The Labour leadership contest today openly split over Grant Robertson's sexuality.
One of his supporters accused Camp Cunliffe of deliberate gay scaremongering.
Tonight the three contenders are all campaigning in the West Coast town of Blackball, something of a Labour Party shrine – the birthplace of the party.
It's a party now with its first openly-gay leadership contender, although Mr Robertson is concerned his comrades are using his sexuality against him.
Camp Robertson loyalist MP Clare Curran has accused Camp Cunliffe of playing to people's homophobic prejudices to damage Mr Robertson's chances.
She tweeted: "The "NZ's not ready for a gay PM" is prob the biggest dog whistle I've ever heard. Extraordinary that it's also coming from within the Party."
Ms Curran blamed two unnamed union bosses, former party president Mike Williams and David Cunliffe campaign member Jenny Michie of using Mr Robertson's sexuality to undermine him.
But Mr Cunliffe claimed zero tolerance.
"If anybody working for me was to say that on the campaign team, they would be off the campaign team," says Mr Cunliffe.
We asked the public: will public opinion about Mr Robertson's homosexuality affect his chances of becoming Prime Minister? More than half of voters, 58.5 percent, said yes, and 41.5 percent said no.
Labour voters were split on this too, with 48.3 percent saying yes, it would affect his chances, and 51.7 percent saying no.
There have been only two openly-gay world leaders – Iceland's Johanna Sigurdardottir and Belgium's Elio Di Rupo.
Shane Jones is on the comeback trail after racking up porn on the taxpayer and allegations of corruption after granting Chinese man Bill Liu New Zealand citizenship.
But asked if Mr Jones had been rehabilitated, just 39.5 percent said yes. A clear majority, 60.5 percent said no. And a majority of Labour voters said he had a way to go too.
So, a century on, is Labour united or divided?
3 News
source: newshub archive
