National MP Simon O'Connor. Photo / Mark Mitchell
National MP Simon O’Connor says a comment during a debate about child support stating raising a child was the responsibility of the “mother and father” - which he repeated - was not intended to be homophobic and exclude same-sex couples.
He told the Herald it was aimed at men and fathers who weren’t paying child support and called any criticism a “very strange interpretation”, while also pointing out he supports many same-sex couples with children in his own electorate.
National leader Christopher Luxon has also weighed in, saying O’Connor’s speech, which came during a debate about a child support law, was merely targeting “deadbeat dads”.
O’Connor’s speech, however, has drawn strong criticism from Labour MPs, including Senior Minister Kiri Allan, who called it out on Twitter with the hashtag “NoHomo”.
Allan identifies as a lesbian and is a mother, having raised children in same-sex relationships.
In the House last night, O’Connor spoke during the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill, which would ensure all child support being paid to a beneficiary on a sole parent benefit goes to the parent. Currently, child support payments are collected by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) and used to offset the cost of the benefit paid to these parents.
National supports the bill, which the Government says will benefit more than 41,000 sole parents by a median of $20 a week.
O’Connor spoke in favour of the bill but said ultimately it was the parents who “should look after their own children”.
“That is part of the social contract. The Crown, the State, whatever you want to call it, should stay out of that by and large.”
He then said: “It is the responsibility of the mother and the father — and I’m being very deliberate with my language there: the mother and the father — to raise the child.”
O’Connor told the Herald the context of his comment was about child support payments.
“The overwhelming number of people needing to pay are men and fathers.
“So I was making a very simple point that the men, the fathers need to keep supporting their children.
“That’s the long and the short of it, everything else is just a very strange interpretation.”
Asked if he could have worded his statement more inclusively, O’Connor said he didn’t have time to construct a speech that took into account “all the various iterations” of family structures.
“There are all sorts of families and structures. So again, I was keeping in a very tight lane, that the overwhelming people involved with child support payments are men and men who are fathers and that they still have a role to play in raising their children.”
He denied there was anything homophobic about what he had said, and that anybody offended should “look at the context”.
“If it helps, most weeks in my electorate office, I deal with people with all different family relationships and structures and happily engage in work and help as best I can.”
Labour MP Marja Lubeck also tweeted about O’Connor’s comments and some commenters suggested they were homophobic.
Allan then today tweeted a video of his remarks with the hashtags “MothersAndFathers” and “NoHomo”.
O’Connor told the Herald Allan’s comment was “disappointing” and he thought it was a distraction from her mistake in the House last night, after she read the wrong speech at the third reading of a freedom camping bill.
Luxon denied O’Connor was being homophobic.
“He was trying to beat up on deadbeat dads and say, ‘Hang on, you’ve got a responsibility here to step up and look after your kids’.
“These are their kids, they have a responsibility to do that and that is what I think he was calling out.”
He said many solo dads did a “great job looking after their kids”.
He added, “families come in all shapes and sizes, relationships come in all shapes and sizes”.
“I know personally, he has done a great job of supporting people in his electorate. I can think of gay couples that he has helped support adopting children from overseas.”
O’Connor is one of Parliament’s more socially conservative MPs and has run into controversy in the past over expressing his views.
Last year he celebrated on social media the overturning of the Roe v Wade abortion decision in the United States. He later had to take down his post.
In March he apologised after “insensitive” comments in Parliament linking a US shooting to Green co-leader Marama Davidson’s comments about white cis men.