Winston Peters on the campaign trail in Paraparaumu. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“They’re not laughing now are they?”
That was NZ First leader Winston Peters’ message to those who joked about his party’s chances of returning to Parliament.
The veteran politician was in good spirits at the Duke of Marlborough Hotel in Russell last night - and he had good reason to be.
At the final count, Peters and NZ First had secured enough votes to earn them eight seats in Parliament.
National won 50 seats, Labour 34, the Greens 14, Act 11 and Te Pāti Māori four seats.
The result means National and Act would have a combined 61 seats in a Parliament with a projected 121 MPs in total. That’s potentially enough to govern without needing support from NZ First.
However National will have a wary eye on the results with the prospect of an overhang in Parliament - meaning there could be more than 120 MPs in total. That could mean 61 seats might not be enough - and the prospect of Luxon having to turn to NZ First.
Special votes could also impact on Parliament’s final shape, with a final result scheduled to be declared on November 3.
There will also be a by-election held in Port Waikato on November 25 – a seat National currently holds – due to the death of Act candidate Neil Christensen during the campaign.
Peters’ return to Parliament marks a clear pattern over his long political career – a series of bitter defeats followed by sweet victories.
It has happened often enough for him to be the undisputed King of the Comebacks in modern politics.
It is almost as though he needs the bad times to pick himself up, come from behind and thrive on the victory.
Overcoming adversity is part of his life story that he has been re-telling on the campaign stumps this election as he has every campaign.
He came from a dirt-poor family in Northland, one of 11 children, who lived in a positive community with a strong work ethic and a belief that education was crucial. He tells that story to counter the “hand-wringers” who insist that crime is carried out because people are poor.
This victory is particularly sweet. He and his New Zealand First Party were voted out of Parliament in 2020 after three years in coalition with Labour and a new Prime Minister in Jacinda Ardern.
He was defeated in his first attempt to get into Parliament, in 1975 in Northern Maori as a National candidate against Labour Minister Matiu Rata.
He then tried again in 1978 in the general electorate of Hunua, and was defeated again by Labour’s Malcolm Douglas, by 301 votes. But he took legal action against the result and after a court-ordered recount, he was declared the winner in May 1979 by 192 votes. Defeat was followed by a comeback.
He lost the seat in 1981 to Labour’s Colin Moyle but in 1984 found a safe National seat to stand in after the retirement of Keith Allen. Another comeback.
When National won power in 1990 he was made Minister of Maori Affairs by Prime Minister Jim Bolger but fell out with him and was sacked as a minister in 1991 for undermining Bolger.
He continued to criticise National while still a National MP. He was expelled from National and won a byelection in Tauranga as an independent.
He formed the New Zealand First Party before the 1993 election but won only two seats for himself and Tau Henare.
In an incredible comeback to the centre-stage of politics in 1996, the first MMP election, his new party won 17 seats. Peters became Deputy Prime Minister to Bolger in a coalition government with National.
By the end of that term, the coalition had collapsed and Peters’ party was shattered and divided. Jenny Shipley had rolled Jim Bolger with the support of National MPs who did not like the power New Zealand First wielded.
She sacked Peters as Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister after a dispute over the sale of Government shares in Wellington Airport. It split his party, with most NZ First ministers electing not to follow him out of coalition but to stay as ministers until the 1999 election. It was a slow comeback.
New Zealand First’s 4.3 per cent in 1999 would have tipped it out of Parliament altogether had it not been for the coat-tailing rules that exempt a party from the 5 per cent threshold if it gains an electorate seat. Peters scraped in by his fingernails, with a majority of 63 votes, returning with four other MPs and then returning again in 2002 with 10.38 per cent and 13 MPs.
There were two other major defeats in Peters’ career, followed by comebacks. In between his divorce from National in 1993 and his coalition with the party in 1996, he maintained his political profile through the Winebox campaign.
It was a winebox full of tax transactions he claimed were proof of corruption and incompetence by big business and IRD to avoid tax in New Zealand. He tabled the box in Parliament and managed to get National to agree to a Commission of Inquiry – possibly to shut him up.
But the commission’s findings did not support his allegations and Peters was almost universally pilloried. Peters then undertook a legal challenge of the Commissioner, former Chief Justice Sir Ron Davison, and some of his findings. The Court of Appeal found in his favour and it was one of his sweetest victories.
The biggest setback in his political career came in 2008 and was based entirely on his own behaviour. His party was voted out of Parliament after a series of scandals about election donations. After a privileges committee inquiry over a $100,000 donation from Sir Owen Glenn, he was censured by Parliament for “knowingly providing false or misleading information on a return of pecuniary interests”.
He stood aside as Foreign Minister shortly before the election while the SFO investigated donations made to the Spencer Trust, though no charges were laid. John Key, who was set to become the new Prime Minister, ruled out working with New Zealand First.
The party made a comeback at the next election in 2011 though as much by accident as anything else. The teapot tape saga guaranteed Peters wall-to-wall coverage shortly before the election.
A cameraman left a tape on a cafe table after a photo opportunity between Key and Act leader John Banks and recorded their conversation, including disparaging comments about Peters’ elderly supporters.
He returned to Parliament in 2011 on a wave of unexpected publicity, with 6.59 per cent of the vote, in 2014 with 8.66 per cent of the vote and 2017 with 7.2 per cent.
Initial construction work on the next section is set to begin by the end of next year.