Winston Peters: Deputy Prime Minister on the slipping standards in Parliament after the c-word incident

Winston Peters says behaviour in Parliament has become degrading. 

It comes after a recommendation three Te Pati Māori MPs be suspended for their haka in the house, and Minister Brooke van Velden said the c-word. 

Yesterday he launched a broadside on X against the actions taken in Parliament, saying the House of Representatives has become a House of Chaos. 

The Deputy Prime Minister told Mike Hosking standards have slipped, and it's the Speaker's job to rein it in. 

He says the rot started under former Speaker Trevor Mallard, when he loosened dress standards. 

“As Steven Maharey, the former MP and Minister from Palmerston North said, once you let down dress and other standards, everything else will be let down as well and to be debased – and that’s exactly what’s happened.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are we reaching, I ask you this Friday morning in
Nadia as a country in a week where we still
set records for young people leaving a parliament which has
circus like qualities and behavior and a lack of respect
for the institution that those of us who've been around
a while have not witnessed before. Not to mention a
media that apparently allows now any level of low rent
language that passes for reported your opinion. Now, Winston Peter's,

(00:22):
having had his head literally in his hands, is calling
it a house of chaos, of course, and Winston Peters
is with us. Very good morning, Good morning. Got a
view on Jerry Brownlee yesterday in his reaction to that
ruling from the Privileges Committee and how we're going to
have a debate of hundreds of people offering up amendments
that will last but lord knows how long.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yes, I do, but it's not vice for me to
express it on this program. I intend to do something
about it that you don't mind. I don't want to
talk about it on this program, fair enough. Put this way,
that's the Select Committee in a very truncated process because
they wouldn't turn up, of course, enormous delays has come
to a decision. That's for the House to endorse it otherwise,

(01:05):
And this idea of hours and hours and days and
days and weeks and everyone having a chance of talking
more than once and move a members is in my
view plainly wrong. That's his father want to go.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I was bitterly disappointed and I think less album for it.
Am I wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Look, the reality is that every speaker should remember that
they are Parliament's person. And this whole thing started as
a rot under Mallied when he, having got the job,
decide he's going to post his own views. People went
required to wear tires, weren't trud to be formal. All
sorts of things happened. You were sitting in the chair
holding your babies to try and him to make that

(01:43):
he's a family friendly. All the stuff as crap, you know, frankly,
and it is really crap inste grating And as Stephen Maharry,
the former MP and minister from Palmerson North said, once
you less down dress and other standards, everything else will
be let down as well and based and that's exactly
what's happened. It's not Look, this is a place where

(02:04):
was the raging battle for political power's emotional and a
lot of language has been using the past, which has
been hurtful, but it also has been oratorical. It's very
much talunted based or I'm not talking about that. I'm
talking about words of filth and things like that now
and behavior that matches that as well.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
That word aside, Did van Velden do the right thing?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
You think? Of course she did? I just wished she
had said it's an explicit deleted the word, I can't say,
but to have used it. Now, where do you go
from there?

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well? Nowhere? Because you're rich bottom TANESSI does she carry
the can for asking it and firing it up?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yes, but also her leader carries the can and he
says they made a mistake. It was a bit late.
Now didn't they read and see what Andrew Advance had written?
And I can only assume that your three seats that
when when she wrote that, Yeah, but it was cleared
the Yes, I know, I know, but here's the point.

(03:09):
It actually, I'm told went to the clerk's office. There's
a lot of we haven't found out yet. No, but
it was when I think I thought, when Brooke wrote
that she must have should he asked someone what do
you think because that used that word? It's not that
it's somebody else's word. No, you've now used it and
put it on the done record here.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's weird the but you try. I mean, we're getting
into the weeds here a little bit for people who
don't watch a question time. But but it was you,
Bishop n Jones who tried to argue with Brownlee again
that the question shouldn't be asked. And you've ultimately proven
to be correct, haven't you.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I believe so and likely and we also we
also specified the standing order with precision as to what
applied there. And yes, we're not happy at all, and
we're going to be raising this matter further.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Do you worry? I mean this brings in the business
of the kids leaving, young people leaving the country as well,
in this malaise we face. Do you worry? And I'll
include myself in this that we're old and in being old,
I mean you're older than me, obviously, but in being.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Old, you shouldn't. It's obvious.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
In being old, we just sound like old farts and
we don't get the modern way and we should move on.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Well, that's all very fashionable and chkh and very updated.
But only thing about that it's wrong. The great things
we've got in our society, a Christian background, the law
that's been refined. These things are the exception worldwide and
the exception down through the thousands of years of humanity.

(04:45):
Now what we've got is the refinement a lot of
people's works, and we're the lucky innerratives of it. Was
not old fashioned at all. It's unlike other society where
things are organized despotism and anarchy. We have got something
good here worth this preserving. And as a Mari since
eighteen sixty seven, Mari have been coming in and we've

(05:05):
accepted all of these things and all these rules all
this time until this lattice bunch of the Maripaid not
originally not better Shaples, not to Antonio, not Jimbo Flaveel. No,
this new bunch turns up and says the whole lots
of that crap, and we don't give it down. What
the rules are, and we'll do what's like and they're
going to find out the answers. I know you won't.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Broadly, in reference to the people leaving the country and
the ongoing number of people leaving the country, particularly young people.
Are you, as a government and a senior member of
that government, are you finding this? I mean, how do
you deal with this day? I'm quite depressed about it all.
I find it seems harder than perhaps first thought.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, you're entirely right, but the reality is we have
as a country where we once were having people going
overseas for oi was usual was two or three is
and then coming home. They're going and staying and they're
going one way. And the only way to turn that
around is we're going to raise the level of wealth creation,
the level of exports, leable of added value. We've got
to reduce company taxations, pay better waters. There's no short

(06:04):
there's no shortcut to this.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Appreciate you, Tom, You have a good weekend. Winston petersd
Wdy Leader, Foreign Minister, stickler for Standards.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
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