Trade Minister Todd McClay stood up in Parliament and apologised to Green MP Ricardo Menendez March after allegedly saying “you’re not in Mexico now, we don’t do things like that here” while March was speaking.

Other MPs, including Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi and Green MP Teanau Tuiono, who sit closer to McClay, confirmed what March had heard. March was born in Mexico.

Speaking to media after Question Time, March said he thought the remarks were “pretty racist and unacceptable”.

“The National Party has people from migrant communities as well and I think someone who represents us on the world stage should not be saying things like that,” he said.

March heard the remarks when they were made and could be heard saying “are you serious?” He asked McClay to repeat what he had said.

Some moments later, he raised the matter with Speaker Gerry Brownlee.

“I just wanted to raise a matter that I took personal offence to,” March said.

Brownlee asked McClay, “was that an interjection that was offered across the House?

“If it was I would suggest he might withdraw and apologise,” Brownlee said.

McClay stood up, withdrew the remark and apologised.

He has not responded tot he Herald’s requests for comments. McClay interjected during a point of order, raised by March, that took issue with Children’s Minister Karen Chhour for allegedly not addressing the questions asked of her, as she is required to do during Question Time.

The interjection did not make much sense as March was calling for a greater level of ministerial accountability, whereas Mexico tends to be known for relatively low levels of executive accountability relative to New Zealand. Sustainable Governance Indicators published in 2022 New Zealand ranked 16th in the world for the quality of its executive accountability, while Mexico ranked 35th.

Mexico is a membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a solid, if minor, trade partner of New Zealand. It is neither perfidious, like the United States, nor disputatious, like Canada, with whom New Zealand has locked horns over dairy access. Exports were worth $319 million in 2019 and grew to $635m by 2023.

McClay is currently seeking access to the Pacific Alliance where it is currently just an “observer”. Trade negotiations to become an “associate member” launched in 2017 by New Zealand’s then-Trade Minister who happened to be McClay who himself visited the country that year. The Pacific Alliance is a bloc of four countries that includes Mexico.

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.