PM hits back after Chris Hipkins takes aim at him over NZ First’s ‘oral sex’, ‘masturbation’ jibes
Thursday, 23 July 2026
Hot off the heels of Stuart Nash’s resignation as an NZ First candidate, Labour leader Chris Hipkins is questioning the prime minister’s handling of lewd comments by NZ First’s leader, Winston Peters, and deputy Shane Jones.
Hipkins has commended Christopher Luxon for ruling out working with Nash in the future but accused National’s leader of having double standards.
“Why Stuart Nash’s comments [are] more unacceptable to him than Winston Peters and Shane Jones’ other recent comments, I think, is a very legitimate issue,” he told The Post.
“Winston Peters basically making masturbation jibes towards a television presenter, Shane Jones basically suggesting that people who attended the Modi event had done an oral sex act on him and Shane Jones, basically being outright racist towards Indians, are things that Christopher Luxon hasn't felt the need to draw a bright line under.”
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Luxon attended the Modi event.
Asked for a response to Hipkins’ claim he had double standards, Luxon said it was hypocritical.
“It's a bit rich coming from Chris Hipkins, who hasn't ruled out working with Shane Jones or Winston Peters himself,” he told The Post ahead of a public meeting in Feilding on Thursday morning.
“And separately … he's promoted Willie Jackson, there were crickets coming from him when we had Green MPs supporting people acts of violence and vandalism in our National Party electorate offices, and he wants to put Te Pāti Māori into government. So, whatever.”
Jones warned of a “butter chicken tsunami” when criticising the immigration settings in the New Zealand-India free trade agreement (FTA) earlier this year.
“I don't care how much criticism we get. I am just never going to agree with a butter chicken tsunami coming to New Zealand,” Jones said.
Luxon had said the comment was “alarmist” and “unhelpful”, but stopped short of saying whether he thought it was racist.
He has since described Jones’ “knee-pads” comment as “pretty crass and unprofessional”, though Jones has maintained it’s been taken out of context.
“Knee-pads refers to people showing a ridiculous level of obsequiousness, and that's what I was referring to,” he told The Post on Sunday.
Hipkins doesn’t buy this explanation.
“Shane Jones is a very smart guy. He's not an idiot. He knows exactly what he's saying. NZ First clearly have a cultural problem where the vote that they're trying to court is based on racism and sexism and they’re been quite overt about that, and they know exactly what they're doing.”
The Labour leader said Jones’ conduct had been “out of line for a long time” and Luxon had done nothing about it.
“Were he in my Cabinet, I would have done something about it long before now.”
“Shane Jones shouldn’t be in Cabinet. His behaviour is totally unacceptable.”
Bishop told reporters on Thursday afternoon that members of his electorate in the Indian community were offended by Jones’ “butter chicken tsunami comment” and he had passed the feedback on to Jones.
Asked if he would sack a staffer for saying the same thing, Bishop said he would.
“If they said it on the record in public and it reflected on me, yes.”
In June, Peters called a query from NZME's Ryan Bridge TODAY show a “wanker question” when the host was asking whether NZ First would work with Labour again in Government.
“We're not going with Labour … I haven't been around this long to come on this programme to talk about that sort of wanker question.”
Luxon did not directly respond to the comment at the time.
Jones has since been under pressure this week to explain what he meant when he made the following comment on Saturday afternoon: “Labour Party, National Party, Act Party, Green Party, the next time you go to an ethno-nationalist rally to receive a foreign leader, take off your kneepads”.
MPs across the House roundly condemned Nash on Wednesday for saying National’s MP for Napier, Katie Nimon, was the “laziest MP I have ever come across” in a text to former National Cabinet minister Chris Finlayson.
Nimon took 10 weeks off work after she gave birth last year, returning to electorate work part-time after 10 weeks, and Parliament full-time after six months.
Additional reporting by George Heagney.