NZ Deputy Leader Decries ‘Separatist Hate-Filled’ Speech by Māori Party MP

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters—and leader of one of the three government coalition parties, New Zealand First—has condemned a speech by a Māori Party MP that accused the government of intending to “exterminate Māori.” Speaking in the General Debate on May 1, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, who represents the Māori electorate of Te Tai Tokerau, began her speech by saying “No matter my words today, the government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori.” In an X post yesterday, Mr. Peters—who is of Scots and Māori ancestry—characterised the accusation as an “ignorant and offensive,” adding that it left “little to the imagination about the mindset of Kapa-Kingi, her party, and the rest of her fellow cultural travellers—she doesn’t care about what she said, how offensive it is, or how bereft of fact it is.”...