Winston Peters kicked out of House after calling Deputy Speaker Anne Tolley's running of debate 'a darn disgrace'

November 27, 2018

The Deputy PM was blasting an opposition member in a debate over the Immigration Minister's u-turn on deporting a Czech drug smuggler. (Source: Other)

Winston Peters, no stranger to being shown the door of Parliament's debating chamber, was kicked out again today after calling Deputy Speaker Anne Tolley's running of a debate over the Czech drug smuggler case "a darn disgrace".

The debate was sparked after Immigration Minister Iain Lees Galloway today announced Czech drug smuggler Karel Sroubek is now liable for deportation following information that wasn't available when he decided earlier to let him stay.

This included new information from InterPol about his convictions, which rendered him a person not entitled to come to New Zealand and which Immigration New Zealand didn't know at the time because Sroubek was using a false identity.

Deputy Prime Minister Peters, defending the Immigration Minister, raised multiple points of order with Ms Tolley.

And he hit back at an opposition MP who interjected during his speech.

"You know so little about these matters, the best thing that member could do would be to hold his mouth shut, breathe with his nose for at least three more terms and he might do something. Here and now nobody knows what he's doing in the first place here. Now back to my point," Mr Peters said.

But Ms Tolley rose to her feet, telling Mr Peters: "That's it, I'm sorry. The member's time has expired. I have given plenty of warnings but that is nothing to do with the topic."

Mr Peters pressed on with another point of order.

"Madam chair, can I just say that you made a ruling at the beginning, you were asked to give some clarity as to how you were making it. You regard the parts of the debate which go to the very core of this debate as being irrelevant. I think that's a darn disgrace."

That was the last straw for Ms Tolley.

"And on that note I'll ask the member to leave the House," she told him.

Earlier, Mr Peters said if you lie to New Zealand's officialdom in a passport or a residency case your long-term permission to be here is always open to question. 

"The moment a discovery like that is made, the original decision to allow someone to stay can be rescinded. That's in our law. That's the matter that I want to put in front of the House today. 

"And we're not going to be brow beaten out of putting the facts out there just because it doesn't suit somebody's ill-formed narrative," he said, addressing the opposition benches.

National has called for the Immigration Minister to resign over the Sroubek case. 

SHARE ME

More Stories