When Ruth Richardson finished delivering the Mother of All Budgets in 1991, her fellow National Party MPs rose as one in the House to give her a standing ovation. Well, almost as one.
Throughout the speech, Māori Affairs Minister Winston Peters had kept his head down at his desk, preoccupied with correspondence. By pure chance his need to stand, stretch his legs and shake out the crumpled pages of the evening paper coincided with the standing ovation. Understandably, he found it difficult to clap while gathering up his papers at the same time.
That night, you might say, New Zealand First was born. Peters was making his distaste for Richardson’s policies plain, and he went on doing it so publicly that three months later, he was sacked from the Cabinet after delivering a
