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An MP ejected from the New Zealand Parliament for speaking out against sexual violence and the Australian mistreatment of detainees on Christmas Island is demanding NZ Prime Minister John Key apologise for accusing her party of defending rapists.
Labour's Clare Curran, who is associate spokesperson for the Justice and Commerce portfolio, was one of 12 women MPs to walk out or be ejected when they rose to protest Mr Key's claims.
Standing up for human rights: NZ Labour MP Clare Curran. Photo: Supplied
Mr Key caused uproar with the comments made in defence of the country's official reaction to Australia's policy of deporting detained New Zealanders.
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He said the Labour Party was "backing the rapists", as well as murderers and child molesters, by demanding more be done for the detainees.
Several Kiwis are currently awaiting deportation at Christmas Island because their visas were revoked after the Australian government amended the Migration Act to include strict new character test requirements last year.
The Christmas Island detention centre. Photo: Getty Images
In Melbourne on Thursday, Ms Curran said the detention centre was akin to a concentration camp.
"They are in detention in what are essentially concentration camps. We are appalled by that and want our prime minister to do more."
Ms Curran said she was standing up for human rights when she had her microphone turned off by Parliament Speaker David Carter.
A group of Green and Labour women MPs who either left or were kicked out of the NZ Parliament, including several who are victims of sexual assault. Photo: Henry Cooke/Fairfax NZ
She was trying to explain that her party did not condone sex crimes, by recounting her experience of an attempted rape in the city of Nelson when she was 23.
"I was coming home late from work in a hotel, alone, in the dark when a guy jumped out from behind the bush and grabbed me. My luck was that my instinct was to fight and shout and he let go."
Ms Curran said she then ran to a nearby police station and "disintegrated into a crumbling mess", and that police were very helpful but unable to find the offender.
NZ Prime Minister John Key takes photo at the Rugby World Cup final between New Zealand and Australia in London last month. Photo: AP
As a consequence, she was for years wary of walking alone at night.
"I wanted to give a voice to the victims of abuse. What we're so distressed about is the prime minister, the leader of this land, should show more leadership but instead he turned the issue [so it's] about him. He made the women unable to defend their views in parliament and stick up for our people."
Other women MPs also tried to recount their stories, some for the first time in public.Â
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton addresses the media on the Christmas Island situation, in Canberra on Tuesday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
"It is very traumatic [to relive the experience]Â and the prime minister did not acknowledge them," Ms Curran said.
Others cited the strong stand they had taken against sexual violence. Four male MPs also walked out, including Green Party co-leader James Shaw.
On Tuesday NZ Justice Minister Amy Adams said detainees who elect to return to New Zealand would be able to do so in a "matter of days or at most [a] week".
Mr Carter said Mr Key had overstepped the mark but admitted he had not heard the remark and hence was powerless to make Mr Key apologise.
"Had I heard the remark ... I would have ruled it to be unparliamentary and required the prime minister to withdraw and apologise for it," Mr Carter said.
On Thursday Mr Key said he did not need to apologise to the female MPs.
He said he had been the victim of "comments and abuse hurled at me", and claimed he was the only person standing up for victims of crime.
Mr Key said he did not understand why he would need to apologise to MPs who had taken offence, saying his concern for the victims of the detainees meant he was a better advocate than them.
"What would they be asking me to apologise for? For saying that I'm on the side of victims [of crime]?
"Well, the opposition MPs have not come to Parliament a single time advocating for anyone other than the people who have committed these very serious crimes."
Mr Key said he would not correct his statements, despite a breakdown from Australian officials showing there was nobody convicted of rape or murder at the detention centre.
"No, because the question I was asked was about broader detainees, of which a third of them have killed people, have raped people, have violently assaulted people."
Mr Key said MPs had "hurled" abuse at him rather than backing the victims.
"The comments and the abuse that's been hurled at me, not a single one of those has been about a victim or alternatively about New Zealanders."
In an opinion piece penned for Fairfax Media, Peter Dunne, Minister of Internal Affairs and leader of the United Future New Zealand party, said no one in NZ was attempting to suggest Kiwis living in Australia "who commit crimes, and often nasty and serious ones, should not pay the penalty in Australia".
Rather, he wrote the issue was about them being detained "in pretty disgusting detention camps" while awaiting deportation.
"We are, as your leaders keep telling us, family after all. That offends our sense of justice, and the way good neighbours should treat each other [...] we should be talking freely and frankly to each other about the issue, and drawing on all those long-established powerful bonds of shared history to reach a reasonable and fair solution, rather than tearing ourselves apart in the way we have been," he wrote.
with Stuff.co.nz