Winston Peters has been accused of "pure racism" in Aotearoa/New Zealand's parliament after the Māori conservative singled out a Green MP by disparaging his Rarotongan heritage.

Condemnation of the seasoned politician came following question time on Wednesday when the MP Teanau Tuiono used the Māori term of Aotearoa to refer to New Zealand while asking a minister about the government's position on climate aid in the Pacific.

The reference had Mr Peters, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, interject and demand, "Why is (the minister) answering a question from someone who comes from Rarotonga to a country called New Zealand?"

The speaker of the house was forced interrupt Mr Peters to object to the noise from rowdy MPs inside the Wellington chamber.

After government MPs failed to combat or challenge Mr Peters' assertion, the culmination sparked outrage and uproar in the House of Representatives.

Mr Tuiono, who is of Cook Island Māori of traditional Atiu origin and New Zealand Māori of Ngāpuhi and Ngai Takoto iwi tribes, was born and raised in Auckland, and spent two years of his life on Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands.

Mr Peters, the leader of the New Zealand First Party, one of three parties to hold power in the current Coalition government, is descended from Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi from his father and of Clan MacInnes Scottish ancestry on his Pākehā, non-Polynesian, on his mother's side.

In parliament, Opposition leader Chris Hipkins, as head of the Labour party, leapt to his feet at Mr Peters' remarks, attacking government MPs for not calling out the tone of the language, while lambasting speaker Gerry Brownlee for not enforcing discipline over the line of questioning.

"Members in this house are equal," Mr Hipkins, the former Prime Minister of the country, said.

"For a member of the house to stand up and to question whether someone is entitled to ask a question because of their country of origin is pure racism, and you should've stopped him in the beginning."

Labour had previously been in private talks with New Zealand First, Mr Peters' party, ahead of this year's upcoming general election over the possibility of reforming a coalition, should the current Opposition fail to garner the numbers at the polls towards a possible majority government.

Despite Mr Hipkins's verbal barrage, Mr Peters was unrepentant, and continued his questioning.

"How can somebody from another country who's come to New Zealand decide to change my country's name?" he said.

Mr Brownlee responded by saying it was "not an acceptable question at all".

"I want that to be the last time those sorts of questions are directed so personally at members of this house," the speaker said.

The heated debate follows many opposition MPs recently calling out government MPs for their "ugly side" of politics, including frequent accusations of "scapegoating" migrants over the worth of Pasifika people and other foreign cultures to the country.

Addressing the media later, Mr Tuiono accused Mr Peters of fighting "culture wars" while confusing his Cook Islander heritage with his Kiwi nationality.

"Just like Trump, (Peters is) not very good with geography," Mr Tuiono said.

"He just needs to get an atlas - a bilingual one, preferably."

Mr Peters has previously been accused, which he has never publicly denied, of being unable to speak the Māori language.

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand also accused Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, the leader of the National Party majority in the coalition government, of falling silent in parliament and failing to censure Mr Peters.

Mr Tuiono's party has gone to great lengths to support Māori culture, voting to change its co-leadership model this year to require one of its two leaders be Māori, while mandating the other must be female.

ACT New Zealand leader David Seymour — the libertarian third party of the nation's coalition government — and Deputy Prime Minister called his own cabinet colleague's actions as simply just "seeking attention".

"Do I like those comments? No. Would I make those comments? No," Mr Seymour said.

"But I think if we all go on a 2019-style witch-hunt, we're actually just fuelling it."

Outside parliament, Mr Peters repeated claimed "somebody from another country" had no right to change New Zealand's name without the permission of the people, despite Māori people calling the land Aotearoa for several centuries prior to the arrival of British colonisation.

The Cook Islands, called in Cook Islander Māori as Kūki 'Airani, remains self-governing in free association with New Zealand while its residents hold the country's citizenship.

On that issue, Mr Peters believed Mr Tuiono regularly claimed to be a "Cook Islander" and not a New Zealander.

"I would never go to the Cook Islands and start changing their name, would I?" he said.