The rising toll of public life for Kiwi women

They put their hands up to lead. They didn't sign up to be abused. Yet the price of public life is getting higher and higher.

For Kiwi women in the public eye, death threats, trolling, insults and abuse are becoming part of the job.

It's devastating and driving many to question whether public life is worth the cost.

And as this unfolds, a high-profile Kiwi sports star is calling on top male athletes to call out gender-based abuse and violence (more on this later).

The recent attack on an Australian politician has brought the issue into sharp relief.

"It just breaks your heart because inherently they [women] have so much to offer to New Zealand, to politics and to the world. And yet the fear of getting the vitriol and the abuse actually holds them back," National's Auckland Central candidate Candace Kinser tells The Detail.

"We've got the most incredible warmth and generous spirits, and everybody loves a trier. But at the end of the day, I think that in politics, we unfortunately kind of swim with some of the bottom feeders around the world in terms of the vitriol that gets levelled, which is a real shame."

America-born Kinser, who has lived here for nearly 30 years, has been abused, among other things, for being "an immigrant - I find that a bit silly ... I have lived here for more than half my life", and she also had her campaign headquarters door smashed in, in the middle of the night.

"They're not necessarily out to get you as a human being," Kinser says. "And mentally, I think it's very important that we separate that.

"Unfortunately, from a safety point of view and from an optics point of view, it can be very confronting."

She spoke to The Detail after Victorian independent politician Helen Haines had both her legs amputated after allegedly being repeatedly rammed by a man in an SUV.

"I think it is absolutely tragic ... it is something that we are sadly seeing too much of ... all over the world, where politicians become targets of extreme beliefs or attitudes. And I don't know what the answer is.

"She [Helen] will carry those scars, obviously, forever. And it will be a permanent daily reminder, not only to her but to her family ... what she has had to sacrifice."

Kiwi Olympic bronze medallist (doubles tennis) Marcus Daniell wants high-profile athletes, men in particular, to fight gender-based violence and abuse.

During his pro-tennis career, he co-founded High Impact Athletes to connect elite athletes with charities. Cricket star Ross Taylor is among them.

In 2024, he then created a movement called One in Three, which fights violence against women and girls. The name references the estimated number of women globally who have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime.

It was the violent death of Ugandan Olympic marathoner Rebecca Cheptegei that prompted this. She was killed by her former partner, who doused her with petrol and set her alight, reportedly over a land dispute in Kenya.

"I don't think that the sector overall has done a good enough job of addressing men and speaking to them in a language that they will resonate with," Daniell tells The Detail.

"I think a lot of the burden seems to have been placed on survivors of specifically sexual abuse to do something about it, which I think is completely the wrong way around.

"And ... for whatever reason, elite athletes are listened to about topics far wider than just their sport.

"And especially male athletes are held up as the paragon of physicality, of masculinity. And if we can get powerful male athletes with a big voice talking about what it looks like to be a good man, to talk about what positive masculinity means, then I believe - and a lot of the experts that I've spoken to in the space believe - that that could be a very powerful norm change lever."

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