Whatever else you can say about Winston Raymond Peters, he is definitely not dead. Quite the opposite, in fact. The leader of NZ First isn’t just alive, but alive and still kicking against the pricks.
Indeed, if someone were to give a long, grandiloquent speech titled “The State Of Winston Peters” -- he might like to do it himself -- they would say that Winston Raymond Peters is still as fit as a fiddle, as hale and hearty as a mighty totara, as sound as a cathedral bell.
And very soon, this eternal flame in the fight against ragbags with long hair and no jobs, this ancient monument of New Zealand politics, will reach the amazing age of 192.
But I am joking. He is not a tortoise. Nor a tuatara. For a start, he has much better hair. No, Winston Raymond Peters, Kingmaker, Slayer of Lefty Shills, Pensioner’s Pensioner, is an old man who will soon reach the imposing age of 80.
What should we -- struggling taxpayers, humble voters, those who are so lucky to have such a man as Deputy Prime Minister -- give to him to mark such a significant birthday? A nice new tie and matching pocket square? A meal voucher for the Green Parrot? A packet of smokes and a bottle of scotch?
Or perhaps we could arrange for Donald Trump’s goons to send Green MP and New Zealand citizen Ricardo Menéndez March back to his birth country, Mexico. That would certainly make Winston’s day. Not to mention Shane Jones’s.
There is no need to rush into a gift decision. Winston’s 80th isn’t until April 11. But whatever we do, we should not be giving him a birthday cake.
In a probing media interview published this week, the great man revealed he doesn’t eat pudding. Well, not often. He has what he describes as a “high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet with lots of greens and lots of fish”. He has done for years.
And just like Doc Brown in Back to the Future clearly remembering the “red letter day” he invented time travel (November 5, 1955, of course), Winston Raymond Peters can remember exactly when he started his diet. It was June 5, 1980.
Is this regime the secret to Winston’s seemingly eternal life? Is lots of spinach or snapper the formula for getting back into Parliament even when you’ve been booted out three times? Is avoiding pudding his key to potentially breaking, in a couple of years’ time, the all-time record for longest-serving member of Parliament, which currently stands at 40 years and 194 days?
Winston might think so. Another Kind of Politics thinks not. The real secret to Peters’ long life -- and long political career -- was there for all to see and hear yet again during his latest “State of the Nation” speech to a room full of his people -- people who looked like they’re pushing 80, too.
That secret isn’t his diet, which sounds a bit too ladies-who-lunch, frankly. The secret is his anger. Peters’ history is a history of his outrage. In the past, he has been angry about too many immigrants. Or the wrong kind of immigrants. He’s been angry about privatisation and deregulation. He’s been angry about businesses using the Cook Islands as a tax haven. He’s been angry about Māori seats in Parliament. Or that there are too many damn parliamentarians. He’s been angry at crims not being punished properly, and about the Treaty of Waitangi “grievance industry”. He’s been angry about Covid mandates and lockdowns. He has been angry over the regulation of “natural health” products. He’s been angry about Māori wards in local government. He’s been angry about government ministries and departments using Māori names and including references to the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation. He’s been angry, very angry, about Labour, despite him being the one who put it into power in 2017. He’s even been angry with the party that first helped him into Parliament way back in 1978: National.
The real question as Peters’ 80th birthday approaches is not about “wokeness”, or what he eats, but where does all his anger come from?
And now, in his latest hectoring “State of the Nation” speech, he’s angry about things called “wokeness”, “DEI” (aka, diversity, equity and inclusion) and “left-wing fascists”, whatever they are. Isn’t calling someone a “left-wing fascist” like accusing someone of being a “vegan carnivore”?
Anyway, by a stroke of luck, “wokeness” and “DEI” are two things Donald Trump is angry about, too. Getting rid of them is what helped convince 77.3 million idiots to give the Orange Wrecking Ball a second term. Could that be the reason Peters is angry about these things, too, as he eyes the 2026 election?
Actually, the real question, the lingering question as Peters’ 80th birthday approaches, is not about “wokeness”, or what he eats, but where does all his anger come from? Could it be from a lack of pudding for all those years? Is he actually “hangry” rather than angry?
Whatever the source of his affliction, there is one thing Peters has truly taught us: it is not diet but anger, real or performative, that is the true secret to a long life. And to surviving nearly four decades as a populist demagogue.
So, feel the rage New Zealand, and live forever. Grrr.
No, Prime Minister: should we be able to sack leaders if they lose their marbles?
Should we, the people, be able to pull the plug on a Prime Minister when their decision-making abilities are impaired by dodgy health or getting pissed too much? University of Otago researchers think so.
In a paper published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, they make the case that the performance of at least four of our prime ministers was impaired by ill health or drinking and that we ought to be able to get shot of such people.
“Given that leaders play a critical role in determining when and why countries go to war,” one researcher says, “New Zealand should give serious consideration to safeguarding its democratic system from the risk posed by a leader with diminished capacity.”
The researchers suggest our leaders be required to have independent medical assessments before and during their premierships, and that the country have some sort of “recall” system for voters to get rid of them.
Fine. But what do we do about leaders (though apparently not suffering from dementia, a dodgy ticker or endless hangovers) who are still prone to awful decisions and endless gaffes? Like, say, an unpopular multimillionaire PM who might, say, decide to take a taxpayer-funded $52,000 per year housing entitlement on his mortgage-free Wellington flat? Or who brags that he is “wealthy” and “sorted” in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis? Who supports, to the first reading, a bill that is so racially divisive that tens of thousands march on Parliament? Or one who recklessly posts a picture of himself and his family on social media looking like catalogue models in matching PJs?
Shouldn’t we be able to quickly recall them, too? Yes, we should.
Political quiz of the week
Where was this picture taken of the towering political figure and chilled, smart-casual sophisticate, David Seymour?
A/ In the Land of the Giants.
B/ In the Land of the Extra Large.
C/ In the Land of the Quite Big.
D/ In the Land of the Averagely Sized.
