Today is the 10-year anniversary of the dildo incident that changed our nation. The Spinoff catches up with the dildo thrower, who reflects on her famous protest.
Four pair and two years ago Josie Butler brought forth in the carpark of the Waitangi Copthorne Hotel, a nine-inch novelty dildo, conceived in protest, and dedicated to the proposition that someone from National needed to be sconned in the face. A decade on, the Christchurch nurse can still remember feeling giddy as the phallus took flight. It careened through the muggy Northland air into economic development minister Steven Joyce’s jowls, before bouncing off 1News reporter Helen Castles into the history books. “Oh yes yes,” said Joyce, sadly. “Good-o.”
That moment on February 5, 2016 has gone down as one of this nation’s most memorable political protests. It was a mix of careful planning and happenstance. Butler started thinking about direct action after exhausting other means of protesting the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. She settled on a dildo throw after Googling “most effective protest methods” and finding an article about Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at George W Bush to condemn the Iraq war. “I really liked that idea,” she says. “And then thought ‘oh, it would be cool to do something a bit funnier.’ So me and my flatmates went down to the local Peaches and Cream.”
The implement they picked out is often described in shorthand as a dildo. It’s actually a nine-inch squeaky pecker made by Ozze. Though it’s not visible in the footage from the day, the “dildo” has a face. “You wouldn’t use it as a dildo,” says Butler. Her decision to pick a softer toy rather than a working dildo was a practical one. “I didn’t want to get assault charges,” she says.
In the weeks following the purchase, she and her flatmates trained hard at “dildo target practice”. “It was mostly us just throwing the dildo at each other unsuspecting around the house,” she explains. The most memorable incident came when she took a date home for dinner. “When I walked in the door with the date, my flatmate sconned me in the face with it.”
Butler didn’t get a second date. It wasn’t her only setback. Prime minister John Key was meant to be the target of her protest. But he made a last-minute decision not to attend Waitangi. Butler still packed the squeaky pecker for her trip north just in case. After some frustrating hours trudging around the grounds, her opportunity arose when she saw Joyce holding a media standup in the Copthorne carpark. Not recognising him, she asked a police officer if the man talking to reporters was from National. “They’re like, ‘yeah’. And I was like, ‘oh great. I’ve got something for him’,” she says.
The throw was perfect. The pecker flew through the air like a guided missile, hitting Joyce directly on the left cheek with a satisfying slap. “That’s for raping our sovereignty,” Butler can be heard yelling in the immediate aftermath.
Joyce didn’t respond to a request for comment on the incident, but Helen Castles did. The former 1News Northland reporter was the last person the squeaky pecker touched before it fell to the tarseal. After an initial moment of confusion, her journalistic instincts kicked in. She rushed to interview Butler, microphone in hand, but couldn’t get a question in as the assailant was whisked away by police. Returning to the scene of the strike, she only had one concern. “I looked at my cameraman and said ‘did you get that on camera?’,” she recalls.
Thankfully, he had. The pair immediately returned to the TVNZ caravan to cut his footage which, in contrast to Newshub’s wider angle, was framed in a close-up of Joyce’s face. Their short video went to the TVNZ website, then the 6pm news, then around the world. US comedian John Oliver got Peter Jackson to wave a New Zealand flag emblazoned with a screenshot from Castles’ dildo strike clip, telling Joyce his “entire life will be viewed through a dildonic prism”.
Castles left TVNZ in 2025. In her time there, she covered natural disasters, a global pandemic and national scandals. But the dildo throw remains one of the main things people talk about from her career. “I’ve covered some pretty important stories over my more than 20 years as a reporter, but you’re calling me about the time a dildo touched my boob,” she says. “Thank you.”
Truly, no worries. Butler says if she had the chance, she’d throw the pecker all over again. Her one regret is not getting it back. Police seized the object as evidence in case Joyce pressed charges. When he opted not to, they told Butler she was free to go so long as she relinquished the dildo. Information sourced under the Official Information Act shows the squeaky pecker was “destroyed” five days later. “Though I still believe someone has it somewhere,” says Butler.
When Castles looks back on that day she feels a measure of pride. “I think it’s a little bit New Zealand, the fact that a protesting member of the public can get that close to a very senior politician and throw a sex toy at him,” she says. So does Butler. She was once approached at a café in Nairobi by a woman from Black Lives Matter who addressed her by name and told her the protest was inspiring. More recently, protesters have thrown dildos at Ice in Minneapolis.
But there’s also a sense of loss. So much has happened since that day, and in many ways the world is a measurably worse place. On a personal level, Butler’s recovering from long Covid. On a political one, she’s worried about the US lurching toward authoritarianism and the current government, which she says makes Key’s coalition looks like “sweethearts” by comparison.
It can make her nostalgic to think that 10 years ago today, the biggest story in the country was a cabinet minister being hit in the cheek by a nine-inch squeaky pecker from Peaches and Cream. No one was teargassed or shot on that showery afternoon at Waitangi. No charges were laid. The only victims were an ego and a novelty dildo. “It makes me feel very grateful that we live in a country where we can do more creative forms of protest and not get murdered for it,” Butler says. “If I’m being honest, although I disagree with a lot of his politics and the work he’s done, I’d buy Steven Joyce a beer if I saw him today, because he sure took a dick to the face really well.”
