You've forgotten, Winston Peters had taken National Ministers Paula Bennett & Anne Tolley to court for 'breaching his privacy' by secretly sharing details of his superannuation overpayment to the media ahead of the 2017 election, to undermine him.
Simon Bridges & others said they couldn't believe Winston Peters had served papers on them the day before the election but then sat there in front of them pretending it hadn't happened during negotiations. There was so much animosity between them & Bennett said it was just one example of why National never trusted Winston Peters.
However, despite them regarding him as totally untrustworthy, they were still negotiating with him to try & form the govt.
Talk about lines in the sand & National doing the right thing is completely irrelevant. Peters rejected National, not the other way around.
Peters was never going to go with National, how could he form a government with the same Ministers he was in the process of taking to court!