Winston Peters says he doesn’t need to have a relationship with Christopher Luxon to form a government. He tells political editor Jo Moir it's all about trust.
Winston Peters has friends in the Labour Party caucus and insists they exist across the aisle in the National Party too.
“If you can’t make friends across the political divide, you shouldn’t be in Parliament,” he tells Newsroom.
Senior National MPs and former ministers Gerry Brownlee, Mark Mitchell, and Todd McClay are all people Peters has known for a long time.
They’re relationships he's built on mutual respect and being polite to each other.
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On Brownlee, Peters considers him a friend, “to the extent we respect each other – yes, we’ve had our rows, but we still talk to each other politely”.
The same goes for Mitchell and McClay.
As for National leader Christopher Luxon, Peters says the former Air New Zealand chief executive hasn’t been around politics long enough for the pair to have a friendship or good relationship.
He’s not mates with, nor does he have a relationship with, Act leader David Seymour, but Peters questions why that would be considered “unusual” when they’re leaders of different parties.
He says speculation they can’t stand each other is just “scaremongering and panicking”.
The New Zealand First leader, freshly back from Christchurch after taking part in The Press debate on Tuesday night, sat down with Newsroom at a Ponsonby café on Wednesday.
He’s flat out, on a mission campaigning up until the last minute, he says, before heading to Russell for his election night party.
On current polling New Zealand First would be needed by both the left and right blocs to form a government. Peters and Labour's Chris Hipkins have ruled each other out.
‘That’s the difference. I was governing with the Labour Party for three years and they were chaotic, falling apart, ministers going down left, right, and centre.’ – Winston Peters
Newsroom asks whether a functioning government requires party leaders to have good relationships.
“No, trust matters. You shake somebody’s hand – and as [Jim] Bolger and [Helen] Clark have said, 'He’s someone who keeps his word'.
“You expect to be treated with dignity,” Peters tells Newsroom.
“I treat people with dignity, I hear them out.”
What then of National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop, who warned in a Herald article of a "very real and growing possibility" of a second election if National and Act found it impossible to do a deal with New Zealand First?
Peters is prepared to put all of that to one side, suggesting in Bishop’s case, “there’s always room to learn”.
Would he describe their relationship as bad?
“I don’t think I could say that at all.”
With his eyes on a return to Parliament, and government, Peters says he’ll bring a team to the negotiating table that’s “trained, disciplined, and knows what it’s doing”.
“That’s the difference. I was governing with the Labour Party for three years and they were chaotic, falling apart, ministers going down left, right, and centre.
“We were rock solid and got no credit for it whatsoever,” he said.
Though there are some similarities between National, Act, and New Zealand First in policy areas such as law and order, the big difference is on raising the age of superannuation.
Both National and Act are proposing to lift it to 67, with Act’s intention to do it faster than National.
Peters’ whole political platform would fall apart if he were part of a government that did so.
He insists there’s no need to raise the pension age if you get the economy growing and pay for superannuation through improved productivity.
“The argument about the cost of it is because they have failed to show how they’ll take New Zealand back to the first world status it once had.”
Peters also says you can’t bind future governments, so when National says it will raise the age in 2044, that’s not something it has the power to do.
“I might still be defending superannuitants in 2044," he chuckles.
“That’s their policy but it’s not going to be our policy and it’s not going to be one of their bottom lines in this negotiation, is it? Of course it won’t be.”
On tax cuts, Peters told Newsroom they’re achievable in the next three years.
“We believe they are, if we can turn the economy around fast.”
Economists have poked holes in National’s tax plan, and Peters is on record saying he doesn’t think it’s credible, but he's prepared to look at it.
“I’ve said we will go in with an open mind – show me the spreadsheets that says you can do this," Peters said.
