As Christopher Luxon walked around taking in the festivities today, about 50 protesters followed behind bearing signs reading "there is no pride in genocide".
In video footage of the incident, protesters can be heard yelling "blood on your hands" as Luxon refuses to engage with them.
The annual Pride event is being held today in Coyle Park as a celebration for Rainbow communities and their allies.
At a media standup this morning, Luxon said he was looking forward to going to the Big Gay Out and felt comfortable there.
"I went there last year. I loved it. Talk to the Rainbow community and what are they fixated on at the moment? Rebuilding the economy, restoring law and order, and delivering better health and education."
He began his visit by speaking to supporters, but attendees quickly gathered and followed him around the festival for at least five minutes.
RNZ political reporter Katie Scotcher said the exchanges became quite heated, with at least one attendee shouting directly in Luxon's face.
Protesters were chanting "free Palestine" and "blood on your hands".
After this morning's State of the Nation speech, Luxon had defended the coalition government's planned changes to sexuality and relationship education guidelines.
New Zealand First - one of the three coalition parties - had campaigned on removing "gender ideology" from the curriculum. The guidelines were first introduced in 2020 by then-NZ First MP and associate education minister Tracey Martin.
"We will always have sex education in New Zealand schools. It's so critical, so important.
"Parents have a responsibility and a role to play in that as well."
The curriculum should be age-appropriate and parents needed to be consulted, Luxon said.
Schools had been interpreting the guidelines differently and there needed to be consistency in delivering the curriculum across the country.
An expert panel would be working on the changes to the guidelines, he said.
PM makes strongest remarks on Israel since war began
Last week, Luxon said the Government was extremely concerned about Israel’s actions in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza and had conveyed its position to Israel - that its operation there should not proceed.
He said Israel had moral and legal obligations to uphold, comments that amount to his strongest remarks on Israel since the war began in October.
"Palestinian civilians cannot pay the price of Israel trying to defeat Hamas," he said at his post-Cabinet press conference.
"There are 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah at the moment. We are extremely concerned about that."
He said Foreign Minister Winston Peters was conveying to the Israelis New Zealand’s position: "That they do not proceed with operations in Rafah."
Peters met Israeli ambassador Ran Yaakoby in the Beehive earlier in the week - although the meeting had been pre-arranged and the ambassador was not "called in" by Peters.
Israel has begun airstrikes on the city despite a plea from US President Joe Biden made in a phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which he expressed grave concern over the rising civilian death toll - put at 28,000 by the health ministry in Gaza.
According to Reuters, Netanyahu’s office said it had ordered the military to develop a plan to evacuate Rafah and destroy four Hamas battalions it says are deployed there.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu made remarks that were interpreted as defying the International Court of Justice’s power.
"Nobody will stop us — not The Hague [the base of the International Court of Justice], not the [Iranian-led] axis of evil and not anybody else," Netanyahu said.
"The hypocritical onslaught at The Hague against the state of the Jews that arose from the ashes of the Holocaust ... is a moral low point in the history of nations," he said.
Gaza’s health ministry has said this week the death toll in the conflict has topped 24,000.
The conflict began after Hamas terrorists entered Israel on October 7, killing 1200 and taking over 200 hostages. — RNZ/The New Zealand Herald
