Heather du Plessis-Allan: Winston Peters' broken promise to NZ

The NZ First leader speaks after the final coalition meeting before the NZ First board considers its decision. Video/Mark Mitchell

Normally, politicians wait until they're in government before they start breaking promises. Not Winston Peters.

We don't even have a government yet, but already the New Zealand First leader has broken his first big assurance: that we would know our government by Thursday just gone.

And let's be clear, that is exactly what he said: "I make this guarantee that whatever decision New Zealand First arrives at post-election, it will be made public by the day the writs are returned."

That's Winston speaking to Newsroom in July. The day the writs are returned is Thursday just gone. Clearly, a missed deadline.

The quote is included in full because Winston now says he was misinterpreted. Except, as you can see, he wasn't.

The other defence you'll hear is that a few extra days don't matter. The Dutch just took 209 days to negotiate a coalition. The Belgians took 541 days in 2010. So, what's a week in New Zealand?

Judging by that excuse, Winston himself doesn't understand the problem he's got. The problem isn't that he's taking too long. It isn't that he's holding the country to ransom. It isn't that 7 per cent of the vote gives him 100 per cent of the power.

Winston's problem is that he broke a promise. And it's a promise he should've kept for one reason: 1996.

1996 is the year Winston kept the country waiting for 10 weeks for his decision while he went fishing and getting his chill on. That is a huge black mark against his name. Whether he knows it or not, everything he's done since has slowly undone the credibility damage he did during those 10 weeks in 1996.

Yes, he set himself a tough deadline. But, what's the bet he did that because he knew we thought he'd pull a 1996 again?

When he knew he wasn't going to meet the deadline, he should have apologised and explained.

Instead, we got a grumpy grandad performance that sounded something like "I don't need to explain myself to you".

What makes this worse is the suspicion that Peters is using the extra time to negotiate the best possible deal for himself. A cynic would say Winston's used this weekend for final horse-trading phone calls. And as for the excuse that the New Zealand First board needs time to fly to Wellington, you'd be a fool to believe they have a say in this decision. We all know Winston calls the shots.

There are two other people who also deserve a good telling off for this situation: Labour leader Jacinda Ardern and Greens leader James Shaw. It doesn't help to have those two fawningly making excuses for Peters.

If anything, it adds to voters' sense of betrayal and underscores how desperate the pair of them are to form an electoral threesome with Peters.

They'd have been better off to say they had no view than to say it's okay for him to break his promise.

The truth is Winston's like a crack addict when it comes to coalition negotiations. He promises to be good but just can't help himself. When we forgave him after 1996 he disappointed us again.

In 2005 he said he wouldn't take the baubles of office but then he took the baubles of office because, let's be honest, Foreign Minister is probably the sweetest gig around.
And then, like the ever-hopeful parents of the crack addict, we trusted him again. And here we are in 2017.

Everyone talks about how Winston's looking for a legacy before he bows out. He's lining up a legacy alright.

And it's not a good one.