Barry Soper: Winston Peters on the growl over refugee quota

Winston Peters. Photo / Stuart Munro

Snarky is a word that springs to mind when Winston Peters crosses it.

The old warhorse even rattled the Prime Minister who's trying to be as polite as he can to him these days, given that he may well have to call on him in the days following next year's election. He giggled at him in the bear pit, telling him not to use his growly voice when sounding off about immigration and how the Beehive's dropped the ball there.

Continuing to growl Peters said the stingy 250 increase in refugee numbers is due to the fact that they're operating porous borders in this country, where every man and his dog is being allowed to come here.

But if he was growing at John Key, he was seething at Parliament's baby bear, Act's David Seymour who he described as a toy MP, which presumably means he belongs in a playpen rather than trying to foot it with the big grizzlies.

The simpering Seymour had the audacity to offer his view on Peters' specialist subject, immigration. He's been accused of being a closet supporter of the Peters party, of stealing their long held policy.

Peters said it first, that those who find themselves being allowed to settle here should be required to salute our flag, and those who treat their women like cattle shouldn't be allowed into the country. As it is, the double breasted pinstripe says visas are even being issued for people to become supermarket checkout operators.

Seymour's not a man given to flights of fancy, in fact he's pretty well grounded, but he had the cheek to agree with the firebrand Peters, saying immigrants should be required to sign up to a New Zealand Values Statement, a commitment to respect the basic freedoms that make this country a wonderful place to live in.

They sign one before getting into Australia or Belgium, he argues.

It seems to have escaped him that the Sydney Lindt cafe killer Man Haron Monis, was a refugee from Iran, who presumably signed the good behaviour bond and so too were the bombers in Belgium earlier this year who left more than 30 killed and more than three hundred injured.

Let's hope the old immigration master Peters doesn't have a point. He reckons with our loose immigration policies it's only a matter of time before there's an attack in this country.

Truth is, it's almost impossible to stop some lunatic letting loose as the almost three hundred body count from mass shootings in the United States so far this year would testify to.

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