{"id":558917,"date":"2026-08-04T17:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558917\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T17:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:44:19","slug":"peters-refuses-to-apologise-for-racist-remark-after-pm-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558917\/","title":{"rendered":"Peters refuses to apologise for ‘racist’ remark after PM meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winston Peters has refused to apologise for his attack on a Chinese-Kiwi MP despite the Prime Minister<\/a> and others describing his comments as “racist”.<\/p>\n

By Craig McCulloch of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

The Foreign Minister attracted a firestorm of criticism<\/a> last week after telling the Greens’ Lawrence Xu-Nan to “go back to where you’ve come from” during a tirade in Parliament.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon raised the matter with the New Zealand First leader in a private meeting yesterday, after earlier condemning the remarks<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Winston Peters refuses to back down after ‘racist’ comments row – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

Winston Peters took a few questions at Parliament about the issue before walking off. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Luxon, however, refused to reveal any details<\/a> about the exchange.<\/p>\n

Addressing reporters for the first time since that meeting, Peters also declined to divulge what was said behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

Lawrence Xu-Nan has spoken to Breakfast after he was told by Winston Peters to “go back to your own country” in the House yesterday. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n

“We had a meeting with the Prime Minister. It’s private, and that’s the end of it,” he said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he would apologise, Peters instead doubled down, arguing his conduct was justified given Xu-Nan’s heckling during his speech in Parliament.<\/p>\n

“I was talking about a critical shutdown and cover-up to do with the Covid inquiry, and all the people [who] are going to suffer as a consequence.<\/p>\n

“He was jeering and shouting from my side. I’m not apologising for them, most certainly not. I’m not apologising on behalf of all those people who are victims.”<\/p>\n

The official transcript of the Parliamentary debate noted that Xu-Nan interrupted Peters’ speech by shouting, “Are you vaccinated?”<\/p>\n

Asked whether he had embarrassed New Zealand with his conduct, Peters ended questions and marched off into the debating chamber.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters responded to heckling by saying to Lawrence Xu-Nan: “I know you just came here five minutes ago. Go back to your own country.” (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Speaking separately to reporters, National deputy leader Nicola Willis said she was disappointed Peters would not apologise.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately it is a matter for Winston Peters to be accountable for his words in Parliament.”<\/p>\n

Willis said, in her view, the foreign minister had fallen short of the standards expected of parliamentarians.<\/p>\n

“To question the validity of someone’s ability to speak based on their country of birth is really unreasonable, and it has been, of course, offensive to the Chinese community,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Whether you’re born in China, the UK, India, you’ve got a very significant contribution that you’re making to this country.”<\/p>\n

\"NZ<\/p>\n

NZ First leader Winston Peters (L) told Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan (R) to “go back to your own country”. (Source: rnz.co.nz)<\/p>\n

The Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson said her party had written to Parliament’s Speaker Gerry Brownlee to request that he require Peters to formally withdraw his comment and apologise.<\/p>\n

“The racism towards our Green MP was absolutely unacceptable, but it also has further consequences on the safety of migrant communities across Aotearoa.”<\/p>\n

She said the Greens would not go into any governing arrangement with NZ First.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winston Peters has refused to apologise for his attack on a Chinese-Kiwi MP despite the Prime Minister and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[69543,111,137,43,139,69,135,136],"class_list":["post-558917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-green-party","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-first","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-winston-peters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558917","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=558917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}