Only 29% oppose the law, while 19% remain unsure.
Support is strongest among men (65%), with women more divided at 39% support and 35% opposed. Support increases with age: 48% among those aged 18–39, 52% for ages 40–59, and 55% for those over 60.
Rural respondents showed the highest support (66%), while only 36% of respondents in towns agreed.
By political preference, net support was highest among ACT (+66%), NZ First (+52%) and National voters (+43%). Labour voters were slightly opposed (-9%), while Greens (-15%) and Te Pāti Māori (-13%) were the least supportive.
Overall, support outnumbers opposition in every major region and age group, with a strong national trend favouring a biologically based definition of sex.
According to Bob McCoskrie of Family First:
“Given the recent decision by the UK Supreme Court, it’s time that NZ’s government also removes the confusion and returns to simple biological reality. Family First is calling on both the National Party and the ACT Party to fast-track NZ First’s Member’s Bill and adopt it as a government bill. It’s clearly supported by two-thirds or more of your voters. Contrary to media and left-wing commentary, this is not a negative ‘populist’ proposal. This is a very popular proposal!”
Read more over on X
The Centrist is a new online news platform that strives to provide a balance to the public debate - where this article was sourced.
Rural respondents showed the highest support (66%), while only 36% of respondents in towns agreed.
By political preference, net support was highest among ACT (+66%), NZ First (+52%) and National voters (+43%). Labour voters were slightly opposed (-9%), while Greens (-15%) and Te Pāti Māori (-13%) were the least supportive.
Overall, support outnumbers opposition in every major region and age group, with a strong national trend favouring a biologically based definition of sex.
According to Bob McCoskrie of Family First:
“Given the recent decision by the UK Supreme Court, it’s time that NZ’s government also removes the confusion and returns to simple biological reality. Family First is calling on both the National Party and the ACT Party to fast-track NZ First’s Member’s Bill and adopt it as a government bill. It’s clearly supported by two-thirds or more of your voters. Contrary to media and left-wing commentary, this is not a negative ‘populist’ proposal. This is a very popular proposal!”
Read more over on X
The Centrist is a new online news platform that strives to provide a balance to the public debate - where this article was sourced.
18 comments:
Chlöe Swarbrick responds to the “Biological Reality” Poll
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“It is epistemologically reckless to reduce ontological complexity into binary legalistic artefacts that erase the lived realities of marginalised identities.”
Ah yes. Chlöe is back at the podium, visibly vibrating with indignation, lexicon fully weaponised. Somewhere between Judith Butler and a word cloud of postgraduate theses, she’s about to explain why your grandmother’s common sense is, in fact, systemic violence.
She begins by denouncing the poll results as “quantitative essentialism masquerading as public consensus.”
A journalist blinks. The tea party MPs quickly consult if a haka or karakia or waiata would be appropriate right now.
“Let us be unequivocal,” she says, “this isn’t about biology, it’s about bio-legitimised exclusionary praxis weaponised by socio-political hegemonies.”
Translation: she doesn’t like the bill.
“But,” someone ventures from the back, “isn’t the law meant to provide clear definitions?”
Swarbrick pivots — “Clarity must never come at the expense of complexity. We must interlace our jurisprudence with compassion, not conflate chromosomal determinism with identity.”
By now, even the microphones are confused.
Waititi, eyes blinking, fans himself with a new cowboy hat.
She continues, condemning the proposed legislation as “an epistemic regression to anthropological reductionism,” and possibly also the fault of capitalism. Or colonialism. Or both.
Then she quotes Audre Lorde, misquotes Foucault, and references a footnote from a 2007 UN working paper on gender ontology in the South Pacific. No one knows what’s going on, but everyone’s a little afraid to ask.
Outside, Bob McCoskrie is heard shouting something about “reality” and “common sense.” Chlöe rolls her eyes so hard they almost dislocate.
“Ultimately,” she concludes, “from the river to the seas, this is not about sex or gender—it’s about power, about dismantling the binaries that buttress cisheteronormative supremacy.”
