New Zealand ‘Worst Place for Women I’ve Ever Visited’: Posie Parker

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker) speaks during a Standing for Women protest in Glasgow, Scotland, on Feb. 5, 2023. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, left New Zealand after people were attacked and mobbed by counter-protesters during her “Let Women Speak” rally in Auckland on March 25, cutting her tour short.

“I genuinely thought if I fell to the floor, I would never get up again, my children would lose their mother, and my husband would lose his wife,” Parker wrote on Twitter. “My security saved my life today, no words can express my gratitude.”

Footage on social media showed an elderly woman being repeatedly punched in the face at the event.

Parker said she had “genuinely feared” for her life at her event that aimed to give women a platform to speak.

“My activism is simple; we #LetWomenSpeak. Why does that make anyone so angry? We showed the world what happens to women when they try to speak,” she said.

Speak Up For Women, a New Zealand rights group affiliated with Parker, said women were “punched, kicked, spat at, trampled, and overrun by a violent mob.”

“Storming barricades and assaulting women is not ‘free speech.’ It is violent sexism and misogyny. Drowning out the speech of people you don’t like is the cowardly approach of people unwilling to debate contesting views,” the group said in a statement.

“A 5’1” woman needing four security guards to form a human shield around her to protect her from a screaming, spitting mob is not a New Zealand we know.”

On the advice of her security team, Parker cancelled her event in Wellington that was planned for the next day.

Following the chaos, Parker said she left the “worst place for women I’ve ever visited” and apologised to New Zealand women for not being able to do more.

Rachael Wong, the CEO of Women’s Forum Australia, said the violent scenes at the rally displayed exactly why women needed women-only spaces.

Violent Scenes Condemned

Writer J.K. Rowling described the scenes where women had been assaulted by mobs as “repellent,” which Prime Minister Chris Hipkins agreed with.

“I don’t believe people should throw things at a protest, whether what they’re throwing is soup or a brick. Ultimately, the right to free speech does not extend to the right to physical violence, and so I would condemn that regardless of who’s engaging in that type of activity,” he told reporters on March 27.

However, the prime minister refused to give assurance that the police would investigate and prosecute the people responsible for any assault at the Auckland event.

“Those decisions are matters for the Commissioner of Police,” he said.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said regardless of a person’s views, New Zealand cannot allow assault in any form.

“If the person who assaulted Posie Parker is not being arrested and charged by police for a clear assault, the question needs to be asked—why not?” he said.

“If it is allowed to occur with no recourse, it will set a dangerous precedent that if you disagree with someone’s opinion, violence is acceptable.”

The New Zealand Free Speech Union said in a public letter to the police minister that the police displayed an “abject failure” in their duty to do their job to defend basic liberties, including free speech.

“The Police have failed in their duty to protect these foundational rights,” they said.

“We call on you, and the Police Commissioner, to acknowledge the lack of action to defend the basic speech rights of those who turned up to the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, and reassert that those who express unpopular or controversial views in public are entirely in their right, and deserve to be protected from threats, intimidation, and violence.”

However, the transactivist group Auckland Pride rejected claims that Parker had left her event because of violence from the trans community.

They further rejected that there was any further physical threat from the transgender community towards Parker, calling it a “baseless rumour” being “perpetrated by those who feel defeated by the events of today.”

“Parker’s subsequent withdrawal from her Wellington event demonstrates the power of community organising and solidarity in showing her that her hateful views are not welcome here,” the group said in a thread of Twitter posts.

“Auckland Pride unequivocally stands by peaceful protest as a means of counter-protest and does not endorse any physical violence, regardless of the extent of injury caused,” they wrote in another post.

Met With Resistant From the Beginning

Prior to her arrival, New Zealand transactivist groups called for the banning of Parker from entering the country, claiming she posed a threat to transgender people after her rallies in Australia were met with aggressive counter-protests.

In Melbourne, a small group of protesters who repeatedly performed the Nazi salute attended the rally, leading media outlets to claim that Parker’s rallies were supported by extremists.

Prior to arriving in New Zealand, Parker told Radio New Zealand that it was “preposterous” to say people who called themselves Nazis were her supporters.

“I don’t think men who believe in the far-right, who call themselves Nazis, give an absolute stuff for women’s rights,” she said.

“I just don’t want men in women’s spaces. I want my daughter to be safe when she plays sports. Is really that such a terrible thing?”

After review, both the government and High Court said she would be allowed into the country.

Immigration Minister Michael Wood said that while he personally preferred Parker “never set foot in New Zealand” because of her “repugnant views,” he was advised that her case did not meet the threshold to use his discretionary powers to ban her from entering.

Disappointed that Parker was allowed into the country, “rainbow” activist groups called for their supporters to counter-protest, resulting in some of the most aggressive scenes to come out of her “Let Women Speak” tour.