Act leader David Seymour<\/a> this week suggested: \u201cThey don\u2019t even know why they oppose it\u201d. <\/p>\nBut New Zealand First\u2019s Mark Patterson says he has had a \u201cconga line\u201d of experts, including employers, through his office to explain why the bill was flawed and could reduce worker safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there has ever been a case that we step back and reassess after listening to feedback to the select committee, this is it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe risks of getting this wrong are high.\u201d<\/p>\n
National\u2019s criticism of coalition partners is high-level and calculated.<\/p>\n
National campaign chair Simeon Brown controversially used the platform of the party\u2019s annual conference to describe Act and New Zealand First as squabbling children, to which offence has been taken by Seymour and Peters.<\/p>\n
Of New Zealand First, Brown said outright, \u201cYou just can\u2019t trust them\u201d.<\/p>\n
It is generally recognised that Luxon has held his tongue for most of the term and put up with criticisms, overt or veiled, from partners, New Zealand First in particular.<\/p>\n
But that tactic was dropped earlier this year when it became clear that New Zealand First\u2019s support was growing at National\u2019s expense. <\/p>\n
Peters also stepped into normally no-go areas to comment on leadership issues inside National. He criticised Luxon for putting his leadership to the vote in a bid to cauterise internal rumblings.<\/p>\n
He referred to it as a \u201csort of ego trip\u201d on 1News.<\/p>\n
But perhaps the biggest fall-out between partners occurred in April after Peters released sensitive emails, as Foreign Minister, under the Official Information Act to Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan \u2013 ahead of alerting the PM\u2019s office about their release. <\/p>\n
![\"Prime]()
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon accused Foreign Minister Winston Peters of putting politics ahead of the national interest. Photos\/ NZME<\/p>\n
That prompted a visit by Luxon from the Ninth Floor to Peters\u2019 seventh-floor office for a \u201cplease explain\u201d.<\/p>\n
The emails were damaging to the PM in that they suggested that Luxon had initially wanted to express support for the United States\u2019 bombing of Iran. Soon after the email release, Peters said there had been a mistake in the process of the release, then he said there hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
In an unusually strong statement, Luxon said Peters had not only mischaracterised his position on the Middle East conflict, but had \u201cclearly put politics ahead of the national interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
And that was also when Willis first characterised Peters as \u201cconfused\u201d.<\/p>\n
Willis said Peters seemed \u201cvery, very confused\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is to say he won\u2019t have a bout of similar confusion in the coalition talks?\u201d <\/p>\n
Confusion is a perfect word with which to needle Peters. <\/p>\n
On the face of it, it is a relatively mild criticism but in the context of Peters being aged 81, it has a decidedly different meaning. <\/p>\n
And in that context, \u201cconfusion\u201d is designed to undermine trust in New Zealand First, despite Peters\u2019 assurances that his party would not form a Government with Labour.<\/p>\n
The public is mature enough to know that a coalition cannot be expected to be unified in the way a political party should be.<\/p>\n
But what initially looked to be a healthy development of MMP has escalated into an ongoing slanging match that strains coalition relationships privately and publicly.<\/p>\n
That is likely to be unattractive to the voting public.<\/p>\n
In their own self-interest, it has reached a stage at which the coalition parties should sensibly be discussing a truce or at least setting themselves some parameters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, the intensity of the disputes is escalating. And the complaints about other parties are not simply about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,3595,73814,7230,30620,15453,182929,30271,99152,41305,31181,3556,111,43,139,69,6729,21643,4504,3010,27630],"class_list":["post-504668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-by","tag-calculated","tag-coalition","tag-confused","tag-elderly","tag-escalate","tag-figures","tag-insult","tag-insults","tag-labelled","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peters","tag-politician","tag-theres","tag-top","tag-word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}