She sits. the Greens nod in unison like bobblehead dolls liberating. Silence from everyone else. Somewhere, Judith Collins is muttering about “the sanctity of women’s toilets.”
The room exhales.
And still, no one is entirely sure what the question was.
Labour voters seem well divided with a chunk obliged to support the ,,liberal,, persuasion .
The legal definition should match biological science definition.
If one of your 23 pairs of chromosomes is in the combination of XX you are female or XY you are male.
It happens at conception and can't be changed.
How the individual wants to outwardly express that fact should remain their free choice.
ANON again Nats also well divided on this issue, race etc. There is a considerable ,,liberal,, or soft wing in National, potential Teals etc, so this is why Nat party has not gone down the Aussie coalition path. To be branded Trumpish and ,,far right,, seems to work with the masses in building opposition. Nats do not want to self-detonate or ...self-duttonate.
Very clever, Anonymous. Thank you for that.
As for the issue, I am not entirely happy with defining a woman as an adult human female and a man as an adult human male as these definitions include reference to 'female' and 'male' which have not bend defined here. You can't 'define' a term by referring to another undefined one. Yes I know that really is nit-picking, but when dealing with definitions, we have to get it right!
I am not even entirely happy with 'biological' as that too has a wide scope and isn't really pinned down here.
My preference would be for a chromosomal definition viz two 'X' chromosomes = female, one 'X' and one 'Y' = male. We now have a single, readily verifiable (through a karyogram) criterion. But there are anomalies, such as having a single 'X' (Turner's Syndrome) and having two X's plus a Y (Klinefelter's Syndrome). The word 'ordinarily' should therefore precede the XX/XY definition, with a rider about basing decisions for the exceptions on biological traits.
It always makes me smile hearing people saying how simple it is...... it ain't.
Classic ... send a copy to Chloe.
Rather worrying that only 52% support, and even more worrying that 19% 'don't know'.
There has always been observed anomalies in the natural world and science.
So "ordinarily" scientists try their best.
How society wants to twist or distort scientific fact is the domain for politicians and the legal profession.
Just loved it Anonymous 6:10 . Pure comedy . Where are our comedians to feature this in shows ? The language you used is superb. .
Don't overthink it. If it's got balls its a boy. If balls are missing it's a girl. Anybody who thinks they are exempt from that simple test is seriously disturbed and needs help. Our Courts have enough real issues to deal with without getting distracted by sideshows like this. Biology had it sorted before Courts were even invented.
Biology has very little 'sorted', Jonesy. Mother Nature makes screw-ups left, right and centre. That's just as well, or there would be nothing for natural selection to work on. But in the case of sex, it also leaves us with people who are sexless (by chromosomal criteria alone), and people who are genuinely intersex (by both chromosomal and physiological criteria).
We humans try to impose order on Mother Nature's chaos through imposing taxonomic schemes but dear old MN always gets the last laugh.
Gaynor at 1.47pm. We await the reincarnation of Billy T James.
Thank you for your erudite explanation Barend. But by and large when nature screws up you die. Isn't that how natural selection is supposed to work? At least I'm offering counselling.
It pays to read a comment fully before responding to it, Jonesy. I have already drawn attention to the fact that natural selection acts on Mother Nature's screw-ups. I have already 'counselled' you on what you apparently consider me to be in need of 'counselling' for. Tut, tut........
Oh, and it looks as though you also need 'counselling' on human genetics.
My reference to counselling was in reference to the seriously disturbed who deny the obvious about their genitalia and then turn it into a political issue. I couldn't possibly comment on whether you count yourself amongst their number, since I don't know enough
about you.
What the genitalia present isn't always dead obvious. There are genuine cases of people with ovotestes.
The chromosomal criteria are the most dependable but karyotypes such as XXY can present a variety of phenotypes.
I don't like the politicisation of these issues any more than you do, but there are those in society who insist on doing so and so we should be right on the button when it comes to the science.
Perhaps some people don't give a stuff about chromosomal criteria and just object to men being allowed in women's toilets, and men being allowed to compete against women in sporting events. Irrational maybe, but people are funny that way.
It's even funnier when they can't reliably define men and women.
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