Former Shortland Street star Lee Donoghue is now a New Zealand First candidate and has encouraged party members to oppose all “gender, sexuality and social ideology” from the school curriculum.

Donoghue, who played Hunter McKay on the popular soap from 2006 to 2012, has returned from Hollywood and spoke at NZ First’s annual conference in Auckland today, introducing a policy proposal that asserted children - specifically in primary school - were being “sociologically indoctrinated” regarding sexual education.

Speaking to the Herald, Donoghue said he believed there was a “woke virus” in New Zealand’s education system that led to the “ever-increasing sexualisation of children”.

When detailing his proposal to members this morning, Donoghue claimed schools were focusing less on core subjects and more on teaching “social ideology” and “gender ideology”, which resulted in an “unhealthy resentment for oneself, culture, our country, affecting our nation’s future productivity, harmony and overall health”.

The proposal, also called a remit, was immediately opposed by the party’s youth faction - Young NZ First - with member Taylor Arneil saying the remit was too broad and a “knee-jerk reaction” to changes overseas.

“If you remove gender and you remove boy/girl from biology classes. If you remove sexuality, you’re removing heterosexual relationships when it comes to sex education,” he said.

“If you remove social ideology, you are removing schools of political thought from realism to liberalism ... to the teachings of Martin Luther King, and in history, we wouldn’t be able to tell kids why the Nazis were bad.”

Arneil instead proposed an amendment that proposed creating a “comprehensive, modern, fit-for-purpose sex education program that is taught in schools by qualified teachers at the appropriate age”.

Arneil’s suggestion sparked a lively discussion, during which Brent Pierson - who stood for NZ First in Rongotai in 2014 - accused the youth faction of lacking “experience and understanding”, to which he was booed by other members until he stopped talking, welcomed by applause.

Arneil’s intention was to rewrite the remit but that action was ruled not in order with the party’s constitution because it was an excessive change to the remit.

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He later proposed to rewrite two paragraphs of the remit, which was said to be in order by party president Julian Paul, and was later voted in favour of by the membership.

The Herald understands that there are remaining concerns the constitution was not followed in the discussion of that remit and it would be discussed further by the party leadership.

Donoghue said Young NZ First had told him they intended to raise an amendment and that he wasn’t overly concerned by the changing of his original proposal.

Donoghue played Hunter McKay on Shortland Street between 2006 and 2012. Photo / Supplied

The 39-year-old said he had returned to New Zealand this year after living in the United States for about 10 years to pursue acting, mainly in Los Angeles.

In the US, where he said he worked under Beyoncé's agent, Donoghue said he learned of the “wokeification” of the industry, but actors didn’t want to speak out.

That was before he saw NZ First’s leader’s state of the nation speech in Auckland online and wrote to the party, asking to be the candidate for Hutt South, which he was successful in achieving.

On his remit, Donoghue claimed schools in New Zealand were “teaching kids about different sexual preferences, acts, genders at a very young age”.

He cited a leaflet he had seen published by a school that referenced sexual acts. Donoghue couldn’t remember the school’s name when asked but believed it was a primary school.

Donoghue wanted to see a return to basic sexual education that began when children reached intermediate or high school.

Other remits approved this morning included the re-introduction of the “community wage” that required welfare recipients that were physically able to work or volunteer in order to receive welfare.

Party members voted to amend the proposal so it didn’t capture students and focused on jobseekers.

NZ First members give a standing ovation to Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland. Photo / Adam Pearse

Those in the crowd also heard from two guest speakers, Malcolm Mulholland from Patient Voice Aotearoa and Aged Concern chief executive Katherine Rich.

Mulholland delivered a heart-breaking speech, telling the story of his wife Wiki, who died of breast cancer after struggling to get the necessary drug through New Zealand’s drug-buying agency, Pharmac.

It came after a policy proposal, raised by former NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft that was approved by members, that scrapped the current Pharmac model and devoted a further $1.3 billion to fund all drugs currently on the waitlist.

Marcroft was in tears as Mulholland read out the names of people who had died of cancer and whose necessary treatment hadn’t been funded by Pharmac.

Peters is set to announce the party’s campaign launch at Mt Smart Stadium this afternoon.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.