Audrey Young: Northland victory one of many for Winston Peters

Northland is by no means the least important but there are four others that should rate above it. Photo / The New Zealand Herald, Nick Reed

The latest victory for any politician probably feels like their greatest.

Winston Peters has had many victories to compare last night's against.

But while it was a very sweet victory, others have been more important.

Northland is by no means the least important but there are four others that should rate above it.

1. Election, 1996
A little over three years after forming New Zealand First, Peters led his caucus from two (him and Tau Henare) to 17 including all five Maori seats and formed the first Government under MMP in coalition with National. The rest, they say, is history.

It unraveled for two main reasons: National MPs could not tolerate the notion of power-sharing with a party which many despised and installed Jenny Shipley to sort them out, and the lack of political experience in NZ First. It didn't last long but it was a stunning victory.

2. Winebox, August 1999
The Winebox issue defined Peters as a politician throughout the 1990s as NZ First leader from 1993 to 1999.

Having got the winebox of documents, which he claimed showed unlawful transactions, tabled in Parliament, the Government set up a commission of inquiry to shut him up and to try to restore confidence in Inland Revenue and the Serious Fraud Office. The commission found against Peters' arguments but he took it to court and in August, the High Court found the chief commissioner had got the law wrong and overturned his finding that the Magnum deal was not fraudulent.

3. Election, November 1999
Despite his parliamentary party having been decimated while in coalition with National, Peters clung on in Tauranga with 63 votes. It was a razor-thin lifeline not just to him but for four other of Peters' loyalists because without it they all would have been out of Parliament having got just 4.3 per cent in the party vote, below the 5 per cent threshold. The Winebox victory helped to rescue him from what otherwise would have been oblivion.

4. Election, 2011
Peters had a second spell in the wilderness after the privileges committee found in 2008 he had knowingly filed a false return to Parliament when he failed to declare a $100,000 donation from billionaire Owen Glenn. The first spell was between 1981 and 1984. He made a comeback in 2011 with 6.59 per cent of the vote and eight MPs, helped by anti-National voters who didn't think Phil Goff stood a chance and by being handed a perfect platform in the teapot tapes incident to get valuable exposure in the last three weeks of the campaign.

5. Northland Byelection, 2015
Peters' 40-year career (and counting) began with a loss in 1975 when he challenged Matiu Rata in Northern Maori, where he was raised. His win in Northland has a "completing the circle" nature to it and he referenced that during the campaign - the fact he was always planning to end up in Northland but it would happen sooner.

The victory was savoured even more because Prime Minister John Key said he had "zero" chance of winning -- the epitome of arrogance. But measured against its importance in terms of Peters' success, it is less important than the ones above. Its importance lies more in its successful challenge to National's sense of invincibility in its third term of Government.

- NZME