Kiwis are pretty well conditioned to Winston Peters' unique political rhetoric, so an off-hand comment he made about Australia stealing the New Zealand flag this week barely raised a ripple.
But it seems the rest of the world aren't so used to the political veteran's often bombastic and provocative speech, because they can't stop talking about his trans-Tasman flag stealing accusation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Sydney Morning Herald led the charge on Peters' claim that the New Zealand flag was "copied by Australia, and they should actually change their flag and honour the fact that we got there first with this design".
Somewhat more remarkable though is the coverage he's got from international media: in the UK from the Guardian , the Daily Mail and the Times of London.
It also gained traction in German and Indian media.
Then things went up another notch. The New York Times ran with it, and then Russia Today - headquartered in Moscow.
At this point old Winston turned up on CNN.
All this coverage over a small one-sentence comment in a debate on a completely unrelated issue, cannabis legalisation, leaves us asking the question:
Does the rest of the world take Winston Peters a lot more seriously than we do?
The Acting PM was not thrilled with TVNZ 1’s Breakfast host Jack Tame’s line of questioning on cannabis and the NZ flag referendums.
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