The Great TV3 Comedy Debate - We Need More Women on Top

Here in the land of the long white G-string, women are on top: in the arts, in law, in sport, government and gardening. New Zealand was the very first country in the world to give women the vote, and we’ve produced some quite remarkable pioneering women: Katherine Mansfield, Helen Clark, Silvia Cartwright, Xena Warrior Princess. Dame Ngaio Marsh...

– Affirmative team leader Ginette McDonald introduces her argument

History is full of crises and tragedies and general bad stuff that's been caused by women. Okay: take the plague in Europe, spread by rats. Who bred those baby rats? Women rats.

– Oscar Kightley

As Oscar said 'Behind every great man is a great woman' and I'd just like to say that behind every great woman, there's a man going 'nice ass'.

– Cal Wilson rebuts Oscar Kightley's argument

Now more than ever we need more women on top with their clear analytical thinking, their compassion, their gentility and their wonderful shoe collections.

– Ginette McDonald argues why we need more women on top

I walked tall on top of the world, my step's demands were measured by the clack of my reinforced Blundstone work boots, and the sun glistening off the oily sheen of my mullet — a boy growing up in a world where men were men and women knew how to make scones with lemonade; where every cauliflower-eared, beer-gutted man ruled his quarter acre paradise from his la-z-boy by the telly,

– Craig Parker reminiscences on growing up in a 'man's world'

...welcome to The Great TV3 Comedy Debate from the Soundings Theatre here at Te Papa, in Wellington of course. Now, we’ve assembled some of New Zealand's best and brightest to debate the moot that we need more women on top. Now I do have to tell you I think I’ve made a considerable contribution to this debate already.

– Host Georgina Beyer introduces the debate