Helen Clark has publicly described Mallard’s assault as “defending a woman’s honour” and on that basis has largely excused him for punching another parliamentarian. She believed that Mallard had already suffered enough consequences, although in fact he hasn’t suffered any of note.

The tens of thousands of fathers who have had their paternal role relegated to supervised access for 90 minutes a fortnight at Barnados will have cause to feel pretty annoyed with Clark’s hypocrisy when it comes to her own colleague. Even among the proportion of those men who had done anything whatsoever to deserve such institutionalized torture, many had shown no more than a moment’s loss of self-control under provocation and many had done a lot less than punching someone.

The “woman’s honour” comments show just how dangerous this feminist government is. The only thing that matters to Clark is whether actions serve women or not. You can bet she wouldn’t minmize Mallard’s crime on the basis that it was in defence of a man’s honour. But why would gender make any difference?

In the context of the current, expensive “It’s not OK” anti-violence advertising campaign funded by government, Clark’s self-serving duplicity deserves to be highlighted frequently as the next election approaches.

It may well be reasonable to show understanding and mercy about Mallard’s circumstances and to give him a chance to change his ways before ruining his life and abusing his children by separating them from him. If only such fairness were shown to other men. Instead, the Clark government provides extensive funding to women’s groups including Women’s Refuge who arbitrarily pressure all clients to leave (usually that means kick out) their male partners, regardless of circumstances, without any attempt to verify allegations made about those partners, and in callous disregard of the impact on children of trashing their family units.