Columnist dismisses ‘faux outrage’ after pay equity column
Sunday, 18 May 2025
Andrea Vance defended her controversial 'C word' column, calling criticism 'faux outrage' to distract from pay equity law changes.
Vance argued her use of the C word aimed to expose misogyny and political betrayal regarding pay equity changes.
Government ministers had heaped pressure on media to denounce the column, with Brooke van Velden saying it was misogynistic.
The column was about changes to the Equal Pay Act, which make it harder for women to make pay equity claims.
Sunday Star-Times columnist Andrea Vance says the push-back against her controversial ‘C word’ column was “faux outrage” to distract from “obscene” changes to the Equal Pay Act.
Vance’s column sparked heavy debate and even campaign emails where the ACT Party asked for donations. Amid that debate, which included ACT’s Brooke van Velden repeating the C word in Parliament to hit out at the column’s “misogyny”, Vance remained silent.
But in her latest Star-Times column, Vance, who was named Political Journalist of the Year at Friday night’s Voyager Media Awards, defended her use of the C word. She said those politicians who criticised her had “deliberately misread” her original argument.
“C… is an incendiary word. But that doesn’t mean its use is indefensible — especially where the point is to expose entrenched misogyny and political betrayal,” Vance wrote.
MPs from National, ACT and NZ First had honed in on the use of the C word in Vance’s column and her mention of “girl math”, “girlbosses” and the “hype squad” of female ministers who orchestrated a photo op to defend the scaling back of the pay equity scheme.
Vance’s central argument had been that the Government was “shafting” lower paid women, and it had been wrong to dispatch its female ministers and sugar coat the move.
The urgent changes to the Equal Pay Act made it harder for women to make pay equity claims and cancelled 33 existing claims.
The minister behind the law change, van Velden, said the column was tinged with misogyny.
Replying to a question from Labour’s Jan Tinetti, she told Parliament: “I do not agree with the clearly gendered and patronising language that Andrea Vance used to reduce senior Cabinet ministers to girl bosses, hype squads, references to girl math and c…s.”
(Van Velden actually said the C word, whereas Vance has been typing ‘c’ with three dots.)
Other ministers expressed their fury at the column, with both Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters pressuring reporters at Parliament to denounce the column.
Vance’s latest op-ed makes one apology. She said she was sorry for planting the seeds of a distraction, but she said suggestions she wrote an attack on women were nonsense.
“The Government knows this. And to give them their dues, they turned it into crisis communications gold,” she said.
She continued: “It was a charade. An entire week where the focus wasn’t on the policy, the motivation, or the women whose pay claims are now dust — but about whether a journalist had been mean to a Cabinet minister.
“All that choreographed fragility and weaponised offence served as a distraction.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins, on Thursday, acknowledged his party had played into that “distraction”.
He said they were wrong to have asked van Velden, in the House, if she agreed with Vance’s original column - as it had opened the door for the Government to focus on language rather than policy.