Adam Bennett: Winston Peters history lesson

Winston Peters. Photo / Herald on Sunday

While they were there for a Maori Business Hui, it was mainly a history lesson Victoria University students received from New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters today at the university's Te Herenga Waka Marae.

Mr Peters was there to talk about management of Maori resources and Maori development and began with a nod to his namesake Winston Churchill who it is safe to assume was not as familiar a figure to the 45 or so fresh faced attentive students in attendance as is to Mr Peters' usual audience.

Referring to Sir Winston's famous request for the resources required to meet the threat of Nazi Germany: "Give us the tools and we will finish the job", Mr Peters used it as the starting point for an attack on the lack of resources allocated by successive Governments for Maori development.

According to Mr Peters's version of history, it was principally the failure of the Government at the time and ever since to pick up the blueprint for Maori social and economic development formulated when he was Maori Affairs Minister in the early nineties.

In that context, the present social and economic malaise of Maori, particularly its youth, was both explicable and predictable he said.

He found evidence of that in comments by the recent visitor to these shores, UN Special Rapporteur for Indigenous People, Professor James Anaya, who took aim at the "extreme disadvantage in the social and economic conditions of Maori people".

But in his analysis of what was at the core of that disadvantage, Mr Peters differed from Prof Anaya's view that it was down to "the historical and ongoing denial of the human rights of Maori".

"It is not a rights issue we are talking about," said Mr Peters, "but one of serious policy failure and until that is understood by all concerned then little progress is possible".

As the Tino Rangatiratanga flag flew from the wharenui's flagstaff overhead, Mr Peters was asked, given his involvement in Maori land rights issues which eventually prompted Dame Whina Cooper's historic march, why he'd chosen politics over activism.

"Walking is not hard. The hardest part is the agony of work, the research, all the stuff in trying to outwit your opponent."

What's more he was proud of his and NZ First's record of achievements on behalf of Maori.

Afterwards it was clear at least some of Mr Peters' young audience knew more about him than before and that he may have won some respect.

"I never knew he was a lawyer," said one woman. "I always thought he was a bush politician."

Mr Peters told the students he wasn't at the Marae to campaign, and when asked by one student why he should vote for him, played it for laughs - "because you're intelligent".

However, he did refer to the fact that NZ First's party vote at the last election was within short spitting distance of the 5 per cent threshold required to secure their presence in Parliament, and indicated he is confident his party can close that particular gap at least.

While he's comfortable delivering a lecture on the subject, clearly Mr Peters doesn't believe his political career is entirely consigned to history just yet.