Winston Peters questions Green MP’s deleted social media posts, raises prospect of police investigation

Monday, 31 March 2025

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has attacked Green MP Benjamin Doyle over deleted social media posts, some of which featured their child.

Peters claimed there was enough in the posts for police to “make an inquiry as to whether they breach the law or not”.

But the Green Party says Peters is “fanning the flames of hatred towards the rainbow community” and has contacted Prime Minister Christopher Luxon twice after an “immense” number of “death threats and abuse directed at our MP, Benjamin Doyle and their child”.

Peters denied he shared responsibility for inflaming these threats.

Luxon on Monday afternoon did not rein in Peters as the Greens sought. He said any threats against MPs were totally unacceptable, but accountability lay with the people making the threats.

The language on Doyle’s posts was “really inappropriate”, he said, but it was a matter for the Green Party leaders.

“From my own party's point of view, we spend quite a lot of time vetting social media for potential candidates and making sure that anything that's inappropriate has surfaced and has been dealt with.”

Screenshots of a personal Instagram page operated by Doyle titled “biblebeltbussy” ‒ bussy being a portmanteau of “boy” and “pussy” used within the LGBTQI+ community ‒ have been circulating on social media at the weekend and promoted by Peters, who has in the past week amplified his “war on woke”.

Alongside the sharing of the images, one of which included Doyle’s child and the caption “bussy galore”, unsubstantiated claims have been made about Doyle.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the “central conspiracy” was that use of the word ‒ bussy ‒ on an MP’s private account from before they joined Parliament was “inherently suspicious”.

“As a member of the queer community, I can reflect on the fact that the kind of oversimplified way that things are being presented right now in the Twitter sphere is just not representative of the way that we navigate the world,” Swarbrick said.

“There are a number of far right conspiracy actors who are imputing meaning to that, and the long bow that they seem to be drawing is that, by virtue of use of that terminology, that the rainbow community poses a real world threat to children.”

Regarding the posts involving Doyle’s child, she said: “this was a private account, and to that effect, again, it’s just somebody navigating their life”.

Swarbrick confirmed she and co-leader Marama Davidson followed the account, and said it had been private “well before” Doyle became an MP.

The posts had been deleted as “this was Benjamin's response to feeling as though their child was in immediate danger”.

She said Luxon “must shut down this behaviour”, and her party had contacted both the prime minister and NZ First chief of staff, Darroch Ball, “to ensure they understand the danger this behaviour creates”.

Peters told internet radio station The Platform on Monday morning the social media posts, now taken offline, were not pulled down “because they are posts of innocence”. He did not restate the allegations made elsewhere.

“There is enough in those posts for the police to make an inquiry as to whether they breach the law or not,” he said.

Peters has in recent weeks renewed his campaign against “woke” politics, promising to oppose the use of “puberty blockers for children”.

The Government is consulting on whether further safety measures and restrictions are needed for the use of puberty blockers, which can be used by transgender youth to delay changes by suppressing hormones.

Doyle has been a proponent of access to puberty blockers, gender-affirming healthcare.

At a press conference later on Monday, Peters refused to use Doyle’s preferred pronouns, attacked the media for a claimed failure to ask the questions he was posing about Doyle. He said he was “not going to be passing judgment”, but said “some of the words and descriptions used there most are concerning”.

He said he was not aware the child in the photographs was Doyle’s when posting about this on social media at the weekend, and would not take responsibility for the threats because the threats were occurring before he raised the matter.

“I’m just asking questions,” Peters maintained.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he had contacted the Greens to offer his “full support” on Sunday, after hearing of the threats being made.