A whirlwind few hours for Stuart Nash.
Former Labour minister Stuart Nash appeared on The Platform with Sean Plunket yesterday to discuss his speech at the NZ First convention over the weekend. He, ahem, pussyfooted around what the speech meant for his extremely naked return to politics, but was sure to pile a tonne of praise on Winston Peters. “He’s one of the great men of New Zealand politics, he’s a man who believes and he works really hard,” he said, presumably staring at this portrait in his office.
At the end of the interview, Nash was handed another huge opportunity to make Daddy Peters proud when Plunket brought up one of his favourite topics. “Can I just make sure you are free of all the Labour party stuff… what’s a woman?” It’s a question New Zealand First absolutely froths, having recently introduced a members bill that makes no legal or human sense to “protect the term ‘woman’ in law” and generally being utterly obsessed with toilets and private parts.
Nash had already dipped his toe in this territory at the convention over the weekend, lambasting the Greens for worrying about “toilets for transgenders” in his speech. But this was an opportunity to come off the top ropes and really make his thoughts known about the gender diverse community in Aotearoa, particularly as a proud cis man once dubbed “the minister of muscles”. He paused for a moment on the call, possibly flipping through his mental rolodex of potential answers.
Could he say something about dried noodles, as he had about backpackers? No no, that would only apply to the hair of a woman. What about clowns, as he had once referred to his fellow airline passengers? No, don’t be silly, clowns are men – just look at their big shoes and how well they drive those tiny cars. He began to stumble on his words. Plunket repeated the question once more, his face cracking into an enormous Joker grin.
Out of options, Nash smashed the emergency glass and pulled the “DO NOT SAY” lever in his brain. “The last time I said something like this I got in trouble,” he said. “A woman is a person with a pussy and a pair of tits.” Let’s just sit with this for a moment. A woman. Is a person. With a pussy. And a pair of tits. A woman? Oh, that’s a person with a pussy and a pair of tits. Maybe she’s born with it? Maybe it’s a pussy and a pair of tits. Two tits, one pussy, can’t lose.
Plunket unleashed a hearty wheeze-laugh, clearly satisfied that Nash’s response passed his weird, genital-obsessed test. “OK, I think that covers it,” he said. Plunket didn’t dwell on the fact that a trans woman could most definitely have a pussy and a pair of tits, or the fact that a trans man could also have a pussy and a pair of tits, or that in fact anyone, anywhere on the gender spectrum, could be in possession of both a pussy and a pair of tits at any given moment.
Once he hung up the phone, we know that at some point, Nash made a crucial error: he talked to a real life woman. His own wife Sarah Nash soon reprimanded him for his choice of words (should have gone with noodle-hair-clownette after all). It’s also worth noting this is not the first time Mrs Nash has rebuked her husband’s behaviour – she also “gave him shit” for his shirtless vaccination pic, which we can only assume now was a valiant effort to prove himself tit-free.
Next, in one of the biggest Guilty Denver moves of all time – a reference to a viral dog who I assumed for over a decade was a boy but turned out to actually be a girl, proving single-handedly that gender is a meaningless construct – Nash called Plunket back later in the show and requested that his pussy/tit theorem be removed. Plunket refused to take the clip down. “You’ve been a cabinet minister, you’re not a newbie, you know what is going on,” he said.
To make matters worse, Winston Peters was soon getting asked in parliament about Nash minding his P’s and T’s. At first Peters was in utter disbelief, presumably agog that someone had said something more offensive than “retard” or “dickhead” on the record. “No, I’m going to find out whether he said that or not because I’m not taking your word for it,” he told journalists. “I’m going back to my office, I’ve got great staff – they’ll tell me if it’s true or not.”
Peters was so rattled by this unwoke challenger, that he even rebuffed an offer to listen to a clip of the exchange. “I’m not here to be an ‘Audio Sue’,” he told reporters, who weirdly didn’t ask who Audio Sue was, or if she also has a pussy and a pair of tits. Later, presumably after adopting his new gender identity as Miss Audio Sue and listening to the interview, Peters said this: “The words used [by Nash] weren’t acceptable, and on that point we agree with Mrs Nash.”
By the time sun had set, Nash had issued a lengthy apology for “pussy and a pair of tits” on LinkedIn. “This morning on The Platform I made a crude and disrespectful remark when asked to define a woman,” he said. “It was wrong and unacceptable, and I apologise unreservedly for any offence that this comment may have caused. Words matter, and I take full responsibility for my actions… I have immense respect for all women and this is not who I am or what I believe.”
First of all [David Brent voice] “how can I hate women, my wife’s one?” Second of all, congratulations Stuart Nash. Not only have you added yet another entry to your remarkable foul-mouthed history, but you’ve achieved something almost impressive. You’ve said something so offensive that you got told off by both Winston Peters and your own wife, therefore falling out of favour with both womankind and their greatest living protector. Welcome back to politics.
