Speaking from outside Parliament this morning, National's outgoing MP for Banks Peninsula Vanessa Weenink said New Zealand was "getting quite fed up with what seems to be a bit of bickering and fighting, and they just actually want to get on with the real issues".
"They don't really care whether it's Chris or Chris. It's disappointing all around for them," she said.
Weenink said "people in that electorate were telling me literally that they hate us" while she was on the campaign trail in Banks Peninsula.
"Like they really got to that point. There were people there telling us that literally hate us, and then other people would tell us that 'look, you guys have lost your way. You used to be much more reasonable, and you're listening far too much to those other people in your coalition'," she said.
She said there was a "risk is that the party might be pulled too far to the right".
"The risk is that they'll feel like they really have to consolidate with their base. You know, it's really important that we have a really clear direction and all of that. That's what I would worry about – is that they think that actually the really important people in New Zealand are people that they listen to in their bowling clubs and gentlemen's clubs of New Zealand," she said.
"I think Mike Yardley called me a squishy centrist, and yeah, I would worry for the party that they don't have enough squishy centrists or you know woke liberals like Chris Bishop, or all those people that Goldie would call 'woke'."
Weenink was previously a member of the Labour Party.
She also said she had been approached by Opportunity to run for the party before the election, in the Banks Peninsula electorate.
"If you look at the numbers in Banks Peninsula, they're quite interesting. Like Banks Peninsula is a fascinating electorate itself, and 10% of the party vote went to the Opportunity Party, and they very, very inconveniently didn't have a candidate there. If they'd had a candidate in Banks Peninsula, I think it would have made a much more close race," she said.
"I mean, Opportunity is a really interesting party. They actually asked me to run in the Banks Peninsula campaign for this recent election. I mean, I laughed my head off because that's the most ridiculous thing that anyone had ever proposed to me," she told 1News.
A reporter asked "when did they approach you?"
She replied: "Oh, last year, or was it earlier this year? Sometime. And it was ridiculous. I mean, I had an email from Q Wong, which I just ignored because I thought that's just the most stupid thing.
"But then one of them rang me up and said, 'hey, we think you'd be really great running in Banks Peninsula', and I just I actually thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever heard."
The morning's headlines in 90 seconds including Russell Brand's jailed, and how a robot fared against marathon runners in Antarctica. (Source: Breakfast)
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