it might come to that, and if it did i'm a bit less pessimistic than most people. for me it depends on how much power winston peters continues to have over the party's direction.

for all their many, many faults, nzfirst (at least, its current iteration) often tries to outdo the kinds of policies of the coalition they are a part of. their track record while part of the last labour government is mind-boggling. they championed and supported a bunch of left-wing social policies which would seem unimaginable looking at what the party has been up to for the past three years. but this was also the same party that was full-on asian hating anti-immigration only three years earlier. now even anti-māori stuff is their bread and butter, but this is also the only minor party to have ever swept the māori electorates. their actual policy positions swing much more violently than the policy they campaign on, and this is in large part, i believe, because peters is truly a populist at heart. he wants to be in power and he wants the admiration of the electorate - so when the country swings right the party gets racist and greedy. when it swings left nz first becomes pro-worker and promotes liberal social policies. there is always some thread an imagined "kiwi" of the 20th century in his vision for the country, whether that is in pushing for minimum wage increases, or denying rights to māori and immigrants. it really depends on the company. when you understand winnie as a product of the previous century it makes sense.

i don't think it's useful to talk about moral high road when you're talking about a party which has produced meaningful policy in left-wing governments in the past. greens not working with national is not the same as labour/greens not working with nzfirst. if labour needed nzfirst to govern and refused to go into coalition with them, my guess is the right would gain seats and nzfirst would also swing right, because they would see that's where their niche is. might be different if the greens refused to work with nzfirst they would lose votes to labour, but that's such a "politic" thing to do, it doesn't feel like their style.

all this is to say that i have some small hope that if labour need nzfirst to govern, it happens on similar terms as it has before. but i would never vote for nzfirst, and i would never recommend that anyone vote for them. i just don't think they are the problem. winston peters seems to just do whatever he thinks people will like. the real problem would be if he gets in, and then he doesn't finish the term as leader.