Winston Peters: Conservatives have no chance

It seems New Zealand First leader Winston Peters can't quite bring himself to utter the words "Colin Craig"or "the Conservative Party".

Numerous times during a visit to New Plymouth yesterday, would only refer to him only as the "chem-trail" guy, or the "moon-landing" party.

Both parties have risen in recent polls, with New Zealand First confidently above the 5 per cent threshold. But the Conservatives, which were so throughly dismissed earlier, are now above 4 per cent in some polls, prompting pundits and commentators to muse about their chances.

On planet Winston, their chances are zilch.

"We are on the rise. He is not."

Nor were the Conservatives eating a chunk out of his voter base, even though Mr Craig frequently tried to woo the same elderly vote.

The Conservatives were only taking votes from National, and Mr Peters was dismissive of Mr Craig.

"I'm not going to get into a dual of wits with an unarmed opponent," he said, drawing on one of his well-worn insults.

The Conservatives were not the only party to attract the scorn of Mr Peters yesterday.
The National Party was stealing his fishing policy. The Labour Party was stealing his immigration and foreign ownership policies. The chem-trail party had stolen all his policies.

"There are a lot of people who are bound to sound like an echo. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery," he told an audience at the Jean Sandel Retirement Village.

The Greens were kidding themselves if they thought New Zealand could cripple its oil and gas industries. Act was so void of negotiating muscle that its list of post-election demands, if that scenario transpired, was destined for the toilet.

There was the usual pitch about his party being unmatched on benefits for pensioners, and a claim that the Government was going to jeopardise that by reviewing Supergold travel perks.

As he wandered around the streets and malls, his was a familiar face, even if it wasn't always clear who he was.

"You're famous! You're on TV," said 13-year-old Tyson Sothern, who was thrilled to have his photo taken with a guy whose name he didn't know.

Others, like 26-year-old Damian Bosson, were delighted to snap a selfie, but reluctant to pledge their vote to New Zealand First.

But there was a more serious side to the visit. At the retirement village, Mr Peters was asked about Labour's capital gains tax - which he said he opposed because it didnt take capital losses into account.

But he said he wanted a capital gains tax applied to foreigners who already owned property in New Zealand, while at the same time cracking down on further property sales to non-residents.

He appealed to local wallets by promising hundreds of millions of dollars under his party's royalties for regions policy, which would see at least 25 per cent of royalties go back to the region they came from.

"Why should all the royalties go down to Wellington? Why shouldn't you get a share of it?"
But he couldn't escape being asked, again, which of the major parties he wanted to go with after the election.

"When I go down to the car factory to buy a Rolls Royce, I don't come away with a Toyota. When I party vote NZ First, I'm party voting NZ First, and no other party," he told about 100 people at the New Plymouth Club.

"All the rest are kling-ons. If you walk into the room of someone who already owns you, what's your negotiating strength?"

John Key would take no more than a glance at Act leader Jamie Whyte's list of demands, and then "flush it".

"What about the guy that believes in the chemical trails ... or that we didn't land on the moon? What if, by some quirk of idiocy, he got in?

"They're going to say, well, 'We think you're a nice guy, but we've got our priorities and they don't include you'."

At least by the end of the day, Colin Craig had been elevated to a 'nice guy'.