Jones calls Laws' remark about women 'reckless and foolish' in final debate

NZ First deputy Shane Jones has described a remark by his party's Michael Laws about women as "a reckless and foolish thing to have said". He made the comment during TVNZ's final election debate, the People's Debate on Q+A, on the night of 5 November.

Jones said the remark had been "very distractful". He added that "there'll be more to be said about it, no doubt, after the election." Asked whether he would work with Laws in caucus, the group of a party's MPs, Jones said "I'll leave all that up to Winston." Winston Peters said hours before the debate that Laws' future in NZ First had yet to be decided.

Laws later apologised for his remarks, hours after defending them, according to 1News. A former NZ First MP responded by saying "A woman's dignity is not a punchline". Earlier, Peters had called Laws' comments "disgusting, unacceptable" when speaking on TVNZ's Breakfast. On his online talk show, Laws mocked the appearance and demeanour of Opportunity candidate Kayla Kingdon-Bebb.

The debate also covered fireworks. Labour's Kieran McAnulty argued against an outright ban on private fireworks sales and proposed restrictions on when they can be set off. ACT leader David Seymour agreed, saying "I actually think Kieran's right about this."

Seymour and Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick both opposed a social media ban for under-16s. Both argued instead for tighter curbs on harmful algorithms, the systems that decide what content people see. Swarbrick and Te Pāti Māori's Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke were the only participants who backed scrapping the fast-track law. The same two also wanted to bring back a fees-free year at university.

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said New Zealand should aim to spend 3 percent of GDP, the total value of the economy's output, on research and development. National's Nicola Willis clashed with Wong over that funding. She asked whether Wong would take money from areas such as special needs education. During the exchange over taking research funding from the oil and gas industry, Jones interjected "Dig, baby, dig!"

Jones also pitched for mining, saying many Kiwis were coming back from Australia to take roles in the expanding industry. He accused RNZ of bias against him and Peters during the debate.