The Prime Minister and Opposition leader have both called for debate to cool down, after a Te Pāti Māori MP said the Government's policy changes were effectively trying to "exterminate Māori".
But Te Pāti Māori co-leaders are backing their MP - with one calling it a "brilliant speech".
Te Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi made the comments in a speech to the House last Wednesday, during a debate on the Government's proposed scrapping of a key part of the Oranga Tamariki Act - section 7AA.
"No matter my words today, the Government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori," Kapa-Kingi told the House.
She said the Government wants to remove tamariki Māori from their whānau and iwi.
"I might be tempted to change tone and say pai ana [no worries], get rid of Section 7AA, and while you're at it get rid of the entire Act and the rotten institution that is Oranga Tamariki, which should in fact be named Matenga Tamariki [the death of children] because it and its predecessor has only caused strife and ruin," she said.
Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act requires the Crown to consider the whakapapa and mana of tamariki when deciding where to place them - also requiring adherence to Treaty of Waitangi principles.
"The theory of the Minister is that Oranga Tamariki's governing principles should be colour-blind, which is just another word for white supremacy, because to say we are all one people is really to say we should all be white people," Kapa-Kingi added.
Now, National and Labour say Kapa-Kingi went too far.
On Tuesday, PM Christopher Luxon told reporters Kapa-Kingi's speech was "completely out of line" and "unhelpful".
"As I've said a few weeks ago, the rhetoric needs to calm down big time, across the whole of the political spectrum," he said.
"We genuinely, as a Government, are wanting to advance outcomes for Māori."
And Labour leader Chris Hipkins agreed, saying Kapa-Kingi's language "isn't helpful".
"It's certainly not language that I agree with," he told reporters on Tuesday.
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters also chimed in, saying Kapa Kingi's speech was "offensive" on Monday.
"They don't want democracy, they want anarchy - headed by their Māori elitist cronies turning this country into something akin to apartheid," Peters wrote on X.
"It shows just how far down the 'race-based rabbit hole' these cultural Marxists are willing to take New Zealand and how the media have let them get away with it," he said.
Meanwhile, Labour's Māori development spokesperson Willie Jackson said he probably wouldn't have used the same turn of phrase as Kapa-Kingi.
"I think that was probably just some rhetoric that they were getting into," Jackson said on Tuesday.
But Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi backed Kapa-Kingi on Tuesday, saying her speech had "absolutely the right wording".
"We will not be told or determined how to feel, and many of the policy changes that this Government is making absolutely makes us feel like there's huge extermination processes and policies of the very existence of tangata whenua of this country," Waititi told reporters.
Waititi said it was a "brilliant speech" and recommended people watch it in full to understand Kapa-Kingi's extracted comments.
"We're in a Westminster House and system, which is white supremacy. It's not Māori supremacy, is it?"
Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer agreed.
"I think it's important to remember that 85 percent of Māori didn't vote for this Government, or their coalition partners. None of them have a mandate to be able to represent Māori views," she told reporters.
"People don't like grassroots language."
