Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says Winston Peters' remarks towards Chinese-born Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan amount to "inviting a sacking," and warns the behaviour threatens the coalition government itself.

Clark made the comments in an interview with RNZ's Morning Report on Friday, 31 July 2026, days after Peters told Xu-Nan to "go back to your own country" during a parliamentary exchange on Wednesday, 29 July. The exchange, recorded in Hansard, took place during the Presentation of Petitions segment of proceedings.

Peters also told Xu-Nan: "I noticed you came here five minutes ago," and called him "sunshine." He added: "That's where they lie like a flatfish, but they don't lie like that here, all right?" Xu-Nan had asked Peters: "Are you vaccinated?"

Clark told RNZ that Xu-Nan came to New Zealand as a child and has lived here for 32 years. She said Peters' remarks send "a chill right around our migrant communities as to whether people are ever actually going to feel part of, and be welcomed in, New Zealand" (RNZ).

She went further, naming not just Peters but New Zealand First as a party, including Shane Jones. Their behaviour, she said, has "for some time been inviting a sacking, inviting a breakup of the coalition." Clark suggested Peters is both "inviting sacking" and "inviting attention," and warned that saying nothing makes one "seem complicit."

Clark also raised a direct foreign policy concern: Peters, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, cannot effectively manage the relationship with China, New Zealand's largest trading partner, given what he said about a Chinese-born MP.

The remarks have already drawn an international response. China's ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, publicly weighed in, a step the South China Morning Post characterised as "rare." Euronews reported on 30 July that China lodged an official complaint. RNZ's earlier coverage of the ambassador's intervention was published under the headline "China's ambassador weighs in as Winston Peters tells Green MP to go back to your own country" (RNZ).

Domestically, Asian community leaders have condemned Peters' remarks. RNZ, reporting in its Chinese/English section, quoted chief executive Vishal Rishi among those criticising the "go back to your own country" insult (RNZ).

Peters himself has not retreated. In a social media post, he said the outrage "proved his point" and referred to critics as "pearl clutchers and the communist shills."

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has previously criticised Peters for "inappropriate attention-seeking comments" towards Xu-Nan.

The exchange adds to a series of interactions between Peters and Xu-Nan in the House. Hansard records Xu-Nan asking questions on clause 4 of a bill on 28 May 2026, in a session that also referenced Peters and David Seymour (Hansard).

The broader context here is a coalition government under strain. Clark's intervention carries weight not only because she is a former Labour Prime Minister but because she has spoken plainly about the stability of the coalition itself. Her framing — that New Zealand First's behaviour is "inviting a breakup" — puts the onus on the National Party and Luxon to respond, not just to the xenophobic undertones of Peters' language but to the question of whether the coalition's senior partner will tolerate a Foreign Minister whose comments about a New Zealand-born MP have drawn a formal diplomatic complaint from the country he is tasked with managing that relationship.

Clark's decision to link the parliamentary exchange directly to Peters' capacity as Foreign Minister is the sharpest element of her critique. It reframes the incident from an issue of parliamentary conduct into one of fitness for a Cabinet portfolio. That distinction matters: MPs' behaviour in the House is ordinarily managed through Standing Orders and the Speaker, but a Foreign Minister whose words provoke an official complaint from a major trading partner raises questions that sit with the Prime Minister, not the Speaker.

Whether Luxon acts on that distinction, or treats Clark's remarks as political commentary from across the aisle, will signal how much latitude he is prepared to extend to his coalition partner.