Rona Miriel Stevenson (13 February 1911 – 4 September 1988) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party.

Born in Wellington in 1911, she served on the executives of the Women's Division of Federated Farmers, the YWCA and the Presbyterian Church.

Rona Stevenson

She represented the Taupo electorate from 1963 to 1972, when she retired. In the , she narrowly beat (by 258 votes) Labour's Barry Gustafson. The Taupo seat was a marginal one and the women's section of the National Party raised a large sum of money to ensure her re-election. Also in 1966 she also called for the names of women in 'so-called rape cases' to have their names published on the grounds that they may have been provocative, a move that may not have gained her support from women voters.

Rona Stevenson

Stevenson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the community, in the 1976 Queen's Birthday Honours. She died on 4 September 1988, and her ashes were buried at Taupo Public Cemetery.

Rona Stevenson

Notes

References

Women in Parliamentary Life 1970–1990: Hocken Lecture 1993 by Marilyn Waring, page 35 (Hocken Library, University of Otago, 1994)

1911 births

1988 deaths

New Zealand National Party MPs

Women members of the New Zealand House of Representatives

New Zealand Members of the Order of the British Empire

Burials at Taupo Public Cemetery

Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives

New Zealand MPs for North Island electorates

20th-century New Zealand politicians

20th-century New Zealand women politicians

New Zealand justices of the peace