Winston Peters has told outgoing National MP Paula Bennett he misses her already in a light-hearted discussion about the election campaign and opening the borders in a COVID-19 world.
The pair have a history of going head-to-head in Parliament, back when Bennett was deputy leader of the National Party and would fill in for then-leader Simon Bridges. She would often go up against Peters as the Deputy Prime Minister.
Peters even took Bennett to court earlier this year, along with a handful of others, over claims his privacy was breached when details about his superannuation overpayment were leaked to the media ahead of the 2017 election.
Bennett is no longer in politics, having announced her resignation as an MP in June. She's been hosting Magic Talk radio this week, and when the Deputy Prime Minister called in for his weekly interview, there didn't appear to be any bad blood.
"Will you miss me in Parliament?" Bennett asked Peters.
"Miss you already Paula," he replied.
"I'm not going to interview you - I just thought we'd have a bit of a chat, to be honest," Bennett told the New Zealand First leader. "I'm so chilled Winston since I announced that I'm leaving. I'm kind of a different person."
Peters joked, "Hang on; this interview's about me not you."
The Deputy Prime Minister and former Deputy Prime Minister talked openly about how much they love the people of New Zealand and how great it is to meet them on the campaign trail.
"Let me tell you, people are really quite magnificent," Peters said. "On the whole, 99.9 percent of people are just marvellous."
Bennett agreed.
"The amount of times I'd have people approach me in the supermarket, particularly those from overseas, that they find it incredible that they can just bump into a politician," she said.
"But that's kind of us being Kiwis, isn't it? We still live normal, real lives and people are generally pretty kind."
The conversation then turned to the border and Peters' role as Foreign Minister.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday that within the next 10 days officials will begin testing a quarantine-free border bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Islands, and it could be in place by the end of the year.
Peters told Bennett he wanted that work done far sooner.
"I can understand with what's happened in Australia, a disaster what's happened in Melbourne... So in terms of the trans-Tasman bubble, it's something we can't be accused of delaying," he said.
"But I'm worried about the Cook Islands and Niue because frankly, we could have done all this work a long time ago in my view."
Bennett agreed with Peters.
"That's a really good point. December seems a long way off and only now the work's being done on what it would mean if we did open up and how we could logistically do that, so you're arguing that work could have been done already?"
Peters said he won't deny it.
"I'm not going to go out on this campaign to bull-dust and flimflam people on this matter," he said. "I asked for all this work to be done months and months ago."
Bennett asked Peters why he wasn't listened to as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"I would've thought that if you demanded something is done it would be done."
Peters responded by quoting the Rolling Stones.
"You can't always get what you want."
Bennett also asked Peters about the meaning behind New Zealand First's slogan 'Back Your Future'.
He explained that it has to do with people he's spoken to voicing their concern about how the country will pay back the high debt incurred because of COVID-19.
"If we're going to spend all our darn money tossing it around like an eight-arm octopus and living on consumption and going flat-broke, we've got to wisely invest in our people, in our army of 5 million, and turn this around."
Listen to the full interview above.
