Where National was taking advice is unclear, but it has in the past had direct and indirect links with conservative research and polling organisation Crosby Textor and Topham Guerin, the social media agency that helped Boris Johnson win the 2019 UK election.

To be fair to Peters, he joined other political leaders in criticising National's position as "undermining democracy".

However, he also joined National's questioning of his own coalition government's decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, asking why he had "jumped the queue". Peters was accused of "race-baiting" in return.

Populist lines of attack may be born out of electoral weakness and political expediency, but they are risky at a time when Ardern's handling of the worst global pandemic since 1918 has boosted her national and international standing.

Moreover, the performance of populist governments in dealing with COVID-19 has been woeful, which hardly boosts the credibility of populist posturing over the pandemic in New Zealand.

Take Boris Johnson's original argument in favour of a "herd immunity" strategy to avoid disrupting the economy: "You could take it on the chin [...] and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population."

By mid-March the World Health Organisation (WHO) was publicly questioning the absence of any clinical evidence to support this response, and the Johnson government was ordering a strict national lockdown to suppress the virus.

Now, senior cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, are facing possible prosecution for alleged misconduct in public office, which some say has led to over 60,000 avoidable deaths.

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Opinion: Populism from Brexit and Trump enters New Zealand election, but it's a risky strategy - Newshub