Defender of NZ Midwifery, Deb Hayes
In Her Own Words.
Atamārie Wāhine and Supporters.
A brief intro before Deb’s article! Like most groups on Substack, we do occasionally post ‘guest’ posts - but we think of midwife Deb Hayes as a bit more than a guest.
We first met Deb in late 2023 when she commented on our member Sarah’s article ‘Mandated Cultural Humility for New Zealand Midwives’, and almost overnight she became our friend, sister in the Terf trenches, and the unofficial leader of the resistance to what we might call ‘Trans Midwifery’ in New Zealand.
A quiet, thoughtful person and a midwife for over thirty years, Deb has put her career on the line to publicly defend women and babies and protest the authoritarian and ideological behaviour of her own professional governing body; the Midwifery Council of NZ (MC).
She has taken her (and our) concerns directly to Parliament, written untold letters to the MC, given radio interviews - including with Broadcaster of the Year 2025, Heather du Plessis-Allan - and gathered thousands of signatures from NZ’ers everywhere, who also know that only women are mothers. She has written articles, written to MPs, done YouTube videos with MWK and Katrina Biggs, and gone on a crash course in political activism, public speaking and regulatory legislation.
In our view, Deb Hayes embodies every trait one looks for in a midwife, as well as those of a brave, true, and honest friend, and we hope her letter from within Midwifery speaks to you as it does to us.
The Midwifery Council of New Zealand and their misogynistic ‘journey’: 2nd July, 2025, by Deb Hayes, Midwife.
This month, the Midwifery Council of New Zealand (MC) are expected to release the results of a consultation/survey on their 5th attempt at a Revised Scope of Practice of a Midwife (SOP), without women and babies in it.
I bet the authors of the original SOP in 2010 didn’t see this travesty coming.
The Health Practioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, (HPCAA) clearly states that a Scope of Practice for professionals must describe the responsibilities of the profession by describing what they do and who they provide care to.
The Midwifery Council (a registered charity) has strayed from the HPCAA rules, finding them superfluous to their requirements, and over at least the last 6 years has made a determined effort to take the words ‘woman/wahine’ and ‘baby/pepi’, ‘mother/mama’ and ‘breastfeeding’ out of the Scope of Practice.
This of course filters down to the Midwifery Bachelor of Science degree, as well as post-grad education, and official documentation from Health NZ.
I do not take pleasure in watching some of my colleagues proudly studying ‘Queering Midwifery’ (courtesy of Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery) and adding pronouns to their emails, joining the race for the best virtue-signaler.
It’s distressing to witness a rainbow-clad student midwife with a pronoun badge tell a midwife of many years and the mother who was breastfeeding, that the correct word is ‘chestfeeding’.
The total financial cost of the Midwifery Council’s woman-deleting ‘journey’, as they like to call it, is unknown. They have provided no breakdown of costs. They have stated that they have used only ‘their’ money, which they get from our annual practicing fees, and the first and second Scope revisions cost a minimum of $377,000, to gestate. (Per their estimate, discovered via OIA). The time-frame was two years, but we are in fact in at least the sixth year of the process.
The cost of an Annual Practicing Certificate (APC) for midwives has massively increased over the last five years, and currently stands at $840.00 per year, which may give us a clue as to where the money has come from. This would mean that around three thousand, three hundred and thirty midwives are being forced to pay for the cancellation of women by our governing body. There is a lot of unrest about this from midwives. The MC has ways of tamping down the unrest. More of that to follow.
It’s hard to keep count, but there have been five iterations of the Scope of Practice since 2022.
The five versions of the MC’s Scope of Practice of a Midwife.
1st version of SOP, April 2022.
The first version of the revised Scope of Practice was released for stakeholder feedback in April 2022, (the term ‘stakeholders’ includes the public, although no effort was made to alert or engage the public with the feedback process). Perhaps dismayed by the overall 80+% negative response rate, the Council examined their feedback process, wondering perhaps if that was where the trouble lay.
Advised by auditors not to provide feedback on their own work in future rounds, they made no known changes to the draft and re-released apparently the same Scope of Practice for more feedback later that year in November 2022.
2nd version of SOP, November 2022.
