Kingmaker Winston recrowned

The most overused noun in New Zealand politics has been resuscitated: the kingmaker is back. For those who missed the endless verbal gymnastics and positioning permutations, Winston Peters restored himself to the position he lost after last year’s decisive election result.

‘‘We’ll be in a three-way fight. The idea this is between National and Labour is all wrong,’’ he told the NZ First convention in Rotorua.

You’ve written off the Greens, will you rule out working with them? ‘‘When have we ever ruled it in?’’

Um, at the last election? ‘‘Not one of you asked that question.’’ Yes, many times. ‘‘Let’s not have a confrontation.’’ Ok, so can you work with the Greens in 2017? ‘‘This convention is not about the Greens.’’

So are you ruling them out? ‘‘Next question please.’’

You blamed the Greens for losing the election so why don’t you stand by your principles? ‘‘We are not going to go through the next few months... talking about some other party.’’

But you brought up a three-way fight? ‘‘Not one of you asked ‘would you support a LabourGreens government’.’’

Are you going to support a Labour-Greens Government in 2017? ‘‘...You are not being fair to the public.’’

Right. Let’s try something else. You said you’d resign if you don’t get tens of thousands of new members? ‘‘Yeah, precisely. There’d be no sense going on.’’ That’s a commitment from you. Tens of thousands or you’re gone? ‘‘Yes’’.

Could we narrow that down – more than 10,000 or you’ll resign? ‘‘No, I said if we don’t increase our membership... Why don’t you ask a straight question?’’ But we did... ‘‘Well maybe I didn’t hear properly...stop your humbug.’’

Quite.