NEW: Hipkins says Labour will not change interest deductibility rules.

I couldn’t believe what happened in the House this week when Te Pāti Māori leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was ordered out for saying the C-word. It was incredibly hypocritical for this Government to suddenly take offence when none of them said a word earlier this year when ACT Minister Brooke van Velden used exactly the same word. There was absolutely no way I was going to sit there and say nothing. It was a shame I was ordered out, but sometimes that’s the sacrifice you make when you want to stand on a point of principle. This nonsense about the Speaker having to call the Sergeant-at-Arms is ridiculous. I didn’t even see him, and I walked out after I had made my point. I would have sat down if the Speaker, Maureen Pugh, had shown me a little respect, but I’m too old now to be yelled at like a kid and told to sit down. And I certainly wasn’t going to sit down or leave just because a bunch of right-wing National Party MPs were screaming at me to do exactly that. No, the double standard was too much. Not one member of National or this Government said a word in the House when Brooke used the same language. It was hypocrisy and I have no regrets about challenging it.