Stubbornness - born from a childhood that included numerous stints in foster homes - will be a trait that the country's newest MP brings to Parliament.

Rodney Hide writes: Little is polling below Labour's previous leaders, Cunliffe and Shearer. Peters is breathing down his neck. Key remains on 51% as preferred PM.

New Zealand First leader and the new MP for Northland Winston Peters has doubled his popularity.

Taking on the presidency of a hairdressers' association was done with an eye on entering politics, New Zealand First's new MP says.

New Zealand First has confirmed its new MP will be parliamentary staffer and former hairdressing salon-owner Ria Bond.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is scheduled to hold a press conference in Invercargill this afternoon to confirm a new MP.

The National Party's support has remained steady despite its defeat in the Northland by-election, a new poll shows.

Treaty Minister Chris Finlayson says the impasse over Ngapuhi's settlement is largely personality-driven andNZ First leader Winston Peters could help resolving it.

New Zealand First is supporting a campaign for the referendum on changing the flag to first ask whether people want it changed at all.

NZ First leader Winston Peters turns 70 today but he wants nothing to do with it, thank you very much.

Newly-elected Northland MP Winston Peters has been called on to resolve a dispute that has held up a Treaty settlement for the country's largest iwi.

Less than 25h after a stunning victory, Winston Peters was up to his old petulant antics in a way that made the Aussie cricketers look like models of good sportsmanship, writes Paul Little.

Winston Peters' triumph in the Northland byelection signals the most serious challenge he has mounted to National in two decades, writes John Armstrong.

At the moment, the only thing standing between New Zealand and its total loss of sovereignty is Winston Peters, writes Dita De Boni.

Tactical campaigning in the Northland byelection could get one candidate in trouble after he urged voters to vote for Winston Peters instead of himself.

Winston Peters’ first contribution to parliamentary proceedings in his new guise as MP-elect for Northland must rank among his more bizarre interventions.

NZ First leader Winston Peters says Prime Minister John Key is "acting like a spoilt brat" by saying he doubted Mr Peters would work constructively with National.

Winston Peters' victory is an astonishing achievement. He cleaned out National. He cleaned out Labour, writes Rodney Hide.

It surely does not get much better than this for Winston Peters, writes John Armstrong.

NZ First leader Winston Peters has delivered National a humiliating bloodied nose in the Northland byelection, with a majority of 4,012 votes after the counting.

Provincial New Zealand wants to shake down the Government for some of the largesse offered to Northland with its byelection promise of new bridges galore.

What a madcap couple of months. The Northland byelection campaign has had all the infantile pranking, ill-discipline and personal baggage of an Auckland airport carousel at Maadi Cup time. Here, from....

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is the Bear Grylls of national politics. He knows every survival trick going, writes Claire Trevett.

Last night's 3News-Reid Research poll has Winston Peters registering a thumping 54 per cent, writes John Armstrong. If replicated on Saturday, the result will be akin to a massacre of National.

John Key is bound for Northland where he will be campaigning alongside candidate Mark Osborne, two days out from the Northland byelection.

A win by Peters in the Northland byelection could affect the outcome of some upcoming bills, and could have changed the result of recent ones.

A new poll has NZ First leader Winston Peters with a commanding lead in the Northland byelection even though almost half of the voters said they did not trust him.

Nearly 90 per cent of the 7500 new jobs created in the Northland region last year were full-time jobs, according to the office of Employment Minister Steven Joyce.