New Zealand First leader Winston Peters pulled no punches during his West Auckland address on Sunday, accusing his coalition partners of being slow on immigration and saying National and Labour had been given 40 years to improve New Zealand and it was time to give him a go.
“This is still the greatest country on earth; it is just the political leadership that has let us down. You might say ‘Mr. Peters, you were there for a long time’, but when have I had the tools to do the job?
“When we have had the tools to do certain things, we’ve saved the superannuitants, we’ve saved New Zealand Railways, we saved the ferries. We are saying in this campaign, look, you have given the rest 40 years of experimentation, how about you give us a go? At least this is not our first, second, third or fourth rodeo. For the other clowns, it is.”
In his hour-long speech, Peters took aim at Labour (“these people are such liars”), its leader Chris Hipkins (“sausage roll eater”), National and Act (who made “not a mutter or murmur” against the previous Government’s immigration policies) and various journalists (“these are bulldust articles”).
Peters’ supporters packed out the conference room in Trusts Arena in West Auckland, “the home of traditional hard-working Kiwi battlers”, where he announced two cost-of-living themed campaign policies.
New Zealand First will campaign on buying back the BNZ bank and merging it with Kiwibank, as the Government ponders the potential part-privatisation of the state-owned bank. Peters’ party would also campaign on making KiwiSaver enrolment compulsory at birth with a $1000 Crown contribution.
This, he said, would birth the “Kiwisaver generation” where no New Zealander entered adulthood without a savings foundation in place.
As 63-year-old Daniel Lee from East Auckland, a long-time National voter, walked into Trusts Arena, a party staff member asked if he wanted to sign up as a member of New Zealand First.
“We will see,” he said.
Lee was open to switching his party vote to New Zealand First and was here to see what Peters had to say. He believed Christopher Luxon’s National Party was doing its best to fix the economy but had underestimated the challenge of tackling debt.
“[Sir] John Key ... [in] his first term, he didn’t do much at all, but it was the second term [that he did] and to expect the same result from Christopher Luxon after he has inherited $180 billion debt I think it is not fair.”
Speaking after Peters’ speech, Lee said he would stick with National. He liked Peters’ idea of buying back BNZ but said he struggled to see how New Zealand could do that.
“The idea of having a national bank of New Zealand is a very good idea. If you buy [BNZ], it is going to be very expensive. If you want to, you can develop Kiwibank. You can get enough shareholders but the trouble with New Zealand First, they are not open to foreign investment. All you need is to own 51% of the bank, and issue capital for 49%.”
Lee said National, Act and New Zealand First all had good policies “if they can just work together ... [there would be] more harmony”.
“You won’t have perfect agreement, but even in a family, a husband and wife will not agree on anything. But I think if we can focus on the common things for the sake of the country.”
The coalition Government has certainly become less harmonious in recent months, with the three parties appearing more inwardly focused as they try to separate themselves from each other and carve out their own policies and identities ahead of the election.
In the weeks before his speech, Peters admitted he made a mistake when his office released to the Herald emails which showed Luxon wanted to shift the Government’s position to show “explicit public support” for the US-led war in Iran, days after it broke out.
This prompted night-time crisis talks between the two senior leaders at the Beehive.
In the hours before Peters’ address in West Auckland, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford appeared on Q+A with Jack Tame, where she said she had needed to clear up “those misunderstandings from Mr Peters” as to whether people who received visas under the India free trade agreement could eventually bring their family members to New Zealand. But Peters reiterated these same statements again during his speech.
At the podium at Trusts Arena, Peters accused Stanford, National and Act of not speaking up when the previous Labour and Greens Government’s “feet came totally off the breaks and [they] began approving 213,000 residencies in just 18 months.”
“Erica [Stanford, Minister of Immigration], what did you say when they were bringing in 213,000 residents in just 18 months? Not a mutter, not a murmur,” he said.
“Mr Luxon, he did a speech the other day as leader of the National Party talking about his concern about immigration. Wow, where did you get this 11th-hour experience? This road to Damascus epiphany? Or [Act leader David] Seymour, he made a similar speech.”
Peters said he did not want to “push the Bible too hard here” but “it does say in the good book, “by their deeds you’ll know them”.
This, he said, was “not a coalition breakdown, no, no. It’s about politics in the next election”.
“We’ve been warning for a long time now about unfettered immigration being used as a crutch for the economy and failing workforce planning for our own people. Just bringing in others when we should be training our own.
At times, Peters appeared to divert off script. He addressed the high-profile incident involving himself at the Northern Club and took aim at Te Pati Māori president John Tamihere, whose business and presence is most felt in Auckland’s west, before stating if Tamihere did not like what he said about him then “take me to court, come on”.
Howick man Jonas Ng, 57, said he liked Peters because “he dares to speak up”. He had not voted for New Zealand First before but said he was “open to him this time” as a party vote because Peters brought fresh ideas.
“Things that he thinks are wrong, he dares to speak up. I think some disagreement with [coalition partners] is good because we need another voice, we cannot have all the same voices.”
New Zealand First recently announced former All Blacks captain Taine Randell as a candidate in the election. Randell will stand in the Tukituki electorate. On Sunday, Peters also announced that former National MP Alfred Ngaro would stand for the party in Auckland’s Glendene electorate.
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.