Minor leaders make most of the limelight

If a new immigrant landed at Auckland Airport today, they would be hardpressed to know who is the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

While National leader Christopher Luxon has the keys to the 9th floor office at the Beehive and armed guards attached to his side, it’s the coalition leaders, NZ First’s Winston Peters and Act’s David Seymour, and their lieutenants who are dominating the news headlines.

Peters and his people have had a number of wins in the coalition Government’s six months in office and have escaped relatively unscathed.

Any pushback on cuts to their portfolios are dumped in the lap of National’s Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ Budget bag of tricks.

Even the Smokefree repeal, which was slammed by health workers and pushed through by Associate Health Minister Casey Costello, has seen some appeasement this week after the NZ First MP also unveiled her plans to tackle the vaping industry and shops, which have replaced corner dairies as prefered ram raid targets.

Good win for NZ First.

Then Shane Jones popped his head above the parapet to suggest reopening Marsden Point Refinery.

It’s a pie-in-the-eye policy that grabbed headlines because when the previous Government and the refinery owners decommissioned it in 2022, tradespeople left the area for more sustainable work and the plant sits there like a white elephant.

Whether it operates again or not doesn’t matter but the dream genie is out of the bottle. Another win for NZ First constituents.

And you can never underestimate the master, Peters, who can manufacture a headline at the drop of a state of the nation speech, when he compared “co-governance to the holocaust” then blamed “blatant misreporting”. Some might consider at 78, Peters might be a wee bit forgetful, but nothing could be further from the truth. Peters’ brain capacity is firing on all cylinders.

Seymour made headlines when he took the moral high ground after being spat at during a Palmerston North school protest haka.

Spitting at a person during a haka is accepted within Ma¯ori culture, but tikanga-wise, is it the right thing to do or the right look?

Seymour could have made a big scene over this and spat the dummy but didn’t, so good on him — and good outcome for Act with another golden headline.