September 15, 2017 4:00pm by David Farrar

Winston all over the show

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has clashed with RNZ host Guyon Espiner in a testy – and at some times bizarre – interview.

The 25-minute interview on Morning Report on Thursday was fiery throughout, with Espiner trying to establish early on how much NZ First’s policies were expected to cost.

After some back and forth. Peters put it at $10 billion over 7-8 years “if you’re talking about investment and borrowings”.

Actually it is more like $15 billion just in the next three years.

Espiner asked about NZ First’s policy of taking GST off food. Peters corrected him: “No, off basic food”.

“It’s a huge difference. You see, off food you get a huge bill. Off basic food you’re talking somewhere in the zone of about $6-700 million,” Peters said.

Espiner said NZ First’s website had it as a $3b policy.

“It might say it on the website. It should have been corrected,” Peters said.

“Oh come on, come on mate,” Espiner said. “How are voters supposed to know when they look at your website and they see it there, and you’re saying it’s wrong?”

“I admit it’s a mistake. In fact I had a discussion with my team just about two days ago about correcting that because they said, ‘is it on food, and I said no, it’s on basic food’,” Peters said.

We now get a glimpse into the NZF policy making process. The staff ask Winston and he decides unilaterally.

Incidentially it is a terrible moronic policy. We have such a clean effective GST and Peters would bastardise it by having a plethora of bureaucrats going through every food item sold in New Zealand and deciding if it is “basic” food or not.

Colby cheese won’t have GST on it but Gruyeye cheese will have GST.

Apples won’t have GST on it but Mangoes will have GST.

Lamb won’t have GST on it but Duck will have GST.

Bread won’t have GST on it but bread rolls will have GST.

Plain yoghurt won’t have GST on it but strawberry yoghurt will have GST.

This is your future people if you vote for it!