Winston Peters has unleashed on Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon for their comments about a New Zealand First candidate in the Newshub leaders debate.
The NZ First leader has also defended candidate Rob Ballantyne's remarks - even going as far as to claim them as his own.
"If the mainstream media had been reporting my speeches that have been packing halls for the last two years, they would know that Mr. Ballantyne’s comments about co-governance and the Māori elite come exactly from my speeches," Peters said on Thursday.
During the Newshub debate on Wednesday night, Labour's Hipkins read out comments Ballantyne made during a public meeting.
"Cry if you want to, we don’t care. You pushed it too far. We are the party with the cultural mandate and the courage to cut out your disease and bury you permanently," Hipkins quoted the NZ First candidate as saying.
The Labour leader then asked Luxon why National was "willing to work with these people". Luxon said he didn't want to work with NZ First and he thought the statement was racist.
Ballantyne has told Stuff the comment could be considered racist if it was taken out of context. He said he had been talking about "the disingenuous Māori elite," like those "in the Beehive that demand special treatment".
Newshub contacted him and he referred us to Peters' comments.
His leader, Peters, is backing him, releasing a statement on Thursday taking aim at both Hipkins and Luxon.
"In last night’s leaders debate Labour Leader Chris Hipkins referred to a quote without giving any explanation of its content, which was about the ‘disease of co-governance’ that is perpetuated by the Māori elite, and he said it was racist," Peters said.
"Then, without even examining the content, National leader Christopher Luxon agreed with him that it was racist. That is not showing experience. Any experienced person would demand to know what the context was of the quote being talked about before getting sucked in."
Speaking about himself in the third-person, Peters said Hipkins had begun a "dirt campaign against Winston Peters and New Zealand".
The Newshub debate was also a key focus of Peters during a speech on Thursday afternoon in Gisborne, during which he said Hipkins showed "largely childish and petulant behaviour" and made more comments about Luxon's experience.
Hipkins on Wednesday night said NZ First was presenting messages "during this campaign that are designed to divide New Zealanders".
Asked if he was going dirty and negative on NZ First, Hipkins said: "I don't think that holding them accountable for the racist statements they are making is going dirty."
Luxon on Thursday said he had been clear that he wanted people to give their vote to National.
"This is a serious election, it's going to be close and it's gonna be tight and if you want change, you got to vote for National."
While his strong preference was for a National-ACT Government, he would form a Government with NZ First to keep Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori out.
Luxon this week announced that he would be willing to work with NZ First in Government if he absolutely needed to, but his main preference was a deal between National and ACT.
The Newshub-Reid Research poll released on Monday showed that Luxon would likely be in that position of needing to call Peters, with National and ACT not able to cross the 61-seat threshold with NZ First. The poll also revealed a majority of Kiwis believe that three-party Government would be chaotic.
Hipkins has already ruled out working with Peters, leading the Labour leader to repeatedly attack Luxon over the prospect of National and NZ First teaming up in Government.
On Thursday, NZ First also released a law and order policy, which included committing to at least 500 new frontline police officers in the first 18 months of the next term and funding tattoo removal for rehabilitated gang members in prison by assigning that cost back if the prisoner replaces the tattoo with gang-associated tattoos.
