New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his party "actually don't care" about a proposed cease and desist order over the party's use of UK band Chumbawamba's 'Tubthumping' hit.
The UK group is unhappy their 1997 hit with its lines "I get knocked down, But I get up again, You're not ever going to keep me down" was rolled out at New Zealand First's State of the Nation speech which served up rhetoric drawing parallels with Nazi Germany.
In a Tweet online on Wednesday morning, Peters was scathing about the band, the proposed cease and desist order and coverage of the story, saying he would pay no attention to any legal warning sent to him by Sony, the band's UK record label.
"It seems the media care more about the Chumbawamba story than we [NZ First] do. We actually don't care," he said.
"There's nothing to 'cease or desist'. The song worked like a charm for our first public meeting after the election. The over 700 people in the crowd thought so too."
"We will be sure to file the 'cease and desist' letter in a safe place if it ever arrives. I would use another of their hit song titles as a quip at the end of this post but unfortunately, they only had one."
Speaking on BBC World on Wednesday morning, the group's singer Dunstan Bruce repeated the fact the band "don't want him to promote his politics with our song. He has views that are at complete odds to everything that Chumbawamba stand for."
The group's guitarist Boff Whalley has hinted at legal action against Peters should he refuse to comply with the order.
"We have asked our record company Sony to issue a cease and desist notice," Whalley confirmed to Newshub.
Newshub has contacted Sony in the UK for confirmation of the notice, as well as Bruce for comment.
