Peters: Labour policies threaten ‘fundamental rights’
AUCKLAND: New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has ruled out — kind of — working with the Labour Party after the 2023 election.
Mr Peters made a speech attacking Labour for its cogovernance policies. The speech ended with Mr Peters saying he would ‘‘never’’ work with any party ‘‘whose policies threaten these fundamental rights’’ — a hint that Labour would have to drop those policies if he were to work with them after the next election.
The question of who Mr Peters will and will not work with vexes many elections. He has three times been in the position of deciding which of
Labour or National he would pick to govern with.
This leads to a preelection game of political ‘‘Hokey Tokey’’ with Labour, National and NZ First ruling each other in, then out, while the electorate is shaken all about. Speaking to media, Mr Peters would not explicitly rule out Labour, but implied it would be very difficult to work with the party again.
‘‘We were in government for three years. There were matters which were clearly not disclosed to me or my party — He Puapua and going to Ihumatao.
‘‘Since the election you have seen the emergence of what are clearly racebased policies and a pathway to apartheid — there’s no other word for it.
Despite his strong words against Labour, Mr Peters was careful to leave some wriggle room to work with the party in the future. He did not rule them out completely.
NZ First was ejected from Parliament at the previous election, but polled 3% in the most recent 1 News Kantar poll, which was taken in early August.