An Auckland local board member has apologised after calling Women’s Minister Julie Anne Genter a silly b***h" on Facebook last month.
Whau local board member Derek Battersby also said Genter "should stay at home and look after the kids" on March 23 in a post that linked to a story about Genter saying old white men should move on from company boards, Stuff reported.
"Old men save us (sic) from Hitler in the Second World War," Battersby also wrote in the post.
Battersby later apologised on Facebook and deleted the post.
"First my Facebook page is under my own name second free speech is my right," he wrote.
"However, I can be over the top at times and seeing a number of my posts clipped together in a file caused me concern so I do apologise to those I may have offended and removed those posts."
Genter clarified her comments in the original story by saying she had "no problem with old white men" on company boards generally but that some of them would need to make way for more women and ethnically diverse members to join.
She also said that she didn't believe Battersby's views were representative of most Kiwis.
"I don't think his views are representative of most New Zealanders, or his constituents," she told the NZ Herald .
"I hope people take his extreme views into consideration the next time they are voting, that's democracy."
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