New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says his party “won’t do a deal with Labour”, as “nothing has changed” since his 2022 promise to rule out the left-wing party.
But his National coalition partner Nicola Willis doesn’t appear convinced, saying Peters “will always find a way” to get around previous comments.
She said he had a “track record” of doing so, meaning “I just think it is difficult to assume they wouldn’t find a circumstance in which they would choose to work with Labour”.
Despite that, Willis said she trusted Peters.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins is still refusing to make a similar commitment, telling reporters on Thursday that he will set out a “comprehensive” picture of who Labour may work with later in the year.
He said that prior to the last election he ruled out NZ First and “that’s unlikely to change”. Yet he repeatedly refused to rule the party out.
Peters’ refusal to work with Labour means Hipkins’ party may become reliant on the Greens and Te Pāti Māori to form a Government after the election.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi this morning said his party would be taking a wealth tax to any coalition negotiations, something Hipkins says his party won’t support.
The question of whether NZ First may work with Labour after the upcoming election reared its head again this week after Willis said it was a “live risk”, pointing to Peters going with Labour after the 2017 election.
National leader Christopher Luxon then piled on, saying that despite NZ First professing to be “socially conservative”, the party “put [Dame] Jacinda Ardern into power”. He said many New Zealanders, including NZ First supporters, were “shocked” by that decision.
Peters later addressed the issue in a social media post, highlighting that in 2022 he revealed to the Herald that he was ruling out working with the Labour Party.
“We did that because the left are full of woke, self-confessed communists who would turn our country into a basket case,” Peters said on Wednesday night.
Four years ago in 2022, a full year before the last election, we ruled out working with the Labour Party.
— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) April 22, 2026
We did that because the left are full of woke self confessed communists who would turn our country into a basket case.
Nothing has changed. In fact they are even worse.…
“Nothing has changed. In fact, they are even worse. No, we won’t do a deal with Labour or their Marxist and separatist mates.”
While he previously ruled out working with Hipkins, the current Labour leader “permanently”, he hadn’t explicitly ruled out working with the party (should it change its leader).
NZ First is currently riding high in the polls. In the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll, taken between April 1 and April 2, it was up 3.9 points to 13.6%. A Talbot Mills poll earlier this month had the party on 15%, while the 1News-Verian poll this week put it at 10%.
Those poll results would see the party grow its presence in Parliament and potentially put it in a stronger position to negotiate with a slumping National Party after the election, should the centre-right parties be in a position to form a Government.
Hipkins on Thursday morning was non-committal about whether he could work with NZ First.
“I’ve said that I’ll set that out closer to the election,” he said.
Asked what was stopping him making that commitment today, he said: “I’ll set out in a more comprehensive way our views on the other parties in Parliament, where we have common ground, and where we don’t.”
He said he didn’t want to “drip that out piecemeal based on events of the day”.
“I am going to do that in a principled way and we’ll do it closer to the election, as we did last time.”
Hipkins said Peters’ comments made it clear that a vote for NZ First “is a vote to re-elect Christopher Luxon as Prime Minister”.
Asked about Peters’ post, Willis on Thursday smiled.
“You have seen him through the years, haven’t you, he will always find a way of saying, ‘no, no, no, what I meant at the time was’ or ‘well, that was just a tweet, you saw what I said’.”
She said it was difficult to forget NZ First’s decision to go with Labour in 2017, despite National receiving a higher election result.
Willis said she trusted Peters, but he “has a great way with words”.
Peters’ comments mean Labour would likely need to turn to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori if it wishes to govern after the election. No polling currently shows Labour close to getting a majority.
The 1News-Verian poll showed those three parties could form a Government if they worked together.
Speaking to Ryan Bridge TODAY this morning, Waititi, the co-leader of Te Pāti Māori, said there would be “no change of Government, no one-term Government without Te Pāti Māori”.
Waititi said his party wished to ensure wealthy New Zealanders were paying their fair share of tax.
“We’ve been really clear, a wealth tax is absolutely one of those things that we will be taking into any coalition agreement.”
Hipkins on Thursday said Labour “will not be supporting a wealth tax”.
Asked if he would rather go back to the polls, meaning hold another election, than support a wealth tax, Hipkins said, “I don’t think it’d ever come to that.”
Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald’s Chief Political Reporter, based in the Press Gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office. He was a finalist this year for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.