NZ First's leader took his election campaign tour to the heartland of ACT's David Seymour in Auckland's Epsom and, as Garth Bray writes, the crowd couldn't miss his pointed refusal to utter his opponent's name once.
Winston Peters could be sitting across a Cabinet table from ACT leader David Seymour by year's end but there is clearly beef with his political rival.
"Your local MP" was as close as Peters would come to referring to Seymour at a campaign event in Auckland on Friday.
"Your local MP" has promised $38 billion in government spending cuts, Peters explained, not naming names.
"Your local MP" also has no policy around chasing tax fraud either, Peters enthused.
And in a show of "inexperience", Peters told the crowd, "your local MP", had to revise ACT's alternative budget after Treasury's Pre-Election Fiscal Update showed worse numbers for the Government's books.
The New Zealand First Leader's claims drew applause from a full hall of 150 at the Remuera Club, though some may have noticed one slip when Peters finally named names - referring to "Mr Hide, your local MP".
Former ACT leader Rodney Hide last held Epsom in 2011.
Seymour hasn't hidden his feelings for Peters either, last month saying the New Zealand First leader couldn't "work with anybody".
Peters has been in (mostly) and out of Parliament since 1979.
It's a lot of history and Peters crams most of it into his stump speech, from the Winebox Inquiry to the SuperGold card that gives pensioners free public transport.
The new growth sprouting from that stump speech was getting plenty of cheers and applause at this event; Peters is demanding a separate independent inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic response.
It's unclear whether this would run alongside or instead of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19 Lessons that is already underway.
"A denial of essential freedoms", is how Peters labels the second wave of lockdown measures in 2021, before laying blame for violent unrest outside Parliament in 2022 on MPs who refused to meet with protesters.
"That's why it deteriorated," Peters tells the crowd, acknowledging there was a minority in the protest who he says "misused a worthy cause".
At the time, Parliament's speaker Trevor Mallard gained the support of all parties in Parliament in deciding not to engage in dialogue with the protesters unless they removed structures from the grounds and cleared cars blocking the streets nearby.
NZ First wasn't in Parliament at the time and Peters visited the protest site with former MP Darroch Ball and is still talking the same talk on the campaign trail, weeks from Election Day.
"All we want is to know how to handle [a future pandemic response] better," Peters said before berating media for "gaslighting" him for requesting an inquiry in the first place.
Peters refused to say whether such an inquiry would be one of his non-negotiable items in any coalition negotiation, but he pointed across the Tasman to the Australian inquiry signalled yesterday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a public inquiry into the handling of Covid-19 by his predecessor and opponent Scott Morrison and his administration.
By Garth Bray
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