Green MP Benjamin Doyle, among the shortest-serving MPs in recent times, has unleashed on Parliament as being “the colonisers’ house”, built on “exclusion and control, on taking, hoarding, and guarding power”.
“This place is hostile and toxic, especially if you are not a cis straight white man with a blue suit and a briefcase, but most of all it is not fit for purpose,” they said in their valedictory speech delivered on Thursday evening.
Doyle (they/them), who resigned suddenly this month after a social media firestorm this year over controversial old Instagram posts and resulting death threats, said Parliament wasn’t “built for people like me”.
“It was built on the basis of exclusion and control, on taking, hoarding and guarding power. The colonisers’ tools will never dismantle the colonisers’ house. It’s taken me 10 months to truly comprehend what that means.
“And while I do not accept that change is impossible from the inside, I have come to learn that it comes with a price, of violence and hate towards my people. This is a price I am no longer willing to pay.”
Doyle entered Parliament in October last year following the ousting of Green MP Darleen Tana. Doyle stood for Parliament for the Green Party at the 2023 election.
According to a Herald analysis, Doyle has had the shortest term of any MP who has left Parliament voluntarily (not died, retired, been defeated, or been pushed out of the party) in the past 125 years.
The MP in April said they wouldn’t stand down amid questions over their social media posts, refusing to be “disappeared by hate”, referring to what their party said had been an “immense” number of death threats. However, Doyle U-turned on that this month.
Doyle said they had “felt first-hand the unbelievable impact that being here can have on a person and those they love”.
“I have seen that play out in violent, toxic, and real-world ways,” they said.
“No person should have to remove their child from school due to threats to their life, no person should have to avoid going to the supermarket or the letterbox because they have been advised that doing so could expose them to violence.
“No person should have to tell their parents that they can’t attend the next family event to ensure their safety and privacy is not compromised. And despite that, I have stayed so true to myself and my community.”
They said they had returned to Parliament after a brief stint away despite being “informed it would be unsafe to do so”.
“Sometimes love is hard and means making sacrifices. Sometimes it means putting the kaupapa first, putting the needs of our communities, the planet, the generations that are yet to arrive, first.
“I am willing to put my love for these things before my own needs, and even my own safety, but no love is more compelling than that which we hold for our tamariki and I cannot continue to put this work before the needs of my own child.”
Doyle said they left Parliament knowing “the fight will continue” but said it was also happening outside of Parliament.
They referred to a “political system imposed upon this land and its people from a colonial empire which sought to name, claim and maim [and] is never going to honour Te Tiriti”.
“It will never recognise the dignity of all life or seek justice for the poor and oppressed. It was built to serve a status quo that protects the powerful at the expense of the people, at the cost of community. This system was built, and so it can be rebuilt.
“The revolution begins in our hearts and minds, but there it must not remain. It must rise up from the land, from the people, from love and vision and hope for something infinitely better than what we are subjected to now. If not for us, then for our children and those in every generation to come.”
Doyle’s controversial Instagram posts, made before they became an MP, included an image of them and their child within a carousel of family images with the phrase “bussy galore”. Bussy is a portmanteau of “boy” and “pussy” and is slang used by some to refer to a male’s anus.
While some, including NZ First leader Winston Peters, raised questions about the appropriateness of the posts, Doyle denied the posts had a sexual meaning or they had done anything wrong.
Doyle said the controversy led to them receiving death threats, some of which had to be escalated to police. Police said at the time of Doyle’s resignation, there had been 10 reports under investigation, with formal warnings being sent to individuals for breaches of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist this year for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.