Do we like Marama Davidson?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A record of working for violence prevention, Māori and trans communities, with one badly worded 2023 remark that she partly walked back.
Her big blow-up came in March 2023, after a rally against anti-trans campaigner Posie Parker. A reporter from a far-right website filmed her saying it is white cis men who cause violence, and the clip went everywhere. Winston Peters called for her resignation, David Seymour said she should front up with evidence or go, and Christopher Luxon said her statements were “wrong and offensive”.
Davidson's reply was that she had been hit by a motorcycle that morning and was still in shock, so she hadn't been as clear as she should have been. She wrote that she “should have made clear in my comments that violence happens in every community”, while still saying men are the main perpetrators of violence. Whether you read that as a fair walk-back or a half-sorry is your call, but a sweeping line about a group of people is the kind of thing we flag here.
On the wider harm check, she turned up at that rally to stand against an anti-trans campaigner and said trans women are women. On Gaza she has called for sanctions on Israel and said Aotearoa “cannot remain a bystander”, a position some will back and others dispute. Nothing turned up in the sources about her promoting conspiracy theories, or about her working repeatedly with people who push harm.
The good stuff is real. In 2020 she became the country's first Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence. By 2021 she was telling RNZ the ministry had made “massive strides” after an Auditor-General report that said significant improvements were needed. That's a fair mix of effort and a work in progress, and she was upfront that earlier approaches hadn't cut family violence.
Heading into the 2026 election, the Greens have pitched a member-built manifesto that taxes wealthy individuals and large corporations to fund public services. It also proposes a nationalised energy company and a one-year pause on new AI data centre consents. Davidson says she can work with other parties where policy overlaps, but that National's policies are harmful and far from the Greens' goals.
So, the verdict expanded: Davidson passes on the good-person test and passes the harm test with an asterisk. The asterisk is one blunt remark in 2023, which she partly walked back, and it is not a pattern of targeting people. On trans rights, violence prevention and climate, she's on the side the house rule would want, and she hasn't been quiet about it.