Kerre Woodham: How could you have someone like Michael Laws in politics?

Michael Laws. It should come as absolutely no surprise that he has shown his colours, he's shown them time and time again. When Winston Peters was in studio with me when we were doing the leaders discussions and you were phoning in and asking questions of the leaders, I thought I'd said it to him on air, but I must have said in a commercial break after I'd talked about the sort of calibre of the candidates and I said to Winston, "Michael Laws, what on earth are you doing with him?" Winston looked a bit surprised and said, "No, he's very intelligent. What's wrong with Michael? Very intelligent." I said, "He's awful, he's. No, I don't think he's going to be an asset to you. Oh, no, no." And the thing about Winston is he is very loyal, he and Michael Laws go way back, but I could not understand the rationale. Are there not enough candidates of sufficient calibre wanting to stand for New Zealand First? Why on earth would you bring Michael Laws back into the fold unless you were myopically loyal to somebody with whom you'd had a long-standing professional relationship?  

And what do you know? Just a few short days later, he's proving a problem for New Zealand First and a distraction, a major distraction. I know we live in a world where you can have a US president who boasts about grabbing women by the pussy, but still, that's the US. We don't have to follow suit. Winston Peters told Ryan Bridge this morning that they haven't had time as a party to decide what they're going to do about Laws, they'll deal with that after the election. 

WP: It's careless, it's not thinking the issues through and thinking out loud is a silly way to behave, especially if you're a candidate for a party in an election. And it's all of those things and worse. So we've just made it very clear to Michael how we feel about it. The party's brassed off, the women in the party are very annoyed because they've done so much work to get this party where it is. 

RB: After Stuart Nash? 

WP: Well, you know, Stuart Nash was never. When he made the comments he wasn't an approved candidate, so it was not difficult to deal with. 

RB: Right. 

WP: I'm going to make sure that the party's fully aware of all the circumstances of this and the moment this election's over, but we are flat out with two days to go in a campaign. Is it a serious difficulty or is it a handicap in what we're trying to do? Of course it is. It's all of those things and we are brassed off the beat the band, make no bones about it. 

I'm glad he didn't try and minimise it because the dichotomy is that you have Winston Peters as leader of the party and whatever criticisms I have of Winston, he is a chivalrous man. I do not believe for a second he would make the sort of comment that Michael Laws did or the previous candidate Stuart Nash has made about women, not even in private, he wouldn't even think those thoughts. And yet his party attracts men who seem to have extremely odd views of women. Michael Laws' sexualising of women in the Opportunity Party, which was gross, comes on top of Stuart Nash's comments about his former opponent in Napier taking parental leave and also his crude definition of a woman, let's not forget that. And Ron Mark's linking the sinking of the Manawanui, which was captained by a woman, to the appalling diversity in the New Zealand Defence Force. 

Thomas Coughlan has written an excellent piece in the Herald this morning and as he says, this shouldn't rattle what people think of New Zealand First. It has always been scandal prone and like the lost boys without Wendy, has always been a home for candidates, often male, who have a habit of saying outrageous, often offensive things. Lost boys without Wendy, excellent line. But it's true. I mean, here you've got and that's what the dichotomy is, that's what's so dichotomous. You've got Winston Peters, who is a gentleman. You can, and I have, fulminate against all sorts of things that he does, but he's never crude. I don't believe for a second he thinks women are just sex bits or lazy cows for taking parental leave or whatever, and yet this is what the party attracts.

And he is going to have to deal with Michael Laws after the election because these are the comments from the party leaders. Christopher Luxon: "He will not be a minister in my government," referring to Michael Laws. Chlöe Swarbrick: "It's just gross." Yes, it is. "He's from another era, he should go back to Noah and the Ark," Nicola Willis. Barbara Edmonds said, "Women have a place in politics, we have a place in leadership. The fact that we have three finance spokespeople who are wāhine shows that women have a place here. We should be respected as opposed to being talked down to." And Qiulae Wong, "He makes my skin crawl," which sums it up beautifully.  

But still, I have never voted for New Zealand First and I can't imagine doing so. Stranger things have happened and hopefully I've got a few elections left in me, but I've never voted New Zealand First, so what I think doesn't really matter. It's not going to affect my vote and it's certainly not going to affect my opinion of Laws because it's pretty much what I thought of him before he made the comments, he's done it before, he'll undoubtedly do it again. But it makes me wonder, is there a place in politics for this sort of party? Are there people who yearn for the days where women were just two tits and a pussy? Is there a cohort of people who think that? Maybe so. I don't know any of them, it doesn't mean they don't exist. I mean, how could you possibly have somebody like that in politics?

It is going to be a problem for New Zealand First the way I see it, but as I say, never voted for them and it's not going to change my vote. Will it change yours? If you're a New Zealand First supporter, do you scratch your head about the candidate selection? And if you are leaning towards New Zealand First, does this change your opinion whatsoever or do you still think it's basically a Winston Peters party, you love Winston, he would never say anything like that, so therefore your vote goes to Winston?