Marama Davidson cut short trying to ‘have a conversation’ on violence in the House, while Government announces housing target may be missed

Under-fire Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Marama Davidson tried to use her weekend faux pas to “have a conversation” about the causes of violence in Question Time this afternoon.

But she was cut short by Speaker Adrian Rurawhe, who called Davidson to order for launching into a lengthy speech in response to a Parliamentary question, which is against the rules.

Davidson was under fire for saying that “it is white cis men who cause violence in the world”.

Davidson made the comment while being videoed shortly after she had been hit by a motorcycle as she was leaving an Auckland counter-protest to British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull on Saturday.

In response to questions from National’s Louise Upston, Davidson did not wander too far from the original thrust of her remarks - although she highlighted her later “clarification”.

When asked whether she agreed the statement was factually incorrect, Davidson offered no answer one way or the other.

Instead, she said violence was “enabled by socially accepted hierarchies of power, that include sexism, racism towards minority communities, colonisation, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism - and I am really clear about those drivers of violence”.

Davidson said it was “important” that she “clarify” her remarks. She noted her intent was to clear-up the view held by some that transgender people were violent when men are predominantly the perpetrators of violence

Upston asked Davidson whether Prime Minister Chris Hipkins had asked her to apologise to the public. Davidson gave an answer so woolly, Rurawhe was forced to award National additional supplementary questions.

Act’s Karen Chour asked whether Davidson accepted the remarks were “offensive and highly inappropriate to victims of family and sexual violence” and whether she would apologise to those victims.

Davidson did not apologise in response to that question.

“What I have done is clarify what I intended to say in a public statement and make it very clear that I wanted to push back hard on the untruth and harm about transpeople being the biggest threat to women and this is simply not true. My intention is to highlight the structures of power that are behind the drivers of violence and I will continue to make that point,” Davidson said.

Davidson is herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

Housing Minister Megan Woods used Question Time to reveal that the recent cyclones will delay the state housing build.

Woods said that “approximately 850″ public homes that were expected to be built by June 2023 are subject to delays of up to 8 weeks.

This could mean the Government would not hit its public housing target of delivering 3400 new public homes by June 2023.

“The weather events had a number of impacts on all construction sites including Kainga Ora’s, this included direct impacts on earthworks, foundations, materials, water ingress and flooding. Water was paused across multiple sites during the cyclone with further time required afterwards to clean sites, make them safe and remobilise before any work could be restarted,” she said.