Winston Peters and Q&A host Jack Tame. Photo / TVNZ
Winston Peters and Q&A host Jack Tame. Photo / TVNZ
Opinion by Diana Wichtel
OPINION
David Seymour has a shocking pink Barbie campaign bus. On one of his Tauranga billboards, an anonymous artist has transformed the Act leader into an uncanny likeness of Barbie’s pal, headband-wearing sporty Ken, an image bound to give sensitive citizens unwelcome flashbacks to that Dancing with the Stars twerking.“The greatest piece of billboard vandalism I’ve ever seen!” Seymour beamed, suddenly a little softer on crime. The Prime Minister is campaigning from Covid home isolation. This may be the most 2023 election campaign imaginable.
The David Seymour "Ken" campaign billboard in the Bay of Plenty.
Or not. National’s campaign slogan: “Get NZ Back on Track.” Potential coalition partner, New Zealand First, went for “Let’s Take our Country Back.” Back, back. On his website Winston Peters says, “Right now we are going backwards as a country.” These mantras promise to put things back the way they were, which sounds a lot like … going backwards. For a blast of nostalgia, see NZ First’s “This is not our first rodeo” TikTok, featuring Winnie on a horse, part Marlborough Man, part Southern Man - “Good onya, mate” - from those 1990s Speights ads. Ah, the good old days when men were men and there were no road signs in te reo.
Winston Peters rides again. NZ First’s “This is not our first rodeo” TikTok.
Some things don’t change. Some things are incapable of it. The man who gave us such past election headlines as, “Peters not Chinese, scientist says” is back doing what he does. In his interview with Jack Tame on TVNZ’s Q+A he performed his entire repertoire of vote-seeking, interviewer-ageing antics. Tame’s reasonably, well, tame question about NZ First’s policy to establish a dedicated gang prison lit the short fuse. How many prisoners will that hold? Asked Tame. “It will hold,” intoned Peters, “the number that is required to be held.” As Donald Trump trumpeted a wall to be paid for by Mexico, Peters’ prison is to be built by prisoners. Cue questions about numbers, costs. “Oh look,” growled Peters. “I’m not going to sit here having a fiscal argument with you …”
Can you have a fiscal argument when nothing fiscal is forthcoming? Peters, craftily: “We won’t have amateur hour based on what you don’t know.”
Peters advised Tame to take a Valium. I could have used one myself. He Puapua, donations… Whatever the question the game is the same: “You’re not going to get past me with bulldust”; “Stop being a smart alec”; “Your lousy programme called Q+A …”
Peters has been around long enough to have learned from an expert on media slamming. Shades of Robert Muldoon when he turned away from Tame to speak straight down the barrel of the camera. “I want to apologise to New Zealanders watching this. It’s not how politics should be run.” Possibly he meant it’s not how an interview should be run. Tame picked up the slip and returned fire. “The way politics should be run in a democracy, Mr Peters, is that those who are in powerful positions, or wish to be, should answer straight questions.”
Peters pivoted to something a little more contemporary, a touch of conspiracy theory, telling Tame he was “trying to get rid of New Zealand First because your masters told you to”.
He built to a crescendo, berating “arrogant, jumped up, overpaid people”. Some might say pot-kettle-black to that. Less entertaining was his musing, with trademark carnivorous smile, about “making sure we get the broadcasting portfolio after this election”. Tame: “Is that a threat, Mr Peters?” Peters: “It’s not a threat. It’s a promise that you are going to have an operation that’s much more improved than what it is now.”
Lord knows the media isn’t perfect. But journalists have long refused to be cowed by politicians who believe they shouldn’t be challenged. See the iconic 1976 exchange between Muldoon – “I will not have some smart alec interviewer changing the rules halfway through” – and journalist Simon Walker.
Tame looked a little shaken at the end of the interview. He held the line. Because it’s his job. There should be no going backwards on that.
