Sir Peter Wilfred Tapsell KNZM MBE FRCS FRCSEd (21 January 1930 – 5 April 2012) was Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996.

Therefore, Prime Minister Jim Bolger decided to offer the Speaker's position to a member of the Labour Party, thereby retaining the crucial vote.

[citation needed] Despite many objections from his Labour Party colleagues, Tapsell opted to accept the position.

Peters claimed that his objection was on behalf of the incumbent Speaker, long-serving National MP Robin Gray, who had expected to resume his duties but was now being "cast aside" for political reasons.

[citation needed] In the 1996 election, however, Tapsell lost the electorate, now called Te Tai Rawhiti, by 4215 votes to New Zealand First's Tuariki Delamere, one of the Tight Five.

[13] In the 1997 New Year Honours, Tapsell was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for public services, lately as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

[15] In 2006, Tapsell spoke at an event with Hak Ja Han, wife of Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, and praised their teaching of a "concept of the ideal family as comprising a father, a mother, children and grandparents" living together in a three generation extended family, as being "very Māori.