Jenny Shipley was a daughter of the manse, and credited her liberal Presbyterian father with establishing her values of effort, thrift, and family cohesion. After a brief period as a teacher, she married a farmer and had two children. She suffered post-natal depression after her son Ben was born, and as she recovered she involved herself with public life through Plunket, playcentre, and local government. She was a natural leader and developed her skills further in politics, where her enjoyment of management roles and realisation that real power lay elsewhere gave her the confidence to seek election to parliament in 1987. During the 1990s she served as Minister of Transport, State Services, Women’s Affairs, Health and Social Welfare, and the state owned enterprises Radio New Zealand and Accident Compensation Corporation. In 1997 she gained the leadership of the governing party and therefore became the first woman prime minister of New Zealand.

Jenny Shipley proved to be a keen debater with the ability to establish functional working relationships. She led the New Zealand delegation to the 1995 Beijing United Nations Conference on Women, and represented this country in that and other international forums with dignity and confidence, stressing that rights and responsibilities strengthen each other.