Stuart Nash offers crude definition of what a woman is

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

NZ First’s Winston Peter held his party conference at the weekend. His guest speaker was former Labour MP and Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash.

Former Labour Minister-turned-New Zealand First member Stuart Nash says a woman is a person with “a p…y and a pair of t..s”.

Nash, who criticised his former party for being “woke” when he spoke at the NZ First conference on Sunday, made the comments in an interview with Sean Plunket’s online radio station, The Platform on Tuesday.

“Last time I said something like this, I got in trouble. A woman is a person with a p…. and a pair of t…,” was Nash’s response.

Plunket laughed in response and said “OK, I think that covers it. That covers it”.

Later in the show Plunket said that Nash had called back and asked for his comments to be deleted after a discussion with his wife, but the host refused.

Nash declined to comment when contacted by Stuff, but later offered an apology on social media.

“This morning on The Platform I made a crude and disrespectful remark when asked to define a woman,” he said in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday evening.

“It was wrong and unacceptable, and I apologise unreservedly for any offence that this comment may have caused. Words matter, and I take full responsibility for my actions.

“I have immense respect for all women and this is not who I am or what I believe, and I have let myself, my family and my friends down. I will work hard to rectify this.”

NZ First leader Winston Peters was asked on Tuesday whether Nash’s behaviour was acceptable. Initially, Peters didn’t believe the journalists who told him what Nash had said.

“No, I’m going to find out whether he said that or not because I’m not taking your word for it, I’m not taking your word for it.”

Peters declined the chance to listen to a clip of the exchange between Plunket and Nash.

“I’m not here to be an ‘Audio Sue’. I’m not going to answer that until I know it myself. I’ve found it far safer to find out that I’m being told the truth.

“I’ve been around long enough to know to check it out myself. I don’t trust people any more. I’ve got a great staff, they’ll tell me whether it’s true or not,” he says.

'He's a sausage eater who doesn't know what a woman is,' the NZ First leader says of the Labour leader.

Peters on Tuesday repeated his definition of a woman as “a human adult female”.

And he later told Stuff: “The words used [by Nash] weren’t acceptable, and on that point we agree with Mrs Nash, as does Stuart now he has reflected on them, and as he said so on The Platform.”

It’s not the first time Plunket has asked that question. In 2023, he asked then-Prime Minister Chris Hipkins what a woman was. And Hipkins didn’t answer.

Since then, it’s been used as an attack line from the likes of Peters, who calls Hipkins a “sausage roll eater who doesn’t know what a woman is”.