Shane Jones Michael Laws New Zealand election debate, Digi Mart USA News: New Zealand First deputy Shane Jones has rebuked fellow candidate Michael Laws for his “reckless and foolish” remarks about women, saying the controversy could still have consequences.
“That remark has been very distractful,” Jones said. “There’ll be more to be said about it, no doubt, after the election.”
Jones made the comments during the final televised debate of the election campaign on Thursday night, hours after party leader Winston Peters said Laws’ future in New Zealand First had yet to be decided. Laws was widely criticized by all political parties after a clip surfaced from his online talk show in which he mocked the appearance and demeanor of Opportunity candidate Kayla Kingdon-Bebb.
“Must be hell dating people like that, just quietly,” Laws said. “Can you imagine what it’s like post-sex?”
Speaking at TVNZ’s Q+A People’s Debate, Jones was asked for his views on the comments. “It was a reckless and foolish thing to have said,” he said.
“And you can imagine what my four daughters and my wife said.”
Asked whether he would be happy to work with Laws in caucus, Jones deferred: “I’ll leave all that up to Winston.”
The controversy was only briefly touched on during the colorful debate, which produced some unlikely alliances between political rivals.
Labour’s Kieran McAnulty, a former volunteer firefighter, argued against an outright ban on private fireworks sales, instead suggesting restrictions on when they could be set off. That would stop people letting them off “at 1:30AM on a random Tuesday,” he said.
“At the risk to my political career, I actually think Kieran’s right about this,” ACT leader David Seymour responded.
Seymour and Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick both opposed a social media ban for under-16s and argued for tighter curbs on harmful algorithms. Swarbrick drew laughter when she said she “largely” agreed with Seymour, “although probably for different reasons.” “We have overlapping views while maintaining our distinct identity,” Seymour replied to more laughter.
Only Swarbrick and Te Pāti Māori’s Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke backed scrapping the fast-track law, and they were also the only two who wanted to bring back a fees-free year at university. Maipi-Clarke called for funding for Māori media to cover Parliament, while Jones accused RNZ of bias against him and Peters.
McAnulty said the coalition had tilted New Zealand too far toward the United States and away from China, and said Labour would take a different approach. No candidate raised a hand in support of automatically adjusting income tax brackets for inflation each year, though National’s Nicola Willis said more tax relief would follow once the books were balanced.
Willis also clashed with Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong over research and development funding. Wong said New Zealand should aim to spend 3 percent of GDP on research and development: “If we don’t fund the science and the research of today, we won’t have the Rocket Labs.” Willis challenged Wong on where the money would come from, asking whether she would take funding away from areas such as special needs education.
“I would rather you take it from the oil and gas industry,” Wong replied.
Jones chimed in from his podium: “Dig, baby, dig!”
