Producers had to interrupt the filming of a TVNZ political programme when a panel interview with NZ First leader Winston Peters became too heated.
Peters appeared on the show, Eye to Eye, alongside NZ First MP and former party president Doug Woolerton, broadcaster Barry Soper and Matthew Hooton, a newspaper columnist and former National Party press secretary.
A NZ First spokesman told the Herald on Sunday that host Willie Jackson had to stop filming when Hooton swore at Peters.
Hooton said today that he had sworn at Peters but only after filming stopped because of a heated exchange in which the pair called each other liars.
NZ First director of research Scott Devine said Jackson had told Hooton to stop the verbal abuse, but he wouldn’t.
The broadcaster’s lawyer was called in to help deal with the situation, understood to have started before filming when Peters was preparing for the show, the Herald on Sunday said.
Woolerton said the NZ First pair were expecting to face left-wing commentator Chris Trotter alongside Soper, and weren’t told of the replacement.
He said Peters would have refused to appear on the show had he known earlier Hooton was taking part.
Hooton said his behaviour had been appropriate and Jackson had asked him on the show on Friday challenging him to say to Peters what he had written about him in print.
He said Devine had not been at the filming.
NZPA