This time, Stuff news got hold of the story and the public were alerted for the first time to this strange new midwifery with no women or babies in it. The MC had given everyone three weeks to find out about it, find time to write in, and find the words to express their thoughts. Approximately 400 people responded, and without the MCs’ own feedback included, 90.8% of comments were negative; midwives and the public were still not warming to the cancellation of women and babies even if they replaced us with ‘whānau’.
3rd version of SOP, November 29th, 2023.
The MC retreated after the feedback was received on Version 2, and waited a full year to release V.3, without sharing the negative feedback with anyone until the last possible moment.
Version 3 was once more identical, with the exception of an additional paragraph, where they explained that they were saying ‘whanau’, but it meant pregnant people/women/persons and baby, of course, of course. No feedback was asked for, this time around.
They were simply not getting the message, later blaming ‘alternative media’ for public dislike of the Scope (because we, the public, are really too dense to understand the nuances of inclusive language).
Stuff News Media would likely beg to differ that they are ‘alternative media’, and their article was very informative on this occasion; quoting the Midwifery’s Council’s own words verbatim.
The MC ploughed on regardless, and unanimously agreed to the same words for V.3, announcing this was the one - then within a week, removed this proposed new SOP that they loved so much from their website, so that others couldn’t decide whether to love it or hate it. “It’s going ahead and we don’t need any scrutiny”, they seemed to be very clearly saying.
4th Version of SOP, 8th April, 2024 (Current Enforceable Scope).
By this time, the MC knew for certain that there were going to be problems if they tried to move forward with Version 3 as written. My petition to investigate their functioning and the development of the Scope had reached 7427 signatures and public anger was beginning to grow. The MC consulted with lawyers, and appealed to former Minister of Health, Dr. Shane Reti; they tried to argue it out in Chris Lynch media and even their friends and colleagues from Victoria University and Otago School of Midwifery wrote an impassioned, if incoherent, article in the Spinoff in their favour.
But it was to no avail; finally accepting that women would have to be in there somewhere, they decided to include everyone - women, wāhine hapū, pregnant persons, babies, pēpī and whānau.
In an extra panic-move the MC entered this Scope into the House record the day before my Petition was received on Parliament steps, by Members James Meager and Tanya Unkovich. This has been the official Scope of Practice ever since, despite immediately being the subject of multiple complaints and having since been rejected by the Regulations Review Committee.
5th Version of SOP, Current Proposal, 2025.
This version, which the MC is about to release the public feedback on, is but another attempt to delete women and babies. The first paragraph, is a summary of who midwives provide care to, without actually saying ‘woman’ or ‘baby’:
‘A Kahu Pokai / midwife is to provide whanau-centred care for individuals (however they may identify) who are capable of childbearing and who are preparing for pregnancy, pregnant, birthing, and post-partum up to six weeks.’
This is the descriptor that four men of the Regulations Review Committee (RRC) disappointingly suggested, for the MC to use in the Scope, when they agreed with several complainants that woman/person/whanau/pēpī, was indeed, too many people receiving midwifery care.
The RRC overlooked that all of the complaints centered around the fact that Women and Babies should be centered in the Scope of Practice of a Midwife. They did instruct the MC to seek public consultation on this version (V.5). It is a bit woolly whether the Regulations Review Committee will be following up on it, however. They didn’t respond to a letter I wrote to them after the report was released expressing my concern that the MC have not been altogether trustworthy in the process of public consultation….particularly in the ‘listening-to-feedback’ part of the process. There will be many of us requesting strongly that they do follow up.
Note that ‘baby’ is completely absent from this version of the SOP.
And the Petitions Committee? They gave us a good hearing, surely? No.
The Petitions Committee told me that they wouldn’t accept any other written or verbal submissions apart from mine. They seemed quite happy to have one midwife up against her governing body.
Mana Wāhine Kōrero persisted though, and the committee agreed to give them a 10-minute hearing, split between Di Landy and Sarah Henderson. We all made great oral submissions, Di from a Māori language perspective, with the helpful information that there is no pre-colonial Māori history of ‘Queering’ and that the way Te Reo Māori is being used by the MC is culturally inappropriate. Sarah’s was from an investigative perspective, where she named those who likely influenced the decision to leave women and babies out of the SOP and asked some questions of the Midwifery Council that they didn’t like.
