A number of MPs in New Zealand, many of whom are themselves survivors of sexual assault, have been ordered to leave the parliament after asking the Prime Minister, John Key, to apologise for comments he made the day before.
MPs from the Labour and Green parties had asked the National Party Prime Minister a number of questions about his refusal to take Australia to task for locking up New Zealand citizens in an offshore detention centre on Christmas Island, to which Mr Key accused the opposition of “backing the rapists.”
“Some of the [detainees] are rapists, some of them are child molesters, and some of them are murderers,” he said.
“These are the people that the Labour party are saying are more important to support than New Zealanders who deserve protecting when they come back here. If you want to put yourself on the side of sex offenders, go ahead my son, but we’ll defend New Zealanders.”
Speaking to the The Guardian, Metiria Turei, the co-leader of New Zealand’s Green Party, outlined her party’s outrage over what Green MPs see as the mistreatment of New Zealanders:
“The truth is, about 50 New Zealand citizens have been detained under a policy that revokes the visas of anyone of ‘bad character’ or who has been sentenced to crimes that carry a tariff of one year or more in prison.” she said.
“Challenging our Prime Minister, as is our job in an open and healthy democracy, should not lead to him accusing victims of sexual violence of backing rapists, and neither should it excuse him from using rape as a political weapon. Rape is not an abstraction for thousands of New Zealand men, women and children. It is not a political tool.”
In protest to the Prime Minister’s statement, Ms Turie, addressing the house speaker David Carter yesterday, said: “As the victim of a sexual assault, I take personal offence at the Prime Minister’s comments, and ask that you require him to withdraw and apologise.”
Her request was then matched by at least five other female MPs, who were all ordered by the house speaker to stop and reminded to refrain from “flouting the rules” with false points of order. Despite this, more female MPs took the opportunity to speak out about their own personal experiences with sexual assault, leading to Green MP Marama Davidson and Labour Party MP Poto Williams being expelled from the chamber.
At which point a further eight female MPs and four male MPs walked out in protest.
“We’ve walked out because every woman in this country needs to know that women parliamentarians will not put up with this,” Green MP Catherine Delahunty said.
“We will not stand by and allow this to be bandied around parliament – this kind of abuse of people and way of approaching rape is simply unacceptable, and the prime minister has to be held to account.”
According to The Guardian, house speaker Carter now says “he had not heard Key’s comments clearly at the time” but that, by the time the women began sharing their experiences the next day, “it was too late to demand an apology.”
