Populist New Zealand First party says bill will ensure country moves away from ‘woke ideology’ harming women.
A minor party in New Zealand’s coalition government has announced proposals to legally define women by biological sex, casting the move as a return to common sense and a rejection of “woke ideology”.
The bill announced by the populist New Zealand First (NZF) party on Tuesday would define a woman and a man in law as a “human biological female” and “an adult human biological male”, respectively.
NZF leader Winston Peters, whose party governs in a coalition with the centre-right National Party and pro-business ACT New Zealand, said the proposed law would “reflect biological reality” and “provide legal certainty”.
“This Bill would ensure our country moves away from the woke ideology that has crept in over the last few years, undermining the protection, progression, and safety of women,” Peters, who serves as the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, said in a post on X.
“These definitions in law fight back against the cancerous social engineering we’ve seen being pushed in society by a woke minority,” Peters added.
“The need for legislation like this shows how far the deluded left has taken us as a society. But we are fighting back. This bill is a win for common sense.”
It is not clear whether the bill, which was introduced by an individual MP instead of the government, has a realistic prospect of becoming law.
NZF is the smallest of the three coalition partners in government, with 11 seats in the 123-member parliament, and most bills introduced by individual MPs ultimately do not end up on the statute books.
Chris Hipkins, the leader of the main opposition New Zealand Labour Party, accused the NZF of being interested in “one headline after the next”.
“They don’t really have a coherent programme and they’re certainly not focused on the things that are required to lead New Zealand forward,” Hipkins told Radio New Zealand.
The proposals come less than a week after the United Kingdom’s highest court ruled that women are defined by biological sex under the country’s equality laws.
The landmark decision was welcomed by conservative politicians and some feminist advocacy groups, but greeted with dismay by transgender campaigners and progressive activists, who warned it would further the marginalisation of the LGBTQ community.