Positive switch for Peters
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters appears to have changed campaign tactics, shifting his focus from attacking Labour to embracing coalition wins.
Speaking to a socially distanced crowd in Auckland’s Aotea Square, Peters’ tone was noticeably different when talking about his coalition partners.
“During the last three years, we have run a very sound, competent Government and we have made huge investments in areas that have been neglected,” he said.
He cited the reaction to the March 15 terror attack, the Whakaari/ White Island eruption and the pandemic: “We handled it together as a Government — it was a combined effort.”
This is in contrast to some of his recent comments in public meetings. Two weeks ago, he referred to Labour as the “other side” when attacking some of its moves, such as KiwiBuild and its light rail plans.
Frequently he has taken credit for ensuring the Capital Gains Tax ( CGT) didn’t make it into law. And at his party’s campaign launch, he took aim at the inexperience of Labour and the Greens. “We have opposed woke pixie dust,” he said, before adding NZ First had been “a handbrake for silly ideas”.
Although he did take a quick swipe at KiwiBuild yesterday, he was more focused on the “smart ideas” his party brought to the coalition table and didn’t mention any “silly ideas”.
Peters’ apparent change in rhetoric comes after a string of bad poll results for his party. In the most recent 1News/ Colmar Brunton poll, NZ First was on 1 per cent. The party was on a similar level of support on the Newshub/ Reid Research poll released a day before.
It has been more than a year since NZ First publicly polled at or above 5 per cent — the number needed to get back into Parliament.