Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB political editor on Winston Peters doubling down on claiming Tonkin + Taylor should fire heckling staffer

Winston Peters is doubling down on criticising a passer-by who heckled him yesterday after an announcement on rail funding.

Environmental and engineering firm Tonkin + Taylor says it's looking into a report a man wearing a staff lanyard swore at the minister.

The Minister said he doesn't care if he loses his job.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason, are you there?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am hello, Sorry here for a second, Hello, Hello.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, So what's going on here? Is Winston just relaxed
about what happens to this hiccler or is it actually
going for him?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well he doesn't see, he says publicly, he doesn't really
care what happens, and it's up to Tomkin and Taylor
when it comes to sort of deciding the fate of
this individual. If you are unclear about what Heather and
I are talking about. This was the exchange that Winston Peters,
the Deputy Prime Minister, had with a member of public
yesterday at a Wellington at Wellington's railway station.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Bollocks load of pollock. Looked like, well, it's gone up
in the mirror, Sunshine. You look like like bollocks mate,
Sunjoine you.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's just every time I listened to it, I like,
that's our deputy prime minister and some random dude at
a train station. It's it's just, it's very fine. I
should have checked if I'm allowed to say the word
bollocks on radio before I played that, but anyway, too late.
And this member of the public, he was wearing a
Tomkin and Taylor lanyard at the time, so a little
hardest thing to do in this age where everything is
being filmed. Now, it might have just flown under the

(01:06):
radar if it wasn't for the fact the person that
he was having a crack at was one with Winston
Raymond Peters. In an interview with Hosking this morning, Winston
really dug in saying that he wouldn't feel bad for
the man who was heckling him if he lost his job.
Now heading out of the house today, Winston was pretty unapologetic.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
But on personal free speech now, filthy fell expet of
Leyden vitriol is not free speech and if you think
it is, you guys got a new stand and little.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I do have to disagree with him here. It doesn't
matter what you're saying. It's still free speech. So it
can be as dirty as you want, as long as
what you're saying is you know you have the right
to say it. I think you know the more you're
not free from consequences, rather than you can say what
you want. But the Prime Minister wasn't particularly worried about
it either.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Oh look, I mean as Winston and he's been operating
in Parliament for forty something years.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
He's got a different style.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
But yeah, he's a very affective politician.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
He's a veryffected leader. Now, I don't know how many
times I've heard the Prime Minister say, oh, it's Winston
being Winston so far into this term, but I think
we're getting up there. I'm gonna have to start counting
on more than two hands.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Now do we actually know what?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
I mean?

Speaker 1 (02:15):
The thing is, from what I can understand, Tomkin and
Taylor have apologized to Winston and they are conducting an
investigation into I suppose a breach of the code of
conduct policy anything else like any Is there actually any
suggestion that anything else is going to happen to this guy?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, I mean, I guess, looking at it kind of
on objectively, he has brought the company into a bit
of disrepute. I mean this has now been played across
z B on stuff on New Zealand Herald, all sorts
of media outlets and of course the news channels as well.
So I mean, you know, there's there could be some
course of action there, but you know, without being that
familiar with Tomkin and Taylor's code of conduct, I can't

(02:52):
tell you.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
All right, So it's obviously becoming a strategy for Nicola
right to print budgets with really boring covers kind of
underscore that this is her job and this is the
only thing she's interested in, not the flea stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah. Well, I was Grant robertson when because we go
to these things right every year, the day before the
budget where they take us out to the printing press
and they hold up the budget and then we all
say what's in the budget and they say you have
to wait one more sleep. I've done nine of them now,
so I'm a bit of an expert in them. But
they're not glossy like they were in the previous years.
There isn't some photo of some family smiling or some
lovely picturesque landscape. It just has the boring sort of

(03:27):
estimates of the appropriation of budget twenty twenty five, twenty six.
But you know, Nikola Willis has been throwing around this
no BS budget. She is not really telling us what
the BS stands for. But one of the things is
it's not a bubbet budget surplus budget. I can tell
you that much because we won't be seeing one of
those for this financial year tomorrow. But she did have

(03:51):
a bit of a preview for us when we're talking
to her today.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
And my very first priest release, you'll see how much
savings we have delivered from pay equity and how we've
allocated that to our operating and capital allowances and what
we're investing that, and I can give you a preview.
Those savings are being invested in education services and better
health services, more funding for our police, rebuilding New Zealand's

(04:15):
defense capability.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
So we'll find out more about that tomorrow. But in
the House today, Nicola Willis was channeling a little bit
of John Key when she was talking about Labour's proposals
to the budget.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
If they keep committing to every single spending then this
is the question though that he faced with show me
the money.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
And you'll remember Nicola Willis actually worked in John Key's
office when he delivered this line during the twenty eleven
debate with then Labor leader Phil Goff. Does show me
the money show then I got a Nicola. She wasn't done.
She got a closing lick in on the Green Party
during her general debate speech by taking a crack at
their alternative budget and just.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Bera thought also for Chloe's Fulbrich to save a planet
that she doesn't even live on, so she was.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
In full flight today.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
That's actually good. Hey, thank you, Jason, appreciate it. Jason
Wall's News Talks it'd be Political.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Editor for more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live
to News Talks.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
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