{"id":485659,"date":"2026-06-19T16:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/485659\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T16:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:12:15","slug":"rainbow-action-tamaki-considers-seeking-legal-advice-after-winston-peters-facebook-post-over-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/485659\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainbow Action T\u0101maki considers seeking legal advice after Winston Peters\u2019 Facebook post over protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat is false,\u201d it said. \u201cWe organised the protest in response to a bill that affects the rights, dignity and legal recognition of all New Zealanders and especially trans, takat\u0101pui, intersex and rainbow communities and other women.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter went on to say Peters\u2019 response to the protest portrayed those attending as \u201cinauthentic, unintelligent and dishonest\u201d.<\/p>\n

It urged Peters to delete the post,\u202fapologise\u202fand donate $100 to\u202fRainbowYOUTH.\u202f<\/p>\n

\u201cThis letter is written in the hope that the matter can be resolved promptly and proportionately,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reserve all rights, including the right to seek legal advice and pursue any remedies available to us if the defamatory statement is not corrected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters then wrote on social media that he\u2019d welcome a showdown in court, while noting that his original post criticising the event attracted 1.7 million views.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t be deleting it with all the positive responses it is receiving from kiwis with common sense who are backing our stance,\u201d he said in the post.<\/p>\n

If Rainbow Action T\u0101maki wanted to take him to court, it should \u201cgo ahead\u201d. He claimed the court process would allow emails between the group and the Green Party \u201cand whomever else you co-ordinate with\u201d to be revealed to \u201cfind out who is really behind all this\u201d.<\/p>\n

Peters\u202ftook a jab at the rainbow community in general, saying he did not care\u202fif people identified as \u201cthey or them or a\u202flamp-post\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rainbow Action T\u0101maki declined to comment when asked if it would pursue legal advice after Peters\u2019 reaction.<\/p>\n

However, it labelled Peters a hypocrite and a bully in a statement to the Herald.<\/p>\n

\u202f\u201cThe hypocrisy of a rent-a-politician who took a donation from a fossil fuel company and takes them from the mega-rich trying to paint a grassroots\u202forganisation\u202fas paid for is staggering. We don\u2019t want your culture war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Its reference was to a $100,000 donation to NZ First in February from GMP Environmental, <\/a>which provides services to the fossil fuel industry, including oil waste cleanup.<\/p>\n

\"ThousandsThousands of people attended protests across New Zealand opposing the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill, which has passed its first reading and is open for public submissions until July 2.<\/p>\n

When approached for comment, a spokesperson for Peters referred the Herald back to his Facebook posts.<\/p>\n

Thousands of protesters\u202fattended Saturday\u2019s Defy Definitions protests, held across\u202fthe\u202fcountry in\u202fa bid to stop the bill progressing any further.<\/p>\n

The Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill <\/a>seeks to define \u201cwoman\u201d as \u201can adult human biological female\u201d and \u201cman\u201d as \u201can adult human biological male\u201d, regardless of gender identity.<\/p>\n

The author of the bill, NZ First\u2019s Jenny Marcroft, has argued that, to protect women and single-sex spaces, New Zealand must follow the lead of the United Kingdom and clarify definitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen words lose meaning, the law that depends on them becomes unstable,\u201d she said during the first reading.<\/p>\n

\"Saturday'sSaturday’s Mana Irawhiti: Defy Definition protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Adam and Eve, people have known what a woman and a man are and, even if you\u2019re not a person of faith, people have known this since the dawn of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcroft claimed there had been confusion since a Crown Law opinion in 2006, which suggested that transgender people could be protected from discrimination on the ground of sex, \u201cbut it did not say that sex and gender identity are the same thing, and it did not suggest that sex-based exceptions in the law should be reinterpreted to include the opposite sex\u201d.<\/p>\n

Marcroft also claimed that a \u201cwoke contagion\u201d had infected the Ministry of Health because it used trans-inclusive wording, such as \u201cpeople with a cervix\u201d instead of \u201cwomen\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, declared a \u2018war on woke\u2019, and so I ask this Parliament to vote for reality in law. I\u2019m hearing an echo ripple across the generations. I\u2019m hearing the words of our suffragist forebearers: vote for women.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill passed its first reading last month and is open for public submissions until July 2.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThat is false,\u201d it said. \u201cWe organised the protest in response to a bill that affects the rights,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[432,1665,74,9092,18205,159312,4636,4760,42,13489,6712,5158,43,86269,1523,4762,6729,3117,17159,25394,96462,11925,40249,8229,6047,40,38,41,39,6728,1354,80],"class_list":["post-485659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-action","tag-advice","tag-after","tag-against","tag-considers","tag-define","tag-facebook","tag-firsts","tag-headlines","tag-leader","tag-legal","tag-man","tag-news","tag-organisers","tag-over","tag-party","tag-peters","tag-post","tag-proposal","tag-protest","tag-rainbow","tag-seek","tag-seeking","tag-they","tag-tmaki","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-winston","tag-woman","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}