Labour MP Kieran McAnulty booted from the House after challenging Speaker over Peters’ ‘racist’ comments

Thursday, 19 February 2026

Labour MP Kieran McAnulty was booted from the House of Representatives on Thursday after accusing Speaker Gerry Brownlee of a “double standard” in his handling of NZ First leader Winston Peters’ conduct.

On Wednesday, Green MPs accused Peters of “migrant scapegoating” after he took issue with Teanau Tuiono referring to New Zealand as “Aotearoa” in a question in Parliament.

“Why is [minister Scott Simpson] answering a question from someone who comes from a country called Rarotonga, to a country called New Zealand?” Peters asked, before being interrupted by Opposition MPs, who accused him of “pure racism”.

Tuiono was born in New Zealand and has Cook Islands heritage.

Finishing his question, Peters asked why Tuiono had decided “without any consultation with the New Zealand people that he’ll change the country’s name”.

During question time on Thursday, McAnulty raised the issue, questioning why Brownlee wouldn’t “require someone making a racist comment to withdraw and apologise”.

Brownlee then instructed McAnulty to leave the House, having earlier warned him against “trifling” with the Speaker.

Outside the chamber, McAnulty told reporters he believed Brownlee was “applying a double standard” towards MPs’ behaviour in the House. “I’m quite happy to back that up,” he added.

McAnulty went on: “Winston Peters is able to trifle with him, undermine him, make racist comments, make questionable comments, certain unparliamentary comments and actions in the House and there is no action against that.

“Yet, we challenged the Speaker today in a respectful and highly appropriate way and yet I’m the one that gets kicked out - proving my point to be fair.”

When asked for a response to the allegation that he was making racist comments, Peters dismissed it.

“That’s total humbug,” he said, adding that he would not apologise for his remarks. “Am I sorry? No, I’m not sorry.”

Peters went on: “You’re saying we can change the name of the country without asking the New Zealand people. That’s fascist.”

Afterwards, on social media afterwards, Peters went further, saying he would not apologise for defending the country’s name from what he called “wokesters and cultural marxists”.

“We won’t have a bunch of people who have been here for five minutes trying to tell us all what the name of our country should be,” he said.

Peters said it was not racist to defend the country’s name and questioned people who he said have tried to spread their “woke views like a cancer”.

“It’s not racist to want this country to be great again like it once was when it was heralded as the best democracy in the world,” he said.

“It’s not racist to push back against weak-kneed do-gooders who want to take our country down a path of separatism and division.”

Peters finished his post by saying the “pendulum” was swinging back and that he represented New Zealanders and would always put them first.

The episode comes as NZ First continues to gain ground in the latest political polls.

In the most recent The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll, released this morning, NZ First continued to rise, climbing two points from December, to 11%

In a 1News Verian poll released on Monday evening, NZ First was on 10%.