What has ex-MP Louisa Wall been up to as equality ambassador in the Pacific

Louisa Wall has had four visits to Pacific countries in her new role. Photo / Dean Purcell

MP turned ambassador Louisa Wall says leadership from churches could be a “game-changer” for LGBT+ rights in the Pacific where homosexuality is still illegal in eight countries.

She said she had begun a dialogue with the general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Rev James Bhagwan, in Fiji who was very supportive of LGBT+ rights.

“He is very deliberately looking at the theology of LGBT equality and how the church and church leaders across the Pacific have to be part of leading this change.

“And I have to say if that can be co-ordinated through his leadership across their members, across the Pacific, obviously that would be a game-changer.”

Wall was speaking to the Institute of International Affairs in Wellington on Friday about her work in the first seven months as Ambassador for Gender Equality (Pacific)/Tuia Tāngata.

“Every country will have their own bespoke solution for homosexual law reform,” she said.

“The solution to those situations will come from the LGBTI+ groups in the country. Our job is to provide the resources so that the local activists have a platform that is stable, from which to advocate for themselves.”

Wall, a former list MP, resigned from Parliament in April as part of a managed deselection as Labour’s candidate for Manurewa, where she had been MP. She sponsored the marriage equality bill which passed in 2013.

Wall outlined the five trips so far in her role, to the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and to Argentina for a conference of countries committed to LGBTI+ rights.

She has further visits planned next year to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia and is hoping to get to Australia for the World Pride event in February.

Wall said her visits were always at the initiative of others, be they community groups, NGOs, academics or at the invitation of the Government, as was the case with the Samoa visit.

“They have to be initiated and instigated by people in country. My role is to support and tautoko and to awhi their aspirations for reform so it is not about us imposing what we think should happen in their countries.”

Her brief, as announced by Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, is to establish new partnerships and programmes that support the full and effective participation by women and LGBTQI+, and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life in the Pacific. As Pacific sports diplomacy is a focus for Wall who is both a former Silver Fern and Black Fern.

It is the first such ambassadorial role in New Zealand and the appointment is for two years.

Australia has a gender equality ambassador and several other countries have ambassadors that include an LGBT+ rights brief including Argentina, Britain, Italy, the United States and France.

Reports about Wall’s Pacific work are posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website and the report on the Fiji trip included a reference to her meeting with Bhagwan about how to improve rights for the Pacific SOGIESC (sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics) community.

Former Labour MP Louisa Wall, pictured during her valedictory speech in Parliament, talks about her sporting career in Queer and Here. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“Rev Bhagwan noted that meaningful progress will require small steps,” the report said.

“Including the top of SOGIESC rights into wider conversations with a small number of church leaders who might be interested in starting the discussion on SOGIESC rights, and utilising the Pacific Theological College could be first steps in starting the conversation.”

Domestic and sexual violence has been a focus of some of the visits, with Wall often meeting local groups working to reduce it.

In the Cook Islands, she attended a lunch at which Dr Debi Futter-Puati presented her finding from her 2017 PhD. It had surveyed 20 per cent of the Cook Island population aged 15 to 24 and found that 18 per cent of boys and 24 per cent of girls had been sexually violated.

In Samoa, Wall met with some of the NGOs leading the response to gender-based violence including the Salvation Army and Samoa Victims Support Groups. The report said that in the most recent Samoa budget, for the first time the government had provided funding for such groups.

It also had initiatives to support women’s councils, village councils and individual families to respond to such violence.

Wall described some of the work being done under the aegis of sports diplomacy and in most island countries she met with sports bodies.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Louisa Wall at the Big Gay Out in Auckland in 2020. Photo / Peter Meecham

“When I think about this role … it is about building and amplifying platforms that showcase women in all their diversity, but their leadership to society, but in many cases the potential for that contribution.

“And I think sport has become a vehicle that has the power to transform societal attitudes.”

That was especially evident with the success of Fijiana, the Fiji women’s rugby, which had won the Super W competition in Australia and won medals at the Commonwealth Games and Olympics.

“We’ve gone from a position five years ago where fathers didn’t want their daughters to play rugby, ministers would talk in their congregations about how this was against nature, that women should be banned from playing rugby to a position now where it is actively encouraged, if not the dominant sport in Fiji.”