Definitely no excuse for being rude about it, but I am a little less surprised they pushed back for a long stay in the regional lounge. With the extremely limited seating available in that lounge I guess they’d probably be more keen to minimise long stays in the lounge.

They really need to sort out a bigger regional lounge in Auckland...

Ive had a fair few long stays in NZ lounges, but normally in the main/international lounges in Wellington or Auckland - I’ve never had any push back in these.