Ahead of New Zealand’s election, no politician has capitalised so much on opposition to vaccine mandates and antipathy to the political establishment as the veteran lawmaker and self-professed populist Winston Peters.
His minor New Zealand First party’s expected surge in support on Saturday – perhaps allowing it to hold the balance of power – would supply a voice in parliament to those most discontented with New Zealand’s leaders, and herald a higher profile for so-called culture war topics that Peters has ardently embraced.
Success for maverick Peters, 78, would also vex the leaders of the two biggest parties, centre-right National and centre-left Labour, on the question of how much they desire power if it means a governing arrangement with NZ First.
“This is the most unreal campaign I have ever seen,” Peters told the Guardian this week. “The others are out there eating ice-creams and sausage rolls, doing photo opportunities, doing things that don’t relate to people in a cost of living crisis.”
Of course, Peters is no different. He rides into one social media video on a horse, wearing a cowboy hat, before pronouncing it “not our first rodeo”. In another, titled ‘If, By Rt Hon Winston Peters’ – no mention of Rudyard Kipling – the NZ First leader recites the classic poem in an empty theatre, amending the last stanza to a political message.
Before being ejected from parliament in 2020 with a dismal election result, NZ First has three times before held the balance of power after elections, twice propelling Labour into government, and once choosing National. Peters has styled himself as a handbrake on governments, frustrating the enactment of what he deems the “neoliberal” or “woke” planks of their agendas while extracting his own policy concessions and ministerial portfolios.
The major parties have warned of “chaos” or even a fresh vote if Peters wields such influence again; in perhaps a sign of the electorate’s lack of enthusiasm for National and Labour, NZ First’s share of the vote has lifted with each opinion poll.
On Wednesday, the latest Guardian Essential survey, in which NZ First recorded 8.2% of the vote, was the latest to suggest that neither the right nor left blocs in parliament could govern without Peters. Amid a cost of living crisis, ruling Labour has slumped in favour, with public dissatisfaction and a mood for change expected, for months, to favour National. But the decisive rightwing lead has narrowed.
Instead, the beneficiaries have been minor parties and above all, Peters, with a canny knack for presenting himself – after more than four decades in politics – as an outsider.
His ideological position is not simply defined. NZ First’s platform includes at times discordant economic pledges from across the political spectrum, promises to reduce immigration and retain the ban on foreigners buying houses, and conservative social initiatives.
While he has drawn from the zeitgeist for this year’s offering – including anti-transgender policies – Peters is not a product of the past decade’s wave of global populism. After entering parliament as a National lawmaker in 1978 – then leaving after disagreements to form his own party – Peters’ rhetorical flair, florid insults, and exhortations to “common sense” have long been his hallmarks.
Nobody knows that better than his opponents. While only the National leader Christopher Luxon has said he would form a government with NZ First – if he had to, Luxon said in September – he cannot expect an easy coronation from Peters, if the NZ First leader has the choice.
“We need to see the spreadsheets on which they’re basing the statements they’re making,” Peters tells the Guardian, referring to National’s campaign pledge to cut taxes, funded in part by permitting the sale of New Zealand’s most costly houses to foreign buyers. It has been derided by some economists as implausible; Peters says he will assess if the promise is “credible” when presented with evidence.
The NZ First leader will not say which of his party’s policies must be adopted in order to win his endorsement. National last week warned that a deal with Peters might not be possible, sending the country to a second election. Peters has rebuffed the suggestion as “scaremongering”.
There appears to be no third option. The Labour prime minister Chris Hipkins, who has governed with Peters before, in August vehemently ruled out doing so again; Peters had already rejected Labour in 2022. But should Hipkins change his mind on election night – if the left bloc is within grasp of victory – would Peters entertain a call from him too?
The ire in Peters’ response – in which he denounces Labour’s “gigantic lurch to the left” and criticises the government’s attempts to rectify historic inequities for Māori – suggests no chance of Peters endorsing a leftwing coalition. He has, after all, drawn fresh support since 2020 on a platform of anti-government feeling.
Public mood shifts
To his fervent admirers, the fact it was Peters – when he last held the balance of power in 2017 – who ushered Labour and Jacinda Ardern into office, does not seem to matter. Nor does the fact that, as deputy prime minister in 2020, he endorsed Ardern’s coronavirus response – his opposition to which has been a central theme in 2023.
NZ First’s candidates include former lawmakers for the party, conservative figures from local politics, a former TV soap star, and campaigners against vaccine mandates. But none of them have the name recognition of Peters: irascible, elegantly tailored, and constant. The former lawyer, who is Māori, grew up in a deprived region of Northland, at the top of the country. He rails against “tokenism” for New Zealand’s Indigenous people – a view that has only grown more vehement as successive governments have moved towards policies and decision-making that recognise Māori. In September, he drew widespread opprobrium for his claim that Māori are not Indigenous to New Zealand.
Voters rejected his patter in 2020, with the country in a buoyant mood from the success of a world-leading Covid containment strategy and trust in government high. But in the years since, with public sentiment in New Zealand trending negatively for the first time in two decades, Peters has rallied for his return.
Let’s Take Back Our Country, say the billboards. From what?
“The leftist shills who’ve decided that they want to change things without any democracy or consultation or mandate whatsoever,” he tells the Guardian. It does not matter if his audience knows precisely what that means; Peters is speaking to those who just want to hear someone say it.
