Women's causes important part of Elizabeth Orr's memoir

Elizabeth Orr and her new book. Photo / David Haxton

If someone had suggested to Elizabeth Orr, earlier in her life, that she would be writing books in her 80s, there would have been a clear response.

"I simply wouldn't have believed them."

But that is exactly what the Waikanae woman has been doing.

And because "my daughters demanded I write my life up".

She has just had her second book Pay Packets & Stone Walls published which is a memoir of her life, especially women's causes.

A key part of the book is "the most complete history of equal pay and pay equity that has been published in New Zealand".

"That's been edited very carefully so that it is very trustworthy.

"It starts in the 1940s up to the beginning of this year."

Orr, now aged 90, had a special interest in the topic.

"I was the senior woman advising government when they passed the 1972 Equal Pay Act.

"As the chairwoman of the National Advisory Council, on the employment of women, we advised them to pass a pay equity act and that's what they [National] did.

"But every MP in the house voted for that.

"Just as every MP in the house voted in 1960 for the Government Service Equal Pay Act, which may have been among the first pay equity act in the world."

Elizabeth Orr's new book.

What was her 50-year fascination with pay equity?

"The realisation that I was a feminist who cared about women's rights is a large part of the explanation.

"I wanted and still want women and men to receive equal treatment in the workplace and not to be exposed to sexual harassment.

"But alongside that motivation is a personal trait, the wish or inclination or maybe it's even a drive, to do something about a problem once I have identified it.

"I have never had a dream of perfect equality between the sexes or across society…what I do like is the idea of a relatively egalitarian society, indeed, that's my ideal."

Orr, the first female chancellor of Victoria University, also writes about her upbringing, career, and marriage to Gordon Orr.

Gordon Orr was Secretary for Justice as well as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.

He had a reputation as a great rangatira; his funeral, in March 2015, was held in the meeting house on the Victoria University marae.

The book features the couple's love for their family property, called Rawhitiroa, in 64 Old Hautere Rd, Te Horo, including a hobby for building stone walls.

There were a lot of boulders scattered across the property so the couple set about creating 10 stone walls from 1980 until 2003.

"Some of them were over 100 feet long.

"I taught myself how to create good stone walls.

"The first one I built, I'm not very proud of, because it wasn't built on the right principals, but of course I learned and I claim to be a good stone wall builder by the time we'd finished."

Orr's first book, Keeping New Zealand Green, was a history of the New Zealand Forest Service.

The topic was close to her heart as it was an industry her father had been involved in.

Pay Packets & Stone Walls is available in Paper Plus Coastlands.