Peters thumps the tub

When Winston Peters referred to Nazi Germany in a speech and got into a fight with a British punk band, he generated a miasma of ironies.

- Charlotte Grimshaw

It was the sort of confusion that must suit Peters down to the ground. Was he being deliberately vague in at least one of his appearances on TV? You couldn't be sure, because the TV news, with its emphasis on snappy brevity, wasn't the best forum for untangling such a problematic knot.

Reports of Peters' speech seemed garbled at first. It was necessary to go looking online for the comments he said he was referring to. Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi last September had defended the statement in his sports policy in 2022, "It's a known fact that Māori genetic make-up is stronger than others." When asked by Jack Tame on Q+A if this was racist, Waititi denied it was, and added, "It's stronger in me, and I've got a whole lot of genetics in me."