Peters: Bad move from Collins and colleagues
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has joined the Green Party and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in scorning National, accusing the party of “undermining democracy”.
He called out National leader Judith Collins for “misrepresenting the constitutional position to the public” when she said yesterday that the Government had broken a wellestablished pre-election practice of consulting with the Opposition ahead of big decisions.
“New Zealanders are sadly being fed a steady stream of misinformation about the pre-election period from the National Party,” Peters said. “Its effect is to sow doubt about the legitimacy of the current government as it focuses solely on protecting the health of New Zealanders.”
Meanwhile, Collins is still upset at the Government for not providing a briefing to National’s health spokesman, Shane Reti.
Speaking to NZME yesterday, Collins said that was “pretty petty” on behalf of the Government — given Reti had been asking consistently for a briefing from officials.
Earlier, Collins was critical of Ardern, saying she had not properly consulted her ahead of the announcement that Auckland was going back into level 3.
But, as Ardern pointed out, this is not quite how the pre-election convention works.
Peters went further saying that there is, in fact, no convention for power-sharing, such as outlined by Collins.
“She should know better. So who is giving her that advice and why is she taking it?”
The current Government continues to have full powers to govern until the election.
“If it wasn’t so malicious and dangerous for our democracy it would merely be sad,” he said.