Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
Winston Peters was doing his best to quell concerns there were ructions in the coalition claiming the government was as stable as a “three-legged stool”.
The New Zealand First leader and both National’s leader and deputy all took turns in their Wednesday morning media slots to launch broadsides on their coalition partner before coming together in the afternoon at Parliament to say all was well and stability ensued.
It was Peters who kicked it off on Morning Report saying it would have been wise for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to have told him he was planning to have a vote of confidence in his leadership at National’s caucus meeting on Tuesday.
Peters said the action was “unprecedented” and not one he supported, because it would have consequences.
Within an hour deputy leader Nicola Willis was on Morning Report saying Peters had a “track record of picking Labour over National, and that’s the risk you run with them”.
Luxon was next, using his weekly interview on Newstalk ZB’s The Country to say Peters was the person who put Dame Jacinda Ardern in charge of the country.
He accused his foreign affairs minister of trying to “scaremonger” and having an “anti-immigrant bias”.
By early afternoon, the ministers, on their way to Question Time, one-by-one declared the coalition was as strong as ever, while taking the opportunity for a potshot here and there.
Luxon said he didn’t need to tell Peters he was calling a motion of confidence in National’s caucus, because it wasn’t important enough to warrant it.
Peters’ argument was that under the no-surprises policy of the coalition agreement it would have been “wise” for Luxon to have given him a heads-up.
In response to that Luxon said, “Well, I just say Winston Peters isn’t backing an Indian FTA that’s delivering billions of dollars to the New Zealand people, and as a result, I don’t take all of his advice.”
Luxon added the two parties together with ACT delivered “strong stable government” and in the case of Peters, “we cooperate where we can and we differ where we must”.
Peters told reporters on his way into the House that he wasn’t worrying about Willis and Luxon saying there was a risk New Zealand First could go with Labour.
“We are actually just getting on and doing our job.”
On him having put Ardern into power, he said: “yeah I put Jim Bolger in power too, I put National in power. I put Helen Clark in power. I mean at the end of the day, it the deal that we did and we kept our word”.
He said the suggestion he was “anti-immigrant” was a “nonsense”.
And on whether he was a “mischief-maker” as Willis had claimed, Peters got the giggles as he declared, “I’ve been a most responsible son and boy doing my best all my young age – to call me a mischief-maker, that’s an outrage”.
Just across from him, Willis was at the same time doubling down on her earlier comments telling media it was a “statement of fact” that in 2017 “given the choice to support a strong National-lead government they chose to make Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister”.
“That’s a fact of history, and I’m simply reminding people of that fact.”
She added, when it came to New Zealand First you “won’t always get what’s written on the tin”.
The other coalition partner in all this, ACT, has for the most part stayed out of the tit-for-tat sledging.
Leader and deputy prime minister David Seymour did weigh in on whether New Zealand First might go with Labour though, saying, “it can be a bit of a lucky dip…but right now we are in a coalition, and we’re fixing what matters for New Zealanders”.
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