Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was forced to abandon his visit to Auckland's Big Gay Out on Sunday, after getting swamped by a crowd of pro-Palestine protesters who shouted at him until he was bundled into a car by security officers.
"Your party's track record on queer rights is shit," yelled one Big Gay Out attendee at Luxon.
That was the moment things started to go south for the Prime Minister.
A few boos then escalated to a full-blown protest.
Luxon's walkabout around the event started off pretty mellow, but it heated up quickly.
The PM and his wife were bundled into a car for a hasty exit, leaving the protesters to cool off.
New Zealand joined Australia and Canada three days ago to call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and to plead with Israel to not proceed with a ground offensive in Rafah.
But that didn't placate the protesters at the Big Gay Out.
Earlier in the day it was a very different scene at Luxon's first State of the Nation speech.
"I have to level with you New Zealand and say the state of the nation is fragile," he told a crowd of supporters.
Luxon made no mention of his coalition partners and delivered no new policy, focusing instead on the country's "rough" economic forecast and massive infrastructure deficit.
"So I wanna be really upfront with all of you that achieving this will be difficult and it will mean us making tough choices together," he added.
Later on, he found support amongst the rainbow community.
"We need to help these landlords guys. We need to help these landlords and bring the housing crisis down and the only way to do it is support the landlords to be able to bring more investors into the market," said one person.
"You're speaking our language," Luxon replied.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins took the stage to announce a petition against a plan to remove the gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education guidelines - a stipulation in National's coalition agreement with New Zealand First.
"Because I think it's really important for New Zealand's future that we have an inclusive New Zealand, which recognises and celebrates everyone for who they are," Hipkins told the crowd.
Those guidelines were developed by specialists in the area and educational professionals to help schools be more inclusive, and help students recognise the importance of diversity in relationships.
"People need to learn about this stuff. It's really cool - look at all these people that came here, that's like mean as!" one person told Newshub.
"I don't know if it's a surprise, you know. People voted for it," another said.
Luxon couldn't say whether that promise to New Zealand First would be kept.
"What the intention is to have is to make sure that we've got an age-appropriate curriculum, we've got parents consulted, and we've got a consistency of teaching across the country," he said.
Navigating the demands of his more conservative coalition partners, and navigating the ups and downs of being in the top job.
