times contesting the seat against Labour leader Helen Clark. On the party list, she was ranked 28th and 12th, respectively. She was a member of the Alliance's council (its governing body) and was involved in a campaign within the party to oppose any New Zealand involvement in the war in Afghanistan. She became critical of party leader Jim Anderton's "presidential" style of leadership. During a fiery debate in November 2001 on Afghanistan at the Alliance party conference Ovens said it "was immediately taken to be a leadership challenge" by Anderton when it was not intended as one. This division led to an open split in the party and Anderton's departure from it. In 2003 she became the editor of a left-wing political studies journal Review of Red & Green: The NZ Journal of Left Alternatives. At the 2004 local-body elections she stood as a candidate for the Auckland Regional Council in the Manukau ward, but was unsuccessful.

Ovens became president of the Alliance party in 2004. She had previously been critical of the party's new leader, Matt McCarten, for his close associations with the Māori Party, with McCarten organising the 2004 Te Tai Hauauru by-election campaign for the Māori Party's Tariana Turia. After the by-election the Māori Party invited McCarten to be their campaign manager at the next general election, which led to speculation that the Alliance and Māori Party would merge. Ovens issued a press statement stating the talks of any merger of the two parties were a 'beat-up.' The Alliance executive committee expressed displeasure at Ovens' statement about the rumors and, after a tense debate, it passed a 'gagging' motion against Ovens, at which point she resigned as party president. Party members in Auckland who were angered by what happened to trigger Ovens' resignation organised a meeting titled 'What's left of the Left' at which they persuaded Ovens to withdraw her resignation. However McCarten thwarted her withdrawal by informing media that she had resigned. In November 2004 McCarten resigned from the Alliance at the national conference. At the same conference Ovens was elected as party president again as well as confirming the intention to stand a party list at the next general election.

For the 2005 election she unsuccessfully contested the Manukau East electorate and was ranked first on the party list, having been elected a co-leader with Paul Piesse. For the 2005 election, the Alliance took an "unashamedly socialist stance" under Piesse and Ovens. In December 2005, Ovens stepped down as co-leader and became the party's president. She was succeeded as co-leader by her husband, Len Richards.

Labour Party
In 2006 she resigned from the Alliance party. After being elected the northern secretary of the Service & Food Workers Union in succession to Darien Fenton, she decided to join the Labour Party as it is affiliated with the Union. She is a former Auckland/Northland regional representative on the Labour Party's Council. At the 2013 Auckland local board elections she was a Labour candidate for the Papakura Local Board, but was unsuccessful. In 2021 Ovens submitted testimony in opposition to the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, a Bill that sought to ban the practice of conversion therapy in New Zealand. At the 2022 Auckland local board elections she stood for the Franklin Local Board in the Waiuku Subdivision as a Labour candidate, but was unsuccessful.

Women's Rights Party
In 2023 Ovens resigned from the Labour Party after feeling "increasingly off-side" with the party line and claiming that women's voices were not being listened to. She then founded the Women's Rights Party. She is the national secretary and co-leader of the party.

During the 2023 New Zealand general election, Ovens was ranked first on the Women's Rights Party's list. The party gained 2,513 votes (0.08%) of the party vote and did not win any seats.

Ovens contested the 2023 Port Waikato by-election representing the Women's Rights Party and placed seventh, receiving 188 votes (1% of votes cast).

Personal life
As of 2015, Ovens lives in Auckland with her partner Len Richards. Sources from 2007 list them as married.