Budget Day: Winston Peters takes aim at Te Pāti Māori’s promotion of protests, use of pistol imagery, ‘racial division’

Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters (left) attacking Te Pāti Māori during the general debate in Parliament. Shane Jones is (right). Photo / Mark Mitchell

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has taken aim at Te Pāti Māori, calling them “radical extremists” and accusing them stoking racial division.

Peters was responding to Te Pāti Māori’s promotion of the nationwide protests planned for Budget Day and comments made in recent days by party MPs. He criticised the use of imagery of pistols in the protest’s advertising on social media, saying “make no mistake, racial division is exactly what they want, not unity.”

“They don’t want democracy, they want anarchy,” Peters said.

The protest is due to arrive at Parliament while the Budget lock-up is under way. It continues an acrimonious week in Parliament, including calls for Assistant Speaker Maureen Pugh to apologise after interrupting rangatira Te Kahautu Maxwell’s whaikōrero during the passing of the Whakatōhea Treaty settlement on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Peters made a speech in Parliament, saying comments by Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi that the Government was “Pākehā” were ignorant, and that the party used “childish schoolboy slurs that are only designed to stoke racial division.”

Waititi had previously said he was hopeful the Budget would deliver for Māori, but the party were not going to “give too much energy [to] a Pākehā Government that will release its Pākehā Budget for its Pākehā economy.”

Peters, in Parliament, pushed back on those comments, saying: “two of the three leaders of the coalition are Māori and there are record number of Māori in Cabinet.

“If you are Māori and don’t think like them, then you’re not a real Māori,” he said.

“Their rhetoric belongs in the gutter and should be called out for what it is and would be in a nanosecond if the racial roles were reversed. They are racist and they are separatist,” he claimed.

Deputy Prime Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters (left) and NZ First MP and Cabinet minister Shane Jones (right). Photo / Mark Mitchell

“They are going to come in here and they are going to lecture to us. You’ve come to the wrong marae here, make no mistake.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer also spoke in Parliament tonight, saying “our people... have reached the absolute point of intolerance.”

“In the words of some of our constitutes, this is a Government that has unleashed an... unruly assault on Māori. I am extremely grateful because you have woken us up.”

“When the strongest power within Aotearoa stands up and says that you are not able to strike...” she said, in reference to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon calling the strikes “illegal”.

“... I want to remind you of your own rights and your own sovereign enshrined in Te Tiriti. I want to remind you of your own tino rangatiratanga which means we must always stand up and protect our mokopuna.”

She referred to Māori movements such as the Kiingitanga (Māori king movement) and kōhanga reo as “all enactments of rangatiratanga” that did not need the kāwanatanga’s (Government) Budget or permission.

Meanwhile, Act MP Karen Chhour also took aim at Te Pāti Māori, saying in a statement its “regular divisive outbursts are incredibly disappointing”. Chhour referred specifically to Waititi’s reference to the Government and its Budget as “Pākehā.”

“They’ve permanently lowered the standards of debate in our Parliament, and I feel sorry for them. It is deeply disappointing is how little they have been held to account for this disgraceful behaviour.”

Ahead of tomorrow’s Budget, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the Government was the “most anti-Māori, anti-Tiriti Government I’ve seen in my lifetime.

“That’s what tomorrow is about, a unified voice from people that can see how anti-Māori they are. I’m not going to be surprised at all if there is not proper targeted funding [for Māori].”