Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has been kicked out of Parliament

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has been kicked out of Parliament after complaining to the Speaker that politicians were “not playing tiddlywinks.”

Peters, who was already in Speaker Trevor Mallard’s bad books after an earlier warning on Tuesday, on Thursday afternoon attempted to ask a supplementary question of associate education minister Kelvin Davis during question time to draw attention to a breakthrough in negotiations with teachers, which he said hinged on pay parity being achieved.

This was rebuffed by Mallard, who had just ruled out that very topic as a line of questioning.

Peters was ordered by Mallard to stand withdraw and apologise, which he did, but then took a point of order to query Mallard’s ruling.

“To quote Tana Umaga: We are not playing tiddlywinks here. Pay parity was destroyed by the previous administration having been put in there by a former Government of which I was a member,” Peters said.

“This is politics, and people need to hear it.”

This led to Mallard booting Peters from the house for continuing to argue with the speaker.

The rest of his caucus walked out with him.

Speaking to media after being booted out Peters said he was “not going to stand back and have a speaker not knowing what I know and not knowing why I asked it – it’s about politics and the people of this country will be very interested to know that the teacher’s strikes will be off.”

“I got up to make sure the information got out there.”

Asked if he thought Mallard had been unfair, he said “take a wild guess”.

Peters was a teacher before becoming a politician, among other careers.

This is far from the first time Peters has been kicked out of Parliament. He was booted out earlier in this term of government after saying deputy speaker Anne Tolley’s running of the house was a “darn disgrace.”