Baubles come back to bite

New Zealand First attempted to re-define "the baubles of office" yesterday as it defended itself in Parliament from taunts about leader Winston Peters becoming Foreign Minister despite promising to eschew "the baubles of office".

Deputy leader Peter Brown said the increase in superannuation due on April 1 next year was "a significant bauble".

So too was the Golden Age concession card that would be developed for senior citizens.

"I can't think of anything better than that as a significant good bauble. We have had baubles that will create higher wages and lower company taxes and help grow our exports."

Mr Peters was absent at an Apec meeting in Korea so Mr Brown was speaking for the party in the first major debate of the new Parliament.

National leader Don Brash said Mr Peters was "totally unsuited" to the job - though based on well-placed sources, the Herald reported in July that National had earmarked the role for Mr Peters if it had gone into a coalition with him.

Mr Peters is a minister outside the Cabinet and will represent Government policy only in his areas of responsibility: foreign affairs, senior citizens and racing.

He has the right to attack other ministers on their portfolios.

Members of Mr Peters' caucus were unhappy at the arrangement and one, Doug Woolerton, resigned as party president.

Dr Brash suggested that the law banning party-hopping that Mr Peters is to revive was more appropriately named "the Winston Peters Party Stabilisation Bill - although I have heard rumours that it might be renamed the Save Winston's (Lack of Integrity) Baubles Bill".

Dr Brash referred throughout to the Labour-New Zealand First Government, although Mr Peters maintains he is not part of Government.

He also discovered an old quote of Prime Minister Helen Clark in which she described New Zealand First as "the coalition partner from hell", "like a parasite, which feeds on its host and in the end becomes indistinguishable from it".

Dr Brash also said Helen Clark's pre-election statements on the cost of Labour's loans policy and denials that the Treasury had offered advice on it had been "a disgraceful and dishonest performance."