Winston wows crowds on Seymour’s home turf
NZ First leader Winston Peters is coming for Act and leader David Seymour, whether he likes it or not.
And National leader Christopher Luxon is likely going to have to address questions over how an arrangement with all three parties could work, and why it would be less chaotic than how he seeks to depict the bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
Peters yesterday spoke to a packed hall of over 200 people in the Auckland suburb of Remuera, in the heart of Seymour’s Epsom electorate.
Peters and Seymour have had some famous run-ins in the past, and there have been major questions raised over how they might get along in any future governing arrangement alongside National, although a debate on Thursday night revealed a softening between the two.
The parties also currently appear to be courting a similar voter base, further indicated by the large turnout for Peters in Seymour’s electorate.
It was an electric and energetic meeting, with the audience captivated by Peters’ every word, with cheers and applause throughout as Peters seeks to reenter Parliament after being booted out in the 2020 election.
During the meeting the veteran politician railed against “neoliberal, far right and communist ideology”, which he says has taken over the country, in a speech tackling everything from Covid-19 and the World Health Organisation and its “global agenda” to human impacts on climate change.
Peters drew the loudest applause when speaking about his policy to have a “full scale inquiry” into the Government’s Covid-19 response. He said the current royal commission of inquiry was too narrow in scope.
He drew another loud cheer talking about the anti-mandates Parliament protest, which he visited, last year.
“It’s an absolute disgrace what was going on,” Peters said. “I blame that utterly on members of Parliament who wouldn’t talk to them in the first place,” he said. There was only one other politician who sought to make peace with the protesters: Seymour.
But Peters was clearly out to make a point of why potential voters should be wary to support Act, constantly reminding the crowd of his experience compared to Seymour.
Do they want a politician with 40 years’ experience or simply “imitation”, he asked the crowd, which delivered some hearty cheering in response.
The comment mirrored a jab he made at Thursday night’s debate. As Seymour was defending himself against claims of race-baiting, Peters interjected, “he’s not baiting, he’s imitating!”.
Peters also took aim at the Government’s climate change policies — and those of National — questioning the impacts of human activity on increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Act has also taken a strong stance against the Government’s policies around climate change and wants to repeal the Zero Carbon Act, which National supports.
Peters received loud applause for repeating that he would not work with the Labour Party after the election, while calling on National to be more clear about how it could work with NZ First.
Luxon, meanwhile, did his best to avoid having to answer questions about working with Peters, again refusing to rule it out. He deflected five questions in a row yesterday about Peters and NZ First, instead reverting to his talking points that the question illustrated how important it was to only vote National and attempting to paint a Labour-led government with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as a “coalition of chaos” instead.
On the most recent polls National and Act would be able to govern alone, but only just, and if NZ First continues to increase its support — with polls regularly now showing the party at the 5 per cent threshold — a three-way coalition could be on the cards.