Look, I’ll be the first one here to admit that I don’t understand much about foreign politics. From what I can gather is this: New Zealand just signed a massive and controversial trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) with 12 other countries, but many in the country are not happy about the deal as it will allegedly transfer power away from the people into the hands of big corporations.
But the important thing to take away here is that this all led to New Zealand’s Economic Development Minister Stephen Joyce getting hit in the face by a giant pink dildo by an angry protester while giving a press conference in Waitangi on Friday. Like, IN THE FACE. Square in the face.
The woman, identified to be Josie Butler, yelled, “That’s for raping our sovereignty!” as she was dragged away by authorities, so she clearly had intended for the prop to fully demonstrate her point, which is just fantastic planning. You throw around the r-word at a protest, you might raise an eyebrow or two. But you smack a dude in the face with a dildo? He’s gonna remember that.
Joyce later laughed off the incident, telling reporters, “Fair to say I don’t think those sorts of things happen every day.” Here it is again in GIF form for posterity:
This is an extremely unfortunate gif pic.twitter.com/oCRVb2ePl6
— Ben Guerin (@bjhguerin) February 5, 2016