Greg Dixon's Another Kind of Politics: Peters refuses to quit as Deputy PM, barricades himself in office
David Seymour takes up the Deputy PM role this weekend, after Winston Peters spent 18 months in the job. Photos / Getty Images
Greg Dixon is an award-winning news reporter, TV reviewer, feature writer and former magazine editor who has written for the NZ Listener since 2017.
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Greg Dixon's Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz.
Armed police are surrounding the Beehive after Winston Peters announced 'hell would freeze over, sunshine' before he resigned from the office of deputy prime minister. Under New Zealand First's coalition deal, Peters is supposed to hand over the official title and office to Act leader David Seymour on Sunday. However, the NZ First leader is refusing to hand over the office, including the baubles of office. He has instead barricaded himself in the office and issued a five-point list of demands.
The first states that 'Winston Raymond Peters shall remain Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand for life, whether he is in government, opposition or not in Parliament. Upon the unlikely event of his death, he shall also remain Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand in the afterlife.' The four other demands relate to the size and colour of his ministerial limousine, use of the Prime Minister's executive toilet on the 9th floor of the Beehive, a limitless tab at Bellamys and exclusive parliamentary use of the word 'sunshine'.
The incident began when parliamentary staff told Peters late yesterday he must pack up his office so that Seymour could move in by Monday. Peters then locked the door and began piling the baubles of office against it. Attempts to get him to leave led to a barrage of sarcasm and threats from Peters, after which police were called. It is understood that Peters is holding an Italian-made espresso machine hostage and has armed himself with a stapler and a paperweight.
Attempts by a police negotiator to get Peters to release the coffee machine unharmed and to give himself up have so far come to nothing.
Seymour told a press conference that Peters' decision not to stand down as deputy prime minister would make no difference. 'As of Sunday, I'm deputy prime minister by right and by name, though Act party supporters should not be worried that this amounts to a demotion. I can assure them I will carry on running the country until the next election by continuing to outmanoeuvre the Prime Minister.'
Contacted for comment before his phones were cut off, Peters said he was prepared for a long siege but was not concerned. 'Listen, sunshine, this isn't my first rodeo. I've been holding other political parties and the country to ransom for years. This is child's play.'
Willis to wear NZ-designed sackcloth and ashes until next year's Budget
Finance Minister and Feminist of the Year Nicola Willis has bowed to demands by local fashionistas that she dress in New Zealand-designed sackcloth and ashes as an act of contrition for her Budget day wardrobe blunder.
Willis, who claims to be pro-New Zealand business and asserts she is growing the New Zealand economy, wore what was believed to be a $1100 Nouvelle Sculpt Stretch Crepe frock from British womenswear label The Fold London while she delivered the Budget last Thursday.
Local clothes horses were left aghast by the slight, with one saying the Nouvelle Sculpt dress wasn't only 'fashion treason' but made Willis 'look like she was in The Handmaid's Tale'.
'It was like she was channelling Serena Joy, which was very appropriate given that she had just helped shaft other women so that she could balance her budget,' said one local designer who did not wished to be named but was wearing a vintage piece from Karen Walker matched with a very odd hat made by World.
Demands for Willis to have to wear locally designed sackcloth and ashes garments as an act of penitence have grown throughout this week, with Willis yesterday agreeing she would do so, though she has refused to wear a hair shirt.
In a win for New Zealand business, Willis's sackcloth frocks will be designed by a fashion house in Auckland, although the sackcloth will be manufactured in China, the ashes will come from India and the garment will be sewn by a person in a sweatshop in Bangladesh.
Oxford invites Seymour to debate legal status of larvae in school lunches
Soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour will take part in an Oxford Union debate next week, opposing the moot that states 'no larva can be illegal if found in a school lunch paid for by the government'. The invitation is perfectly timed after a larva was recently found atop a pile of mashed potato in a meal produced by Seymour's cut-price school lunches programme.
Serving commercially made food containing dead insects is illegal under New Zealand food safety regulations. However, Seymour said those rules do not apply to school lunches provided by the government. 'Under the programme I designed, larvae are legal and so is melted plastic.'
Joining Seymour to argue that larvae are lawful in state-funded school lunches will be US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has previously said that consuming insects like the one found in his brain is perfectly safe.
Political quiz of the week
Photo / Facebook
What is Minister For Everything Chris Bishop saying to Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown?
A/ 'Hallensteins sale or Farmers sale?'
B/ 'Should we give each other a heads-up next time?'
C/ 'I like the jacket but the Lynx Africa is too much.'
D/ 'Seeing you makes me wonder if I should let the wife do my clothes shopping.'
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