Cagey Winston mum on future
About this event I’m happy to talk. I’m not doing other types of interviews, Winston peters
Former deputy prime minister Winston Peters has made his first public appearance since NZ First was ejected from Parliament in last year’s general election, but he wasn’t giving clues about his future plans.
Peters attended the dedication of a memorial to 499 Chinese goldminers whose remains were lost when the SS Ventnor sank off the Hokianga Heads in 1902.
The monument, at Manea Footprints of Kupe Centre in Ō pononi, also remembers iwi who gathered the bones that washed ashore and buried them with their own dead.
He was accompanied by former NZ First MP Shane Jones, who, as regional economic development minister was responsible for the $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund, which helped build both Manea and Ventnor memorials.
In a speech during the dedication, Peters said it was a poignant and hugely significant day.
“It’s a long time since that boat went down, but the chance to do the right thing was never lost, because local people took steps to preserve those bones that they could, knowing full well they weren’t theirs,” he said.
He joined Jones in presenting a carved pouwhenua, which Jones described as a stake in the ground, to members of the NZ Chinese Association which had driven the memorial project.
Asked about his political future, Peters was less than forthcoming.
“About this event I’m happy to talk.
“I’m not doing other types of interviews,” he said.
Nor would he say if he was disappointed the current Government was not continuing the PGF, given the fund’s support for both the Manea centre and the memorial.
“You’d have to ask the people of New Zealand about that,” he said, then strode off with a typical Peters chuckle.