Labour leader Chris Hipkins has ruled out working with NZ First after the election, saying its "overt racism" makes governing arrangements impossible and that none of his MPs want anything to do with Winston Peters' party.
Speaking to media at Parliament, Hipkins confirmed his party's caucus met and discussed the issue in the past week. He said they were unanimous in the decision.
"There was not a single person in the Labour team who thought that we should be open to working with NZ First, given their recent behaviour," he said.
"Winston Peters and Shane Jones have made their own positions untenable."
The announcement followed weeks of pressure on Hipkins to firm up his position after Peters told a Chinese-born Green MP to "go back to your own country", prompting calls for him to be sacked as Foreign Affairs Minister.
The Foreign Minister last week told the Greens’ Lawrence Xu-Nan to “go back to where you’ve come from”. (Source: 1News)
Speaking to media last week, Hipkins had gone only as far as to say it was "highly unlikely" Labour would end up working with Peters following November's election.
The NZ First leader himself has previously criticised Labour and the media for continuing with the issue, saying his own party had ruled out Labour long ago.
But Hipkins said today the behaviour of Peters' party had "continued to escalate" with recent incidents and that it was emboldening racism against migrant communities.
"I've heard first hand from migrant communities in New Zealand – Chinese community, the Indian community, other migrant communities – who are being subject to more and more overt racism that's being emboldened by NZ First," he said.
"Winston Peters has ruled us out. I'm happy to rule him out. It's clearly not going to happen ... I'm not going to put up with overt racism in any government I lead".
Peters has previously complained loudly about the perception of indecision by Labour.
In a tweet last week, he said: "The only thing THICKER than Chris Hipkins ruling me out TWELVE MONTHS AFTER I RULED HIM OUT is the low IQ media who report it."
Peters added today: "Why the media aren’t lambasting him for 'ruling NZ First out' after we ruled him out four years ago, then again twelve months ago, and repeatedly done so every month when answering the same stupid questions, is beyond a joke."
Last week, Hipkins had said Peters "cannot be Minister of Foreign Affairs" but repeatedly declined to give a flat rule-out when pressed, saying he would "set out the principles" on which Labour would approach post-election deals closer to the campaign.
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