Labour leader Chris Hipkins has ruled out working with Winston Peters and New Zealand First after the next election, declaring the New Zealand First leader cannot serve as foreign affairs minister in any government he leads.

Hipkins said Peters' position as foreign affairs minister was completely untenable following an incident in the House last Wednesday in which Peters responded to heckling by telling Green MP Lawrence Xu-nan to go back to his "own country." Hipkins said Peters could not credibly represent New Zealand on the world stage and could not continue in the foreign affairs role. He called on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to sack Peters, arguing it was untenable for Peters to remain in the role while attacking foreigners The Post.

The remark to Xu-nan, who is Chinese-born, drew a pointed response from China's ambassador, adding a diplomatic dimension to what began as an exchange across the chamber floor RNZ. Peters, as minister, had separately told reporters he was not concerned by China's new ethnic unity law, stressing it has no power or authority in New Zealand RNZ.

Hipkins said he had ruled out working with Peters and New Zealand First before the last election and had not regretted it. He said New Zealand First could not be worked with at the last election and nothing had changed to make it more likely at the coming election. He pointed to behaviour by Peters and fellow NZ First MP Shane Jones, including what he described as Jones' racist comments towards Indians in recent months, as incompatible with the sort of government he wants to lead RNZ.

Luxon, for his part, spoke to Peters about the comments but stopped short of ruling him out as a future foreign affairs minister, saying it was not his job as a spokesperson to do so RNZ. That is a notably different register from Hipkins' outright exclusion, and it leaves the coalition's position on Peters' ministerial future at arm's length from the Opposition leader's demand.

Hipkins' announcement crystallises a position he has been building toward publicly for some time. In his speech to the Labour Party Conference in December 2024, he told delegates he had ruled out working with Peters and that Labour would restore New Zealand's proudly independent foreign policy Labour Party. Around the same time, he stated that a government he leads will not join pillars one or two of AUKUS, citing New Zealand's fiercely independent foreign policy Labour Party. Peeni Henare took over Labour's foreign affairs portfolio in May 2025 Labour Party, though the party's spokesperson page also lists Vanushi Walters in the role Labour Party.

The relationship between Hipkins and Peters has been strained throughout the term. Peters ruled out working with Hipkins "permanently" in May 2025, a statement Hipkins pushed back on at the time RNZ. A month earlier, Hipkins said Peters and Luxon should "grow up" and sort out New Zealand's response so they stop "embarrassing" the country RNZ. In March 2025 the pair traded barbs after Peters accused Labour of abandoning workers RNZ.

The broader context here is that Hipkins has now attached two distinct propositions to the Peters question: a governance proposition (Labour will not enter coalition with NZ First) and a personnel proposition (Peters specifically cannot hold the foreign affairs portfolio). The first has been Labour's stated position since before the 2023 election. The second is newer and more pointed, tying the foreign affairs role directly to Peters' conduct in the House and the diplomatic fallout from his remarks to Xu-nan. By naming Jones' comments toward Indians as part of the same pattern, Hipkins is framing NZ First's behaviour as a systemic issue rather than a single incident, which raises the stakes for any party weighing post-election negotiations with Peters.

For Luxon, the calculation is different. He governs with Peters as a coalition partner and needs NZ First votes to pass legislation. His response, treating the comments as a private conversation between the two of them rather than a matter for prime ministerial discipline, reflects that constraint. Whether that position holds as the diplomatic reverberations continue is the question that will shape the next phase of this story.