Peters' baubles get a parliamentary bashing

Winston Peters

Winston Peters will be beginning to wish he had never mentioned the word "baubles".

What started yesterday as a motion to elect Parliament's Deputy Speaker and Assistant Speakers quickly became an attack on the New Zealand First leader for accepting the "baubles" of ministerial office - the very same baubles he was so scornful of in the lead-up to the election.

It was the first opportunity in the new Parliament for Opposition MPs to publicly attack Mr Peters over his decision to accept a ministerial post outside the Cabinet and the MPs made the most of it.

Their barbed remarks provided a taste of what is likely to be directed at Mr Peters over the coming months.

But while Mr Peters' baubles may have been repeating on him, he appeared to be enjoying the sensation and sat grinning in his seat as Act leader Rodney Hide got stuck in.

"Having promised the people of New Zealand that he wouldn't take the baubles of office," Mr Hide said, "this loser over here has come up and taken the biggest bauble his greedy chops could reach around."

Mr Peters, who is Minister of Foreign Affairs and Racing and Associate Minister for Senior Citizens, in turn had a go at Mr Hide, accusing him of abandoning his fellow Act MPs and over-spending in Epsom to win the electorate.

Mr Peters' comment that "the age of winner-takes-all" was over in Parliament was met with a sharp reminder he had lost the Tauranga seat and calls of "loser takes it all".

"Mr Peters demonstrates that in this Parliament the loser can take it all," Mr Hide said, "because Mr Peters has done that with the shonky agreement he has entered into with Helen Clark."

National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee tried to table the speech Mr Peters gave in September in Rotorua where he said NZ First would sit on the cross-benches - outside Government - and abstain on confidence and money-supply votes unless stability was threatened.

National MP Bill English demanded to know what Mr Peters' relationship with the Government was.

"This is the person who ranted for years that it shouldn't be winner-takes-all, and then when he had the one chance in his career to really change the way Parliament worked he gave it up.

"And that is why the people of Tauranga gave up on him, because they stopped believing what he said."

Clem Simich was elected Deputy Speaker and Ann Hartley and Ross Robertson Assistant Speakers.