Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters plans action over c-bomb use in Parliament

• Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters yesterday criticised Parliament as a “house of chaos” after the use of the C-word in the House of Representatives and haka during a vote on the failed Treaty Principles’ Bill.
• Today the veteran MP said he planned to take further action over standards in Parliament, without giving specifics.
• Kiwis were the “lucky inheritors” of standards and laws refined over thousands of years, and that was worth protecting, Peters said.

Winston Peters and two of his coalition Government colleagues plan to take action over the use of the c-bomb in Parliament this week.

The Deputy Prime Minister, his NZ First colleague Shane Jones and high-ranking National MP Chris Bishop had tried to argue with Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee against a question by Labour MP Jan Tinetti during Question Time on Wednesday that led to the first use by an MP of the word c*** in the House of Representatives.

“We’re not happy at all, and we’re going to be raising this matter”, Peters told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning.

Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden repeated the c-word used in a controversial opinion column about Government changes made under urgency to the pay equity process, and which had been referred to in a question to van Velden by Tinetti, a former Minister for Women.

The changes have been slammed by some who say they will cost working women, especially those in low-paying jobs.

Van Velden had “of course” done the right thing in responding to Tinetti - but he wished she’d never used “the word I can’t say”, Peters said.

The Act deputy leader said she’d checked with the Clerk’s Office before Question Time about whether the word was appropriate to say.

So that meant “she must’ve asked someone: What do you think?”, Peters told Hosking.

“The use of that word. It’s not that it’s somebody else’s word - you’ve now used it and put it on the darn record.”

Tinetti was also wrong for introducing the column to Parliament as part of her question to van Velden, he said.

“But also her leader [Chris Hipkins] carries the can, and he says they made a mistake. Well, it’s a bit late now. Didn’t they read and see what [the columnist] had written?”

Peters yesterday blasted behaviour, language and dress standards in Parliament in his lengthy post on X.

“Our House of Representatives has become a House of Chaos”, the 46-year political veteran wrote.

As well as van Velden’s c-bomb, the attack followed Parliament’s Privileges Committee recommending suspending three Te Pāti Māori MPs without pay after they performed a haka during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill last year.

Peters doubled down on his criticism when asked by Hosking if they might just be sounding like “old farts, and we should move on”.

“Well, that’s all very fashionable and chic, but ... it’s wrong. The great things we’ve got in our country - a Judeo-Christian background, the law that’s been refined - these things are the exception worldwide and the exception down through the thousands of years of humanity.

“We’re the lucky inheritors of it ... unlike other societies where things are organised despotism and anarchy, we have got something good and worth preserving.”

Peters also criticised the incumbent leaders of Te Pāti Māori for rejecting rules that their predecessors had accepted.

“As a Māori, since 1867, Māori have been coming here and accepted all these rules all this time and until this latest bunch ... turn up and go ... ‘we’ll do what we like’.

“They’re gonna find out, ‘oh no you don’t’.”

Winston Peters, pictured shortly after Brooke van Velden used the c-word in Parliament. Photo / NZ Herald

Peters’ post on X had yesterday criticised “out-of-control MPs who flout the rules and intimidate others with outrageous hakas and offensive language and now getting banished for weeks”.

The Privileges Committee this week recommended 21-day suspensions for Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi over a haka.

A seven-day suspension was also recommended for the party’s Hauraki-Waikato MP, Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke.

“This is not democracy. These are the seeds of anarchy,” Peters wrote.

The octogenarian also blasted the dress of MPs wearing “T-shirts and sneakers, hats and sunglasses and jerseys – and even occasionally barefooted”.

The House and the press gallery had “collectively” ignored the behaviour.

“Where are the standards of democracy that we all as a [country] together once fought for and stood up for?”

Our House of Representatives has become a House of Chaos.

For a long time we have warned that the standards have begun slipping in the House - as former Labour Minister Steve Maharey also wrote about in a Herald article last year.

From relaxing the dress standards in our House…

— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) May 14, 2025

He’d never seen “the level of degradation” of the country’s democracy in his many years of politics, Peters wrote.

Others have also criticised behaviour in Parliament.

Former Labour Minister Steve Maharey also wrote in a Herald story last year about standards slipping in the House.

And former Labour Cabinet minister Stuart Nash followed Peters’ X post with his own thoughts online.

“There is never a time when this [C-word] is appropriate; no matter what the context or issue or point being made. And certainly not in the hallowed chambers of Parliament. Disgraceful!” he wrote on LinkedIn.

National MP Judith Collins has also this week called for “civility” in the House after the decision by the Privileges Committee, which she chairs, to suspend the three Te Pāti Māori MPs.

Collins said she was proud of van Velden for “standing up for herself”.