Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern isn't worried about Winston Peters' attack on her party after the Deputy PM said he was against "woke pixie dust".
At a campaign launch for Peters' New Zealand First party on Sunday, he said in a speech they had used common-sense to "hold Labour and the Greens to account". Labour and the Green Party are NZ First's Coalition partners in the Government.
"We've opposed woke pixie dust. We've defended socially conservative values, like the right to believe in God," Peters said.
Ardern said she has "no idea" what Peters was getting at.
"I put it down to an election year," she told The AM Show on Tuesday. "We're two months out [from the election] so you will start seeing some of this rhetoric in the lead up to an election. I expect it and the New Zealand public probably does as well."
Peters also used his speech on Sunday to attack Auckland light rail and the proposed capital gains tax - both Labour policies which his party blocked.
Ardern said his comments didn't change "the record we have as a Government which I'm very proud of".
"If you want to understand what he meant by the words 'pixie dust' you'd need to ask him. It's not my language and it wasn't my speech."
Peters has come out swinging in recent days. In a bizarre Twitter battle on Monday, he promised ACT leader David Seymour that he'd put him in an ambulance if they got in a fight.
He was responding to a Twitter post by Seymour who accused him of being "tragic" for his "swansong promise to slash immigration".
"I've spent much of my career respecting and working for retirees. You seem to want to euthanise them. As for your nasty comments about my physical - I reckon you'd last ten seconds in the ring with me," Peters responded.
