Nick Mills: Winston Peters' racist comments don't belong in Parliament

Publish Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2026, 1:57pm

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EDITORIAL:

Just imagine, for a second, if I sat behind this microphone this morning and the first caller, I repeated something like that to them.

Imagine if I said to them, "go back to your own country".

Not once, not twice, but three times.

Imagine if I said they couldn't possibly understand democracy because they weren't born here, they were born somewhere else.

I'd quite rightly be fired.

There'd be outrage.

I'd be on the front cover of the Post. I would be.

There'd be calls for my organisation to do a public apology.

Yet that is exactly what New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters said in Parliament toGreen MP Dr. Lawrence Xu-Nan.

So when I saw this story yesterday, I genuinely worried whether I'd missed something.

I thought to myself, boy, this is going to be an outcry, boy this is going to be big.

Have suddenly world rules changed? Or do they just actually apply to some people?

I don't want people jumping on me here and telling me that I'm having a crack at Winston Peters and this is all about me and Winston Peters.

I'll be clear. I often agree with Winston Peters and on some issues I think he's 100% right. But that's not the point.

The point is whether the standards we expect in public life apply equally to everyone in every situation.

I've spent decades employing people in hospitality. I've had chefs and staff from all over the world.

Like any employer, I've had disagreements and difficult conversations.

But can you just imagine if I turned around to one of my chefs and said, "go back to your own country".

You don't understand democracy, that's where they lie like a flat fish.

Can you imagine what the Employment Relations Authority would have done to me?

Once again, front page of the paper.

I would have been dragged through the system and my reputation would be gone.

Fortune and legal fees and quite possibly my business.

No employer in New Zealand would get away with saying that to an employee.

So why does it seem different when it's said by one of the country's most senior politicians?

Does parliamentary privilege allow too much?

Dr. Xu-Nan has lived in New Zealand since 1994.

He arrived here as a child, went to school here.

Yet Winston Peters told him to go back to your own country.

Claimed he'd only been here 5 minutes, suggested he knew little about democracy because he was born in China and later doubled down outside the debating chamber calling him an "arrogant twit".

Now forget about whether you like the Greens or Dr. Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Forget about whether you vote Green, National, Labour or New Zealand First.

Ask yourself one question.

If another politician had said exactly those words about someone born overseas, would their reaction have been the same?

Because it seems to me that we've reached a point where we can judge comments not by what is said, but who says them.

Now, Parliament should be the place where ideas are challenged and politics are debated.

It shouldn't be a matter where someone was born.

If you've chosen New Zealand, made your life here and earned your place in Parliament, then challenge the arguments, not whether they belong here.

For me, this isn't about Winston Peters.

It's about consistency.

Either go back to your own country as acceptable in New Zealand politics or it isn't.

Either we have one standard for everyone or we don't.

Maybe you'll tell me it was just the heat of parliamentary debate.

Maybe you'll say he was justified and that's fine.

But I look at this and think if almost anyone else had said those words, anyone, in a workplace, a school, a radio station, or even having a heated argument over something like road rage.

Imagine if I had a road rage this afternoon and said, go back to your own country. Do you think I'd be here tomorrow morning?

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