Until, apparently, it is.
Last weekend, Sunday Star-Times columnist Andrea Vance used the c-word to describe six female Cabinet ministers. The insult was deliberate. So was the publication. And the justification? A fury of righteousness that these women had supported reform of New Zealand’s convoluted pay equity regime.
There was doubtless a debate to be had. The regime was far from perfect. Any scheme that compares a librarian to a fisheries officer is bound to raise more than an eyebrow. Equally, was rewriting it — however flawed — under urgency and without warning really an example of good governance? There was plenty for Vance to get her teeth into. Instead, she spat out a slur.
Not at all women, of course. Just the ones who hold office on the wrong side of the political aisle. Women who, if they held Green or Labour portfolios, would be feted as principled reformers. Instead, they were cast as traitors — Thatcherite girlbosses in power suits, slicing up the social contract for sport.
“Girl math,” Vance called their budget strategy. Which is ironic, given her own argument that billions in pay equity liabilities were already baked in.
But that doesn’t explain why the response to policy disagreement wasn’t argument, but insult. When the facts get complicated, name-calling is easier.
But the column was only the beginning. The real story was what came after — or rather, what didn’t. No outcry. No editorial walk-back. Just a bland statement from Stuff that the decision to publish the slur had been “carefully considered.” Because in today’s media ecosystem, misogyny isn’t a problem if the woman deserves it.
Even Dame Jenny Shipley, no stranger to political criticism, called the column “repulsive” and “threatening.” She also made the obvious point: when female leaders make hard decisions, they’re often singled out not for their policies, but for their gender. What’s new is seeing that pattern laundered through a newsroom.
To her credit, Nicola Willis declined to respond in kind. She simply noted that she hadn’t expected to be called the c-word by a mainstream journalist on Mother’s Day — a line she no doubt hadn’t rehearsed for media training.
And yet the column remained. No retraction. No apology. Just the steady hum of double standards — the unspoken rule that some women count, and others don’t.
This wasn’t commentary. It was a litmus test. For the media, for feminism, and for the boundaries of basic decency. Vance failed it. Her editors failed it. And the result was a textbook own goal.
In attempting to shame the Government’s female ministers, she turned them into the very thing her column claimed to defend: women on the receiving end of public misogyny. And this time, the smears didn’t come from trolls or Twitter. They came from the press gallery.
There’s a word for that, too. But I won’t print it here.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
There was doubtless a debate to be had. The regime was far from perfect. Any scheme that compares a librarian to a fisheries officer is bound to raise more than an eyebrow. Equally, was rewriting it — however flawed — under urgency and without warning really an example of good governance? There was plenty for Vance to get her teeth into. Instead, she spat out a slur.
Not at all women, of course. Just the ones who hold office on the wrong side of the political aisle. Women who, if they held Green or Labour portfolios, would be feted as principled reformers. Instead, they were cast as traitors — Thatcherite girlbosses in power suits, slicing up the social contract for sport.
“Girl math,” Vance called their budget strategy. Which is ironic, given her own argument that billions in pay equity liabilities were already baked in.
But that doesn’t explain why the response to policy disagreement wasn’t argument, but insult. When the facts get complicated, name-calling is easier.
But the column was only the beginning. The real story was what came after — or rather, what didn’t. No outcry. No editorial walk-back. Just a bland statement from Stuff that the decision to publish the slur had been “carefully considered.” Because in today’s media ecosystem, misogyny isn’t a problem if the woman deserves it.
Even Dame Jenny Shipley, no stranger to political criticism, called the column “repulsive” and “threatening.” She also made the obvious point: when female leaders make hard decisions, they’re often singled out not for their policies, but for their gender. What’s new is seeing that pattern laundered through a newsroom.
To her credit, Nicola Willis declined to respond in kind. She simply noted that she hadn’t expected to be called the c-word by a mainstream journalist on Mother’s Day — a line she no doubt hadn’t rehearsed for media training.
And yet the column remained. No retraction. No apology. Just the steady hum of double standards — the unspoken rule that some women count, and others don’t.
This wasn’t commentary. It was a litmus test. For the media, for feminism, and for the boundaries of basic decency. Vance failed it. Her editors failed it. And the result was a textbook own goal.
In attempting to shame the Government’s female ministers, she turned them into the very thing her column claimed to defend: women on the receiving end of public misogyny. And this time, the smears didn’t come from trolls or Twitter. They came from the press gallery.
There’s a word for that, too. But I won’t print it here.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
9 comments:
Absolutely spot on.
Vitriol from Vance is, of course, nothing new.
Let’s channel Sir Harold Evans, that fierce defender of rigorous journalism, and hold up a mirror to the New Zealand mainstream media—a mirror so brutally honest it would send a newsroom into a spiral of HR-mandated trauma processing.
