Because it's all very well to boast about being a "handbrake" on Government policy, but when Labour was elected on several key planks – a capital gains tax and light rail in Auckland being two of the significant ones – you might have expected any coalition it led to back those.
Because that's what people voted for, and the junior parties surely have an obligation to support such important initiatives by their majority partner.
Else why be part of a circus? Just for the baubles of office?
Instead, NZ First has done its best to derail dismiss or water down a swag of much-needed policy, including reducing the critical Zero Carbon Act to a talkfest commission with no powers, and continuing its dubious protectionist relationship with the fishing industry, effectively keeping monitoring cameras off most vessels.
It's very poor form for a party which gained the high profile of a deputy prime ministership, coupled with control over what seemed little more than a pork-barrel slush fund - the $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund - plus oversight of the vexed Billion Trees programme, which has the potential to transform huge swathes of rural Aotearoa.
You might think NZ First would be grateful and satisfied with those plums, but no; they clearly regard themselves as rightful rulers willing to act as spoilers against their own so-called mates if it suits them, despite their low base support.
Funnily enough, the one policy NZ First has always held as core – less immigration – they utterly failed at. It took Covid-19 to do the work for them.
No wonder, then, if whatever the result on September 19, no other party will want to work with them – in or out of government.
From an environmental perspective, that time can't come soon enough. Whether the party's core base are climate change denialists or not, its politicians certainly seem to be, rubbishing everything from riparian plantings to sea-level rise over the course of this term.
The Greens and NZ First were never going to be easy bedfellows, but again you would have thought, when it comes to the biggest issue of our times, they might have forged common ground in addressing it from the Treasury benches. But no; no matter how hard James Shaw tried, NZ First would rather snipe than contribute.
Of course there's no such thing as "never" in politics, and despite Judith Collins saying she wouldn't want NZ First as a partner, she's left the door open by calling that "a caucus decision" post-election.
A blue-black alliance is a nightmare wanting to haunt us. Abolish all environmental protections, drain the swamps and build roads over them, mine the national parks ... In defending these negatives, Peters' address to his party conference ran like a farewell speech.
So to his core support I say, think about the future for your grandchildren and, even if it means you vote National instead, let's make it so.
• Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet. Views expressed are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's.
