NZ First field bus seen parked on yellow lines when Winston Peters announced law and order policy

The New Zealand First Party bus was seen parked on yellow lines as leader Winston Peters revealed the party’s public order policy outside a nearby police station.

But the deputy prime minister says the driver never got off the bus.

A Freemans Bay office worker spied on the unmissable bus outside his work this afternoon.

“I laughed a lot when I saw it,” he said.

“It’s quite ironic, considering he was announcing his public order policy.

“I think the driver was sitting on the bus, but he’s on a clear yellow line on a narrow street, with a construction site right there – he was also blocking a good part of the road.”

He said the bus was parked at the scene for at least 30 minutes.

Peters was outside a nearby central police station, where he promised that NZ First would push for 1,000 new police officers to be trained and for a law to be enacted to protect first responders from assault while on the job.

He also spoke for the first time about his party’s plans to introduce a “cowardly punch” law, a law he said would reduce “ruthless acts of violence.”

A Peters spokeswoman told the Herald: “The driver never got off the bus.”

A spokesperson for Auckland Transport said illegal parking tickets can only be issued by authorized parking officers who are on site, not just in a photo.

“If you see a vehicle illegally parked, the best way is to call Auckland Transport so we can dispatch an officer,” he said.

This is not the first time the deputy prime minister has been seen breaking the rules in the election campaign.

A month ago, Peters was photographed taking a sneaky smoking break on the Dunedin campus of the University of Otago, breaking its no-smoking rules.

The video of Peters taking a puff in front of a no-smoking sign along with two other men circulated on social media with the slogan “Apparently, the smoke-free policy only applies to some.”

According to the University of Otago website, the campus has been smoke-free since 2014.

A spokesperson for the university said staff were unaware of the breach, so they did not speak to Peters about it.

However, the spokesperson said it promotes a healthy environment for all staff and students that includes a smoke-free environment.