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A protester from outside Winston Peters’ house was a speaker at the Greens’ press conference
Lloyd Burr
October 6, 2025 • 4:47pm
Acacia O’Connor, spokesperson for Global Movement to Gaza, at the protest outside Winston Peters’ house last week (left) and speaking at today's Green Party press conference with co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.Simon Morrow
A few days ago, Acacia O’Connor was encouraging people to protest outside Winston Peters’ house. Today she fronted at a Green Party press conference. That sent the New Zealand First leader into a stinging attack on Chlöe Swarbrick.
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has launched a blistering attack on Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick after her press conference this morning featured one of the protestors who was chanting outside his house last week.
That person is Acacia O’Connor, spokesperson for Global Movement to Gaza. She was outside Peters’ Auckland home on Thursday, calling him a “disgrace” and sharing his address to encourage others to join.
O’Connor joined the Green Party co-leaders at a press conference today where she spoke alongside
family members of the three New Zealanders detained in Israel after their Gaza aid flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces.
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Last Thursday, she was live on Instagram outside Peters’ house with dozens of pro-Palestine protesters calling on him to do more for the detainees.
“Come on down if you know where we are,” she says, before turning to a friend to ask if she’s allowed to say which street his house is on. She then shares that address.
Protesters were using megaphones and calling Peters a “disgrace to the country” and chanting “shame”.
Acacia O'Connor was live on Instagram outside Peters’ house.Acacia O'Connor
Peters fires up
Peters blasted the protest at the time, and he did so again today after the Greens’ press conference, taking particular aim at Swarbrick.
“Chlöe Swarbrick needs to grow up and get off her ‘holier than thou’ sanctimonious high horse,” he wrote on his multiple social media accounts.
“No one wants to be lectured about morals from someone who knows nothing about what’s going on around the world apart from her own arrogantly-manufactured ideologically-driven political soundbites.
“The rest of us live in the real world and make real world decisions based on facts - not made up from your leftwing hyperbole, faux moral outrage, incessant hand wringing, and exaggerated eye-rolling,” the post said.
He then addressed O’Connor’s presence at the press conference.
“Maybe Chlöe you should call out the protesters who decided to harass me, my household, and my neighbours with loud hailers at night - instead of standing next to one of them and letting her talk at today’s manufactured press conference.
“Your echo chamber might think you’re doing the right thing but the rest of New Zealand can see right through you.”
The Foreign Minister also criticised the three detained Kiwis as “headline hunters” who “knew what they were doing”.
“Now we have to spend all of our time and taxpayer money to solve their self-righteous self-inflicted petulant problems.”
A screenshot of Peters’ rant about Swarbrick.
Swarbrick returns fire
Swarbrick said Peters’ attack on her was a desperate attempt to distract the public from his inaction on freeing the three detainees.
“The focus of the Government should squarely be on ending that genocide, not on people's legal right to protest,” she said.
“Obviously, the co-Deputy Prime Minister is trying to shift responsibility, blame and the story here, and we're not going to allow him to do that. New Zealanders have a legal right to protest. Let's focus on what it is that they were protesting.”
Did she know O’Connor was at last week’s protest when she asked her to be part of the Green Party press conference? Swarbrick wouldn’t give a definitive answer, just that she “wasn't across all of the details” and “there's a lot of different overlap” between protest groups.
“Three New Zealanders are currently being detained by an entity that has had a well-evidenced background of human rights abuses. I would think that the Minister of Foreign Affairs would be focused on upholding the ‘Genocide Convention’ and stopping a rogue state from behaving behaving illegally in international waters,” she said.
Swarbrick was asked if she believed Peters was displaying double-standards after his comments about former Green MP Benjamin Doyle’s private Instagram account, ‘biblebeltbussy’.
Doyle received threats after Peters, the
then deputy prime minister, brought that account to mainstream attention in March. Peters said some of the content could be a matter for police.
Swarbrick said today she didn’t want to get into that.
“I want the story to be squarely focused on the genocide that Israel is currently perpetuating on the people of Gaza, and that our Government has a responsibility to prevent from unfolding. That is the story here, not Winston Peters’ feelings,” she says.
“I want the focus to be squarely on the fact that Israel has illegally taken hostages, and has illegally kidnapped three New Zealanders,” Swarbrick says.
The Israel Foreign Ministry has described the “sole purpose” of the intercepted flotilla as “provocation”.
O’Connor said she had received reports of detainees “having their heads pushed against concrete, of passports being cut up, dislocated shoulders and no access to clean water”.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Sunday that Israel had said all the flotilla passengers were safe, and more checks would occur in the coming days.
“We've [...] conveyed very strongly to the Israeli Government our expectation that New Zealanders and their care is ... completely consistent with international law.”