The Midwifery Council’s submission was a shambles. There was no attempt to explain their decision-making; they didn’t seem to know why they were there and expected an easy pass. The highlight of their submission was that once they finished rambling, Greg O’Connor, Labour MP, asked them something about ‘Trans Men’ (women who think they’re men). His co-committee member, Dr. Vanessa Weenink, took the ball for Team MC and helpfully played her transactivist card to give dear old Greg a definition of “A man who was born in a woman’s body”. Greg accepted this impossibility in the beat of a butterfly-wing, sprinkling rainbow glitter, and declared himself up to speed and on-board with the fairytale of transgenderism.
The Petitions Committee never released the footage of Di and Sarah’s oral submission; they gave no reason and there appears to be no redress. They also gave the Midwifery Council another 10 minutes to rebut us all, which stretched to 14 minutes, but what is another 4 minutes between friends? This extra time to deny our concerns took place at a much later date and I, as the Petitioner, was never informed.
In a nutshell, the Petitions Committee report said that the RRC had done some heavy lifting and that the Petitions Committee could sit back on their haunches. 7427 signatures were not persuasive enough for the Petitions Committee to allow women and babies into the Midwifery Scope of Practice, or even to recommend that someone take a look at the situation.
To summarise these interactions, two Parliamentary Select Committees of mostly men have decided that women’s language is really not that important.
You don’t need to be a genius to understand that if you remove the rights of women to name themselves according to their sex and body functions, and that any man can be a woman, then they will lose agency of their rights and autonomy.
But intelligence, biology and critical thinking are so outdated now, playing second fiddle to the religion of gender identity. I console myself that the receipts are all there, on the Parliamentary Archives website for all to see; those who feathered their own nests for a ludicrous ideology, knowing full well what they were doing.
The latest proposed, revised Midwifery Scope of Practice. Consultation due to be released.
The MC have learned from the previous consultations above that they won’t get agreement from the public if they do not centre women and babies, (and because no other human can legally receive care from a midwife, of course). So, rather than actually do this, and re-centre women and babies, this last feedback round was set up to try to outweigh negative feedback with positive feedback.
Firstly, the questions.
The MC ask for a score and comment on every one of the articles of the new Revised Scope individually - without telling respondents that they are scoring the actual statements in the Scope.
Secondly, the number of articles increased from 9 to 13, more ‘padding out’, some articles being repetitive and deceptively mundane. This numbers game increases the odds of positive or neutral feedback. If you agree that 7 out of 13 statements look inoffensive, you may overlook the fact that baby, mother and breastfeeding have no mention, and that women have one mention (alongside ‘gender-diverse’ people) and that ‘whānau’ are centered and not women.
The plan is that the complete absence of mother, baby and breastfeeding will go unnoticed, and that the one mention of the word woman, as well as the gender-diverse, is ok.
By the time you get to question 13 and before you answer another few questions you may have recovered from the insult of the first paragraph. You may just overlook that babies are not in the Scope at all, that whānau, not women, are centered and that midwives have been renamed ‘Kahu Pokai’, which does not mean midwife.
Midwives.
Most midwives on the floor are too busy keeping their heads above water and doing their best to provide safe care to women and babies, in the midst of a chronic staffing shortage. They don’t keep track of what the latest wording is.
But they do look at documents coming out of Health New Zealand (because they have to). They notice that ‘chestfeeding’ is replacing breastfeeding. They notice the complete aversion to using ‘woman’ by some midwifery educators. They notice that official documents collecting maternal statistics have ‘woman/person/whanau’ instead of woman and baby.
Most midwives don’t know that the RRC advised that this wording wasn’t legislatively accurate. There are some Midwifery leaders who do know, and who have not responded to letters from myself and other midwives, pointing out that inaccurate language and questions on forms will lead to inaccurate answers/statistics.
Midwives also need an APC. They recognize that the punitive function of the MC is alive and kicking (accentuated since Covid). Being compliant is the choice of self-preservation for midwives. A recent communication from the MC to Midwives reminded us that there were two compulsory education programs to complete.