We begin, fittingly, with Andrea Vance. Once a News of the World reporter (yes, that News of the World), now paraded as a paragon of political journalism in Wellington. This week, Vance found herself under a soft spotlight of controversy for using the c-word—not in a pub or private message, but publicly—only to be airbrushed and applauded by her industry peers, and crowned Political Journalist of the Year. Bravo! Apparently the word that shall not be named is perfectly acceptable when uttered by a certified member of the journalistic priesthood, even while the same media outfit—Stuff, in this case—enforces “safe space” policies on its readers, banning them from saying things far less incendiary under the guise of “community guidelines.”
It’s a case study in media classism: one rule for the journos, another for the plebs. A fortress of “kindness” for commenters, but a free rein for the newsroom favourites. You may not swear, dear reader—but the scribes may, and win trophies for it.
More broadly, the Fourth Estate in New Zealand is no longer a check on power. It is power’s pet. Since the introduction of Jacinda Ardern’s Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF), ostensibly designed to “support media diversity,” we’ve seen a press corps increasingly indistinguishable from the very ideologies it is meant to hold to account. Once watchdogs, now lapdogs, draped in DEI lanyards and mouthing government-adjacent buzzwords with the zeal of converted missionaries for woke.
A journalistic class that should question power has instead become its most eager cultural evangelist. Its use of te reo is no longer about respect or enrichment—it’s about signalling allegiance. Debate is not allowed. Doubt is racist. Asking where the money’s going, who gets what, and whether voters actually agree? An evil thought. And evil thoughts get no airtime.
The public spoke decisively at the last election—Labour and the Greens ejected. Yet you wouldn’t know it from the editorial pages. The media continues to act as though the voters simply got it wrong and must now be educated out of their folly by the usual suspects. There’s no reflection, no course correction. Just more fingers in more ears.
And let’s not forget the continued erasure of dissenting voices, Māori or otherwise, that stray from the sanctioned narrative. When someone like Tui Vaeau—a Māori voice—criticises Te Pāti Māori for performative tantrums in Parliament, you won’t see his take headlined on Stuff or RNZ. Too inconvenient. Doesn’t fit the “indigenous unity” aesthetic. Better to amplify protest haka than political critique. Even better if it makes it into Al Jazeera, the Guardian and the BBC—because nothing says “functioning democracy” like turning Parliament into performance art for the global woke set.
Truth should come before tribe. Newsrooms shouldn’t sit around workshopping pronoun policies while democracy rots outside the press gallery.
What we have now is a media complex enthralled not by facts but by fashionable dogma—where awards are handed out for ideological conformity, not investigative courage. The watchdog has become the hall monitor.
And if you dare question it? You’re banned from the comments section.
Welcome to New Zealand’s mainstream media (that’s you too rnz and tvnz) landscape—where the fourth estate has willingly surrendered its teeth for likes, its scepticism for slogans, and its soul for a cheque.
And all the while ignoring the fact they are haemorrhaging readers and advertisers, who once lost are forever lost.
Don't like the c-word being used against any women, but it was often used against Ardern. The point of Willis and van Velden riposting was to take the focus off the issue (changes to pay equity legislation, to the possible detriment of thousands of women). Tinetti made a tactical error in invoking Vance, so that the Coalition women could cause a distraction. Nothing to moralise about here - just a tactical error from Labour resulting in Willis and van Velden turning attention to the language rather than the substance.
Anon at 5-45. Have you actually read and understood the changes to this bill? Judging by your quote "to the possible detriment of thousands of women", I doubt it. You sound like a mouthpiece for the PSA
Online abuse by anonymous trolls isn’t mainstream journalism—no press‑gallery reporter ever printed that slur on Ardern or any other sort of female mp no matter their colour
Tinetti chose to invoke Vance; Willis and Van Velden simply seized the opening.
Labelling it a ‘tactical misfire’ is being generous with spin.
The real issue is consistency: when a left‑leaning journalist oversteps, the usual guardrails of common decency governing print seem to become a double standard— much like the society labour, greens and the tea party (and Luxon) are pressing for.
Yes, I have read it and I have nothing to do with the PSA. What I meant was that claims in the system will be pushed back to square one, so that any women who might have benefited won't do so now for quite a long time. Also, the eligibility criteria have changed, so that some claims may be ineligible, and so the women concerned will gain no benefit at all. In addition, the Bill has not been through a proper process, involving consultation and discussion by Select Committees. It was rushed through to meet the Budget deadline and thus free up money.
Quite a lot of abuse isn't anonymous, and is pretty obnoxious. I wasn't defending the abuse. Tinetti shouldn't have evoked it, as it enabled the Coalition female MPs to act the outraged victims and that's what they did, so that the public would get all outraged too. This kind of stuff is basically theatre.
At 11:20pm:
And so if the abuse is dished out by the opposition and their lefty msm enablers, the government has to turn the other cheek?
When Sarah Palin was Mitt Romney’s Vice -Presidential running mate, one male social media commentator posted he would love to ‘hate f*ck’ [aka rape] Sarah Palin.
This odious remark garnered thousands of ‘likes’ from leftists who clearly approved. This included thousands of leftist feminists women.
The foam of hypocrisy rises.
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