In a belated u-turn Labour's Chris Hipkins has taken responsibility for one of his MP's using Question Time to quote a newspaper column that called female ministers the c-word.
The party leader fronted reporters at Parliament on Thursday - a media appearance usually filled by his deputy Carmel Sepuloni - to take the rap for Labour MP and former minister for women, Jan Tinetti.
Parliament descended into chaos on Wednesday after Tinetti put a question on notice to Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden - one of the ministers the c-word had been directed at - that quoted from the controversial Sunday Star-Times column.
It prompted a fiery response from van Velden, who denounced the use of the word, criticised Tinetti for not condemning the language used, and accused the journalist who wrote the piece of misogyny.
Hipkins had this week refused to condemn the c-word being used in the column, and on Wednesday following Question Time Tinetti stood by her question line in the House.
But on Thursday Hipkins u-turned, saying the issue had become a distraction from the "plight of low-paid women who are simply asking to be paid fairly".
"In so far as our quoting from a rather controversial comment piece yesterday meant the Labour Party was contributing to the distractions around that, I think we will own that.
"It would have been better if we had quoted from something else rather than that particular column," he said.
"The government desperately wants to move the debate away from pay equity, I think we did play into their hands in that regard a little bit yesterday, I think that was unfortunate."
Asked whether he was aware the question was going to be asked by Tinetti, he did not directly answer.
"We've got a process for signing off questions, it went all the way through that process, we collectively own that, so as leader of the Labour Party I'll own that."
Pushed on whether he personally approved it, he said "as the leader of the Labour Party I'll accept responsibility for it".
On Thursday in Question Time Speaker Gerry Brownlee told the House he should never have allowed Tinetti's question to be heard.
"Although I note no party raised issues with the question during the pre-publication period.
"It was reasonable then to reach the assumption that the House had accepted the content of the question, as the House is, of course, the architect of its own procedure," he said.
And on the matter of van Velden using the c-word in her answer to Tinetti, Brownlee said he should not have "allowed the word used in response to the question to go unchecked".
"The member concerned may wish to think about a belated action to uphold the dignity of the House."
Hipkins said he had changed his position on the appropriateness of the column because of the distraction it was causing, which was "taking away from what is a very fair issue".
"I think we made a mistake there, and when people affected by this see politicians fighting with each other and making it all about themselves, as we've seen in the last 24 hours, I think they'll feel somewhat despondent and dejected.
"We should get back to talking about the issues that affect them."
Hipkins said part of the reason he did not condemn the use of the c-word against female ministers was to avoid that aspect of the pay equity debate becoming the focus.
"I'm not going to appoint myself judge, jury, and executioner on things that people write in newspaper columns."
He acknowledged the language in the column was not words he would use.
Initial response
Labour initially rejected the idea that it was a poor political judgment to reference a column using the c-word.
The controversial legislation, passed under urgency last week, raises the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued when making a pay equity claim. The law is retrospective, cancelling 33 current claims affecting 150,000 female workers which would have to be restarted.
Workplace Minister Brooke van Velden last week said the changes would save the Crown money. Opponents say it will make it harder for women in female dominated industries to make a claim.
Van Velden has defended the use of the word, blaming Labour for introducing the column in the first place.
"I think it's really important that I shone a light on the misogyny that Labour actually did bring into the House. They brought it here, I responded."
"I deliberately went through that to find the quote that would mention the economic backhander."
It was pointed out to Tinetti that the column in question used the c-word, "that c-word I would never use," she said.
"That doesn't mean to say that people's emotions aren't riled by the fact there's been choices made here with the Budget, and future pay cuts have been made to women.
"This has got people very uptight and very angry, and emotions have risen."
She rejected the notion Labour had used poor political judgment by referencing the column, and said the party was having a discussion around misogyny, as well as women taking money off other women in "future pay cuts."
The coalition has criticised Labour for not calling out the column itself, with Finance Minister Nicola Willis taking aim at party leader Chris Hipkins directly for his past position of believing men should speak out against gendered abuse.
Hipkins said newspapers make editorial judgments about what they are and aren't willing to publish, "and that's a question for the editors and the people writing that material".
"Given the opportunity to make that exact statement, he did not; instead, he suddenly discovered free speech, and my view is that actually the standard you walk past is the standard you accept," Willis said.
NZ First MP Shane Jones said it had been the "most extraordinary day of language in the House" and discussion carried over into General Debate later in the afternoon.
Chris Bishop said the c-word had been "thrown around a bit" in the last week.
"I want to read out some c-words that I think apply to the Labour opposition: callous, cruel and cowardly."
He also said the "double standards" and "misleading statements" put out by the Labour Party over the last week were "cruel".
"Because this debate all started because of the actions the government took when it comes to equal pay, and we have heard all sorts of nonsense from the Opposition."
Hipkins took aim at Bishop too for "jumping on his high horse" and saying Labour needed to do better.
"I can only say I hope he didn't injure himself as he fell off his high horse when it was flying at breakneck speed in the wrong direction.
"Because at the same time he was saying we needed to do better, his own party was posting artificial intelligence-generated images of me when he was saying that we needed to 'raise the tone' of the debate."
Distracting from main issue: lecturer
Debate over use of the c-word is distracting attention from the main issue of pay equity changes, a Canterbury University academic says.
Senior law lecturer Cassandra Mudgway has researched the issue of abuse of female politicians and was commenting on the furore that has erupted over its use by Sunday-Star Times journalist Andrea Vance and van Velden.
She believes Vance was justified in using it to provoke a reaction to her column on pay equity changes.
Mudgway told Morning Report the use of the c-word in the article was "a political choice to use uncivil language" to express her frustration over changes to pay equity.
The "down side" was that it had now led to debate about who could use it - which was distracting from the main issue.
"I think focusing on the journalist's choice of words risks obscuring that bigger picture - the fact that thousands of women in historically undervalued jobs just have had their path of pay equity made longer and harder. That's also misogynist harm and we should also be concerned with that."
Online misogyny against women MPs was already widespread and it was pointless to focus on just one article, she said.
As part of violence, harassment and abuse the c-word was often directed at women, she said.
