NZ First wants to define a man and a woman. Government and experts say it will achieve almost nothing

Friday, 10 April 2026

New Zealand First is celebrating the opportunity to ask MPs “What is a Woman?”. What would its proposed law change achieve?

A New Zealand First MP’s bill aims to clearly define men and women according to their biological sex - but legal experts say its potential impact is being overstated.

The proposed law change would define woman as “adult human biological female” and man as “adult human biological male” in the Legislation Act - meaning all laws and regulations which contained these words would be seen through the lens of the new definition.

NZ First leader Winston Peters last week explained the reason for the change.

“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,” he said.

“Our laws should reflect biological reality and provide legal certainty.”

The bill was last week pulled from the private member’s ballot - a lottery system which allows backbench MPs to seek changes on issues which are not on the government’s agenda.

Stuff sought an interview with the bill’s sponsor, Jenny Marcroft, but was told she was “unavailable for comment”.

Supporters of her bill said it was focused on the safety of women in schools, changing rooms, sports and prisons.

Lawyers who had reviewed the draft legislation said it was questionable whether it would achieve those goals.

Barrister Graeme Edgeler said that if the bill passed in its current form, it would have little practical effect.

“Laws you might expect to be affected, for example rules around sex discrimination under the Human Rights Act, just don't use any of the words the bill actually proposes to define. Nor, for the last 20 years or so, do criminal laws around rape.”

He added: “If you wanted to really change how law treats gender identity, this wouldn't be the change you'd propose, which is to define a few terms in statutes that really aren't used all that often in statutes.”

Edgeler noted that the Human Rights Act already permitted sex-segregated facilities and sex-differentiated sports in New Zealand. “But none of these rules have anything do with the definition of man or woman or male or female.”

One exception, he said, could be within the Corrections Department.

At present, prisoners can apply to be placed in a prison which aligns with their gender identity (except for sexual offenders). Because the NZ First bill also covers secondary legislation, which includes rules and regulations, it could affect that policy.

In a legal analysis published last year, public and human rights lawyer Matt McKillop asked whether the bill was a “solution looking for a problem”.

He considered whether concerns about trans women having access to women’s refuges, bathrooms, prisons and sports teams required law changes which clarified language around sex and gender.

“I conclude not,” he wrote in Law News. “New Zealand law already permits services or facilities for women in most of these circumstances based on biological sex. The bill would therefore not affect the legal position in those commonly cited circumstances where women might have reasonable concerns about safety and privacy.”

McKillop concluded: “The lack of demonstrated legal need for the bill, and the many unanticipated issues it would seem to create, suggests secondary motivations to mere protection of women’s interests.

“The treating of transgender persons and other vulnerable groups as an object of political debate is a concerning trend, which this bill seems to follow.”

Private member’s bills are debated every second Wednesday when Parliament is sitting. Marcroft’s bill could be debated before the general election in November.

Labour said it was likely to oppose the law change, and the Greens and Te Pāti Māori said they would vote against it.

“Bills like this cause real world harm and we condemn it wholeheartedly,” said Green Party Takatāpui and Rainbow Communities spokesperson Kahurangi Carter.

A Te Pāti Māori spokesperson said it was “legislative erasure of trans people” which “had no place in Aotearoa”.

Their opposition means the bill will require votes from the National and Act parties to pass its first reading.

Both parties said they had yet to decide whether it will be a conscience issue, on which MPs vote according to their individual views rather than along party lines. Conscience votes are often used for social or moral issues like same-sex marriage or abortion.

The NZ First bill was influenced by two petitions, one of which was coordinated by conservative Christian advocacy group Family First and was signed by 23,500 people. Polling by Curia for Family First found a majority of respondents were in favour of the law change.

“It’s primarily about the safety and health of females, especially around schools, changing rooms, sports, prisons,” said Family First national director Bob McCoskrie.

Asked whether the bill would have a tangible impact on those sectors, he said it would send a strong signal: “It’ll give weight to councils and government and schools, school leaders, community leaders to get back to protecting women.”

He said the NZ First bill was not “perfect” but could be refined at the select committee stage (when public consultation takes place). That could include looking at changing protections in the Human Rights Act, he said.

McCoskrie said he expected the bill to cause some angst within the National Party because some of its more conservative MPs were likely in favour while others would be firmly against it. Cabinet minister Chris Bishop told TVNZ last week that the bill was a “distraction”.

The Government, on the advice of the Minister for Women Nicola Grigg, declined Family First’s petition last year, saying the proposed changes would be both resource-intensive and mostly ineffective because the words “man” and “woman” were rarely used in legislation.

Concerns around single-sex spaces and sports were already being considered in a Law Commission review of protections in the Human Rights Act, the Government said at the time.

The Law Commission published its review in September and recommended that the law be amended to explicitly state that discrimination on the basis of gender identity was unlawful.

Until now, governments and the Human Rights Commission have taken the view that the existing sex-based protections also covered gender identity.

However, that has never been tested in court and the commission said the law should be changed to “more clearly protect” trans, non-binary and intersex people.

Among its recommendations was that trans people should have access to single-sex facilities - like bathrooms - that matched their gender identity.

Asked about the commission’s recommendations, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Stuff that changing the law was not a priority.

Another bill, in the name of Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer would make protections for trans people explicit in the Human Rights Act. Originally drafted by former Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere, it was pulled from the private member’s bill ballot in 2023 but is yet to be debated.

A Te Pāti Maori spokesperson said the bill had been postponed, pending the outcome of the Law Commission report.

The UK Supreme Court ruled last year that the legal definition of woman and sex in anti-discrimination laws referred exclusively to biological sex. The case stemmed from concerns among women’s rights activists that trans people were required by law to be admitted to services usually reserved for biological women.