Daughter gave Brash a lesson in equal rights

Don Brash

Don Brash says when he first married he didn't know what women were on about "demanding equal rights" - but his daughter changed his mind.

The National Party leader spoke about his views to reporters while out selling his tax policy on the Kapiti Coast near Wellington yesterday.

This week Dr Brash outraged some but earned the approval of others when he suggested he had gone easy on Prime Minister Helen Clark during Monday's TVNZ debate because she was a woman.

"Had the other combatant been a man, my style might have been rather different," he said then.

Asked yesterday if he regretted the comment he said: "I think an extraordinary mountain has been made out of a molehill. I simply said I don't think it's appropriate for any adult to be screaming at any other in a debate, particularly inappropriate for men to be screaming at women.

"I'm not going to back off what I said. I don't want to be impolite to anyone whatever their gender."

His comments appear to have been music to the ears of one worker at Precise Print in Paraparaumu.

He told Dr Brash he had been penalised for "being polite as a male" - a common problem under this "social engineering Government" run by "very much of a feminist Prime Minister".

Dr Brash responded by saying: "Let me assure you, one thing that I am not is a feminist".

Asked afterwards to explain what that meant, Dr Brash said he did not mean to suggest he did not support women's rights.

"A feminist is someone to me who is by definition a woman. Can you have men feminists? I'm strongly in favour of women's rights, strongly.

"I have to admit I didn't see the need for women's rights through my [first] wife, but I saw them through my daughter. And I want women to have every single right that anyone else in the community has, that guys have.

"When I first got married I didn't understand what women were on about, with demanding equal rights. I thought they had equal rights.

"It wasn't until I saw the world through my daughter's eyes that I realised the world was not equal and there were lots of things which were not fair to women. I think I understand that very clearly."

Dr Brash's daughter Ruth now has a family of her own.