COMMENT

Winston Peters is flexing and I get it.

The wiley old dog of politics knows how to keep reinventing an refreshing his brand, especially when the going gets tough.

And by getting tough, I mean the poll numbers for NZ First. Abysmal.

They look to have been washed up and absorbed by Labour, which is historically so often the case with smaller coalition parties who find themselves in government. It tends to be the death knell for them.

So what to do if you're Peters and struggling for relevance?

Start shaking the tree, start sounding off, start distancing yourself from Labour, start disagreeing with the Prime Minister.

He has in the past few weeks, been doing all of the above.

Classic, textbook Peters – it's his tried and true playbook of political survival.

But when questioned on this modus operandi, he bites back. He's not having a bar of it.
He would rather pretend it's not happening.

So despite his MP Shane Jones saying NZ First "won't tolerate being absorbed by Labour", Peters has leapt up to say he doesn't know what Jones means by that remark. That it's not even an issue.

That's code for "Shut up Shane".

Peters, in an attempt to hose that down, told media that NZ First did not have to "remind people" that his party was distinct from Labour. "People can see very, very clearly the need for a party like NZ First ..." Peters told reporters.

In other words, nothing to see here, we are who we are, we'll fake it until we make it.

The party is, as many pundits predicted a few months ago, now trying to carve a niche away from Labour.

Being this close to an election, with bad poll numbers, and having been all but swallowed up by the Labour party, it's the only potential survival mechanism NZ First has.

It's been grumpily disagreeing out loud with the Labour party on everything from the transtasman bubble, to getting us to level 1 quicker, to commercial rent relief. And let's not forget their earlier claim that thanks to them we don't have a capital gains tax either.

So how far does Peters push it?

How long does he nit-pick at the coalition and risk upsetting his leader?

How much time does he spend trying to woo back National and play the middle ground again?

And will his voting base, who were so burned by him choosing Labour, forgive and forget?

How short are their memories?

With the gloves off; with economic downturn looming; and with the gloss of all that momentum the Labour party is currently enjoying likely to dim a wee bit, where will we end up?

This is what makes election's exciting - we'll know in just over 100 days.