Winston Peters defended his smoking habit on The Country today, saying he was caught out by "Nazi police".
The Deputy Prime Minister was photographed earlier this week having a cigarette in a non-smoking area at Otago University.
The Deputy Prime Minister told The Country's Jamie Mackay that the situation was made out to be worse that it actually was.
"This was an avenue between two buildings which my colleagues were going to check something on the phone and one had a cigarette and they shared it with me - that's about the size of it."
"And here we've got these Nazi police looking out the darned windows, taking a sneaking photograph - don't you people feel bad about that?"
When Mackay sided with the "Nazis", Mr Peters said this was hypocritical of them.
"Explain to me why you Nazis then, if that's the case, are seeing the collection of tobacco and cigarette taxes go up to beyond 2 million and rising, when you're trying to get rid of the industry because you want to be smoke free by 2025 - and just to make sure that's not going to happen - you want a referendum on marijuana."
"When will you people put together a consistent argument instead of screwing with the workers of this country?"
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=12363437
