Young Act's former vice president says the youth wing isn't a safe place for women, after her complaints of sexual harassment were ignored.
Young ACT's former vice president Ali Gammeter Photo: NZ Herald / Bevan Conley
Ali Gammeter told RNZ she resigned from her role as vice president last night because she had been experiencing innapropriate behaviour for months and nothing was done.
A Young Act statement admits the incidents were harmful, announces an investigation into what happened, and says those responsible will be held to account.
The Act Party has hired an employment lawyer to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations of misconduct within its youth wing.
Andrea Twaddle has been appointed by the party to investigate the claims of sexual harassment made by Gammeter.
ACT president Tim Jago said the party first became aware of Gammeter's allegations last night.
Gammeter said members of Young Act and their associates had been sexually harassing her and other female members of the youth wing online and in person for months.
She said their comments "have been pretty disgusting and hurtful, and it has been reported multiple times to the Young Act leadership and not a lot has been done. I think that I'm not only one who feels like they've been ignored."
Members had sexually harassed her verbally and physically too, she said.
After the Rainbow Pride Parade in Auckland earlier this year, she told RNZ that she was groped by another member of the youth wing at a private gathering, which was the first time a lot of the members had met in person.
Most of the inappropriate comments had been made on private Young Act Facebook groups, messages and in the comments of livestreams, she said.
"A lot of the women in the youth wing have had lies made up about their sex lives, they've been made fun of for those rumours which, more often than not, are not even true," Gammeter said.
"I think that a lot of people have felt like they've been objectified and made to feel like it's okay to be ridiculed just because they're women."
Gammeter said she removed people from the group who were sexually harassing her and others.
"I knew that if they were allowed to stay in our own forum, they would continue to do it in our forum."
A member of the youth wing's executive team then messaged her, she said, and told her she couldn't remove people for behaviour in unofficial channels.
"To me, that was [saying] 'we can't remove people to prevent them from causing harm to people when they haven't done anything in our [official] forums', which to me was pretty sad, because we should really be working towards preventing this sort of thing, not just waiting for harm to be caused."
Senior members of the youth wing added them again, so Gammeter resigned from her role as vice president.
"After they were added back, I was just like no ... I have been ignored and so have the others and it feels like the perpetrators are being protected instead of the members."
There weren't many women in the Young Act group, she said, but the majority of them had experienced some form of sexual harassment from other members.
"It just goes to show it's not a safe place for women to voice their opinions, but I hope that will change now."
Informal complaints about the members' behaviour were made to the youth wing's executive team and other members, she said.
"We didn't actually have a system in place to deal with complaints, I was actually in the process of writing a policy so that we would have channels to use to deal with these kind of things, but I didn't manage to finish it.
"It's a shame that wasn't already established and that members of the executive did not use their discretion to take action without a policy."
In a statement released this morning, Young Act said it would be conducting an investigation into the complaints.
"It has been brought to the attention of Young Act that prevalent and systematic incidents of harm have occured within its organisation, as well as justified criticisms surrounding how our members and those using out platforms interact with each other."
Young Act national president Felix Poole declined to be interviewed by RNZ, but said the youth wing had asked Gammeter to create a sexual harassment and bullying policy after she complained about being sexually harassed by members of the group earlier this year.
In the statement, the youth wing said it would be producing an official policy that outlines its response to harassment and bullying.
"This equity policy will give us a framework to deal with bullying, harassment and discrimination and set a standard of behaviour required of members and those using our platforms that has been absent."
A number of Young Act members had already been removed, the statement said. But Gammeter said a "few" of the members who sexually harassed her and others were still part of the youth group.
When asked why members of the group who Gammeter said sexually harassed her and others hadn't been removed, Poole said no further members would be removed until the policy was implemented.
Jago said the allegations were being taken very seriously.
"We will be providing Ms Gammeter with any support she requires," he said.