Winston Peters is right about parliament's declining standards
Winston Peters is right about parliament's declining standards of decorum. But the rot didn't set in last week. This has been a years-long process, and one MP in particular has been at the heart of the decline.
Winston Peters couldn't hide his distress as he heard the word 'cunts' being read out by Act deputy leader Brooke van Velden during question time last week. He buried his head in his hands, stared at his tie, and seemingly willed himself to physically or mentally dematerialise. Later he'd call the moment another milestone on our march to a decorumless democracy. 'This is becoming a House of Chaos,' he wrote on cyberbullying service X. 'From relaxing the dress standards in our House to now having utter disorder and the worst of offensive words uttered in question time – no matter which side of opinion you're on – and with no reaction or repercussion. How should we politicians expect the people of New Zealand to view us all now?'
Peters has a point. New Zealand's parliament often resembles the sandpit on a particularly out-of-control day at kindy. There are screams, insults, rude gestures and the occasional dust-up. If there's one thing to nitpick in his post though, it's the timeline. This decay isn't new. It's been setting in for years now, and one MP in particular has been at the heart of the decline.
Van Velden isn't the first to quote other people's insulting epithets in the House. Nor is she the only one to use an offensive and derogatory term. This MP once grilled former prime minister John Key in the House on whether he'd called footballer David Beckham 'thick as batshit'. In 2024, he was ordered to withdraw his statement, and later called out by the IHC, after accusing Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer of making a 'retard comment' in parliament. The same year he was criticised for lowering parliamentary standards and failing to meet expectations of decorum after instructing Labour and Green MPs not to 'shout like a sick idiot'.
This MP's most venomous and decorum-compromising barbs are usually delivered directly, in the form of personal insults. In 2012, he was kicked out of the House for calling National MP Gerry Brownlee an 'illiterate woodwork teacher'. Brownlee has been a regular target. In 2018, the MP told speaker Lockwood Smith to ' throw fatty out ' after Brownlee interjected in a debate.
Other National MPs have found themselves on the receiving end of the MP's rancour. He repeatedly mocked Simon Bridges' New Zealand accent in parliamentary exchanges, feigning confusion about an industry called 'moining' while answering a question on oil and gas exploration in 2018, and telling the National leader he'll answer questions on China but not 'Choyna' in 2019. The MP also called Brownlee, Chris Finlayson, and Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox an ' unsightly trio of drama queens ' after voting against Treaty settlements in 2018.
But no single politician has been savaged as much as David Seymour. In 2020, the MP called the Act leader a 'political cuckold' during a testy exchange in parliament. It was a toned down reimagining of earlier work. The MP referred to Seymour as a ' cuckolded puppet' in the House in 2017. He's called Seymour a cuck so many times some news organisations have stopped counting individual incidents, with The Guardian simply saying it has happened 'many times'.
This is all to say nothing about the allegations of xenophobia. He joked that ' two wongs don't make a white ' during a campaign launch. He told Green MPs Lawrence Xu-Nan and Francisco Hernandez they should 'show some gratitude' for being in New Zealand. He inexplicably complained there were too many delicious Asian restaurants on Dominion Rd.
Last week, the MP stood before reporters and told them that Labour leader Chris Hipkins is a 'sausage eater who doesn't know what a woman is'. Reporters pressed the MP on those comments, given he'd just been outspoken about parliament's declining standards of civility.
In response, Winston Peters clarified that he meant Hipkins was a 'sausage roll eater'. His quest to restore parliament to its previous standards of decency and respect continues apace.
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