Mothers of the State: an analysis of conservative women Ministers of Social Welfare in New Zealand.

This paper asks, ‘how do conceptions of motherhood held by Conservative women politicians influence welfare policy and policy reform’. Drawing on interviews with former Minister of Social Welfare, Jenny Shipley (1990 – 1996) and current Minister Paula Bennett, and political analysis of the welfare policies of the Fourth and Fifth National Governments in New Zealand, this paper will suggest that the traditional conservative construction of a good mother / bad mother discourse, whereby stay at home mothers are ‘good’ and women in paid work are ‘bad’, has been replaced by a neo-liberal emphasis on capitalist production, and the construction of women in work as ‘good mothers’ while stay at home mothers, in particular those on state benefits, are discursively rendered ‘bad’. This paper will conclude that in order to understand the current government welfare reform programmes in countries such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom, we must understand the ideological constructions of motherhood, work and welfare held by the women politicians implementing these programmes.