Midwives were surprised that they would have to pay for one of them; the ‘Turanga Kaupapa Education programme’. Midwives generally pay for education that they have a special interest in, but being required to pay for a course that might not necessarily be a choice, is an unusual turn of events from a governing body.
Chillingly, in the same email the Midwifery Council included this message; ‘Midwives who have not completed the education by 1 July 2025 may be selected for our Annual Recertification Audit’. Audits have previously been random, not targeted.
The education referred to is the Scope of Practice (Version 4, which has been rejected by the Regulations Review Committee) and Standards of Competencies Education.
Going back to the HPCAA, which states that a SOP should be clear to another health professional reading it and include the roles and functions of the professional, and the rightful recipients of care - if the Scope was clear then education to understand and apply it would not be required.
The June Midpoint newsletter from the MC (found on MC website) reminds us all that:
“The proposed amendments to the revised Midwifery Scope of Practice (in Version 5) are for clarification purposes and do not alter the Standards of Competence”.
Clarify what a woman is, Midwifery Council! Clarify who is going to be clinically responsible for new-born babies up to six weeks!
The Standards of Competence and the Scope of Practice should have the same language and intent, but MC wants to protect the Standards of Competence from the same scrutiny that the Scope of Practice is getting. They want them to be based on a version of the Scope that is already considered unfit as a regulatory document.
A word about the stunning and brave timing from the MC to gain compliance from midwives.
The 5-hour Education module about the Scope is compulsory, as is the ‘feedback’ once the education is complete. ‘No feedback, no certificate’.
A brave midwife may speak up about the sources used, including regional British National Health Service guidelines for ‘inclusive language’. We all know that ‘inclusive’ excludes women. Most of us also know that the Supreme Court UK has clarified that Women’s Rights are sex-based. The NHS will have to retract their harmful policies.
The MC has all midwives ‘educated’ to their ideologies, and midwives have ticked ‘yes’ we like it - most, because they’re thinking, “I need my APC, I am too busy to undergo an Audit”.
This education was done and dusted by 1 July 2025, in good time for the release of the public and professional feedback about the Scope that treats the word ‘woman’ as blasphemous and doesn’t feature babies at all.
The MC “…intend to make the summary report of the consultation feedback available online”.
Are the MC doing the summarising?
The report may include that all midwives have completed and provided positive feedback to the 5-hour long Scope and Standards education, therefore all midwives agree with deleting women and babies from the Scope of Practice.
The Midwifery Council of New Zealand has embraced an ideology that harms women and children.
There is plenty (and growing) evidence for this. They have created division amongst midwives from which some will never recover. The Midwifery Council has the responsibility of bringing midwives to account in the form of discipline. For midwives who have erred in their practice or conduct, this will likely now include ‘wrongspeak’. There is a large group of midwives who now fear the Midwifery Council and their ability to be a fair and unbiased governing body.
The Council should pay heed to the words of Reem Alsalem, below.
Di Landy and Sarah Henderson’s oral submission to the Petitions Committee can be found HERE on Reality Check Radio.
Deb’s oral submission (and the TWO submissions from the Midwifery Council) can be found on the Petitions Committee Parliament website.
All written submissions to the Regulatory Review Committee, and the committee response can be found on the RRC Parliamentary website.
All Midwives, meanwhile, can be found in any setting providing midwifery care to Women and Babies up to 6 weeks.
Deb Hayes, Midwife, 2025.
#NeverSurrender
#OnlyWāhineAreMāmā
#MenCanNeverBeMothers
#TheWordIsBreastfeeding
Fantastic précis, Deb - and thanks for hosting it, MWK. It’s notable how the Midwifery Council has not been above turning into totalitarian control freaks for the sake of an incredibly dubious ideology which they’ve decided they like. I know governing bodies have to govern, which means making decisions, but that usually means making decisions first the good of the whole organisation, not just for a few fringe misfits who have somehow been misguided into believing that the world should revolve around them.
It just makes me feel sick what they are doing…I’m way past pregnancy days but wow…it hurts so much to see women and babies being vanished like this! Unbelievable!
Thanks for your important work 🙏