Winston Peters distances himself from Labour ‘circus’
AN energised Winston Peters has once again taken the political stage to promise his followers not only a return to Parliament, but a return to power.
‘‘We’re here to organise the next Government of New Zealand,’’ Peters told an audience of party faithful yesterday.
The veteran politican’s message – ‘‘they thought that we were over, how wrong they are’’ – was the opener for NZ First’s annual conference at the Rydges hotel in Christchurch, at which more than 80 party members plotted a comeback after the
party’s ousting from Parliament at the 2020 election.
‘‘If anybody thinks that the Labour Party is going to survive this next election, they know nothing about politics,’’ Peters said. Much of Peter’s promised
future resembles the past. NZ First is hoping for a re-run of 2011, when the party returned to Parliament after three years in the political wilderness.
Bogged down by a donations scandal, Peters was turfed out of
Parliament and his Tauranga seat in 2008. Then, a year out from the 2011 election, the party held an annual meeting in Christchurch to declare its return was imminent.
Peters’ speech that day included criticism of the National Government’s economic policy – the worst of the global financial crisis was receding – and its handling of the foreshore and seabed issue, which had animated the race relations debate for years prior. A campaign focused on town hall meetings followed.
Fast forward to 2022, and Peters now campaigns against a Labour Government pained by a post-pandemic economic crisis, set on chartering a new course on race relations with co-governance arrangements.
‘‘It’s an absolute circus, an absolute circus. You talk about economics 101? They can’t even work that out,’’ Peters said.
Former NZ First MP Shane Jones was more evocative: ‘‘I just want to identify some of these airy goals that now blight us and their political, hallucinogenic objectives. They’ll never be achieved. Remember 100,000 houses?’’ Those within the party are positive about their chances, having once again shaken off a ‘‘witch-hunt’’.
A Serious Fraud Office case earlier this year, closed in June with two not-guilty verdicts.