Winston Peters is back, and he has not changed.
The New Zealand First leader, who has been out of parliament for three years, used his first speech since being re-elected to lash out at the media.
"We're back with eight MPs and we didn't have the resources or the media idolatry heaped on other parties," he said on Wednesday.
"New Zealand First was on the receiving end of a seemingly deliberate blackout, a boycott, a media embargo designed to discredit and diminish us."
Mr Peters said he used public meetings to get his message across.
"Voters know there's something rotten going on and they want us to do something about it," he said.
"What we're hearing from National reminds us of a substance dairy farmers wash off the cowshed floor, and that smells like scented roses compared with the stench of the deals done by National and its hangers-on."
Mr Peters said the Whanau Ora welfare system for Maori, initiated by the Maori Party and backed by National, was "a giant leap into apartheid - it's National's billion dollar bribe for the Maori Party".
"That's taxpayer money to feed the treaty travellers, corporate Maori and the so-called providers of these services."
NZN