Lillian Hanly Political Reporter
The Prime Minister 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,” says Christopher Luxon.
“Every woman in the country would understand that those comments are sexist and they’re grossly inappropriate”.
On the Cross Party Lines podcast, former National Minister Chris Finlayson revealed Nash had sent him a text saying the MP for Napier, Katie Nimon, was the “laziest MP” he’d 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,” said Nash.
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.
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Katie Nimon told RNZ on Wednesday Nash was making his views on women “very clear,” and confirmed she was back working in the electorate after around 10 weeks before coming back to parliament after 6 months.
“I’ll let my actions speak louder than his words.”
Luxon, along with other MPs, lashed out at 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 “numpty’s from other parties” around the Cabinet table.
National Minister Chris Bishop echoed this, saying “you’re joking” when the comments were put to him, “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 her parental leave at a sod turning event in Hawkes 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.”
Greens co-leader Marama Davidshon said she wasn’t surprised, and the comments were pretty vulgar.
“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.”
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is out of the country, but Deputy Leader Shane Jones wouldn’t comment on the issue.
“I haven’t heard them, and I won’t be commenting on them,” he said.
New Zealand First and Stuart Nash have been approached for comment.
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