Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says comments by New Zealand First candidate Stuart Nash about a National MP's maternity leave are "sexist", and he along with his party are "channelling the manosphere".
"He's had a history of making very derogatory comments around women over many years," Luxon said.
"Every woman in the country would understand that those comments are sexist and they're grossly inappropriate."
Nash was a member of the Labour Party from 2008-11 and re-elected in 2014 as representative of the Napier electorate. He left in 2023 and is now standing for NZ First in the November general election.
The MP in question, Katie Nimon, has laughed off the comments, saying she has achieved more with National for Hawke's Bay in three years "with a baby" than Nash had.
"You can be a mum, and work and achieve great things," the Napier MP told the Debating Chamber on Wednesday.
On the Cross Party Lines podcast, former National minister Chris Finlayson revealed Nash had sent him a text saying Nimon, was the "laziest MP" he had ever come across.
"Katie took nine months off on full pay, went back for a week, then took another month off.
"Laziest MP I've ever come across. Nice woman, but ill-suited to the rigours of being an electorate MP," Nash said.
Nash has previously apologised for describing a woman as a "person with a p***y and a pair of t**s" last year, resulting in him resigning from his job at recruitment agency Robert Walters after a formal review was initiated by the company.
"I'll let my actions speak louder than his words."
She later told reporters she'd had to have "a little giggle" because the comments weren't true.
Nimon said she took her son everywhere, and would look back on his history as part of all the things she had achieved for Hawke's Bay.
"In fact, I've achieved more with National for Hawke's Bay in three years with a baby than he has in nine years."
Luxon, along with other MPs, criticised Nash's comments, saying Nash channels the "manosphere".
"Katie Nimon's an incredibly hard-working MP," he said, and a "real talent for this place".
Most importantly, she was someone who had taken parental leave "as you would reasonably expect, as I have encouraged her to do so".
Luxon called for people to party vote National so he wouldn't have to have "numpties from other parties" around the Cabinet table.
National Minister Chris Bishop echoed this, saying "you're joking" when told of Nash's comments.
"That's just disgusting. Stuart Nash needs to take that kind of misogynistic behaviour and stay in Napier."
Bishop said Nimon had taken parental leave "as she should", and she was "one of the hardest-working MPs" he knew, describing her presence with her baby during parental leave at a sod turning event in Hawke's Bay.
"If in the unlikely event he makes it back to Parliament, he will find that the world's actually moved on from those kind of 1950s attitudes."
Another National minister, Nicola Willis, was just as scathing, saying: "Raising children isn't a lazy job".
"It's a hard job and involves a lot of hard work," adding that parenthood "does not somehow exclude us from being able to take positions of public leadership."
Willis said if Nash thought women and men juggling children and work were lazy and did not deserve leadership roles, "you need to go back to the 1920s because they need their ignorant man back".
ACT leader David Seymour told RNZ it was unhelpful and offensive and "probably shows a little bit of an anti-woman bias that I don't think is going to help unlock New Zealand's potential.
"I was astonished the more I thought about it. Young working mums are many things - but they're certainly not lazy."
He said it was up to NZ First leader Winston Peters to explain why people in his party "seem to keep saying these kinds of things".
Labour leader Chris Hipkins told RNZ that Nash was a "walking liability" for New Zealand First.
"His views do not reflect 21st Century New Zealand.
"Women are absolutely entitled to take parental leave - they should not be criticised for doing so."
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she was not surprised that the comments were pretty vulgar, and she did not want to give Nash any more airtime.
"This is not the conversation that we should be upholding as politicians, and the undermining again of women - surely Stuart Nash has had enough of undermining women for his lifetime."
Peters is out of the country, but deputy leader Shane Jones would not comment on the issue.
"I haven't heard them, and I won't be commenting on them," he said.
Asked again by reporters later, Jones said he wanted to understand the context the comments were made before commenting.
NZ First MP Casey Costello also said she hadn't heard the comments, but didn't think it was appropriate "to accuse any woman who takes maternity leave for having time off".
She did say she thought Nash was "genuinely a good guy".
New Zealand First and Nash have been approached for comment.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz |  |
