Anti-domestic violence campaign White Ribbon has labelled Sky TV "tone deaf" for hiring Tony Veitch only days ahead of a national awareness day.
Campaign manager Rob McCann told The AM Show Veitch, who was convicted of injuring his former girlfriend Kristin Dunne with reckless disregard in 2009, wouldn't have faced backlash if he showed remorse.
The NZME radio host announced his return to television as a panellist on a new sports show on Facebook on Wednesday.
But only a day later, after outrage on social media, he quit the show.
"There are always consequences but we at White Ribbon believe it's about moving men from violence to non-violence or non-action to action," Mr McCann says.
"We have many ambassadors who used to be violent men.
"But they've realised the error of their ways, they've apologised properly to their victims and to everyone else and then they've changed their behaviour.
"What we're seeing in this case is an absence of many of those things.
"So for Sky to appoint someone so close to White Ribbon day just shows they're a bit tone deaf about all of the things that are actually occurring in the world at the moment with the hashtag MeToo, Harvey Weinstein."
Saturday is White Ribbon Day, which encourages men to lead by example to end violence towards women.
New Zealand has the highest rate of family violence in the developed world - with more people coming forward each year. According to family violence website areyouok.org.nz, 76 percent of incidents are not reported to police.
It is estimated one in three Kiwi women will experience physical or sexual violence from a partner in their lifetime.
"If everyone ... came forward, [public services] would be drowning in the number of cases in front of them."
But Mr McCann says having more people come forward may not be entirely bad.
"It means people are not putting up with family violence or men's violence towards women."
Mr McCann says the campaign is about nipping the problem in the bud.
"We're finding that dads all across this country are willing to say to their daughters 'keep safe' but they're not willing to have that chat with their sons about respectful relationships and respectful sexual relationships."
Newshub.
