Winston Peters’ weird weekend waging an election culture war

A man in a suit speaks at a podium on stage, with sparklers and a cheering crowd in the background. The venue has wooden panels and decorative lights shaped like stars. — NZ First invested a portion of its campaign war chest in pyrotechnics.

At NZ First’s campaign launch, breaking up the supermarket duopoly got polite claps. Getting fluoride out of the water supply? Wild applause.

Winston Peters has spent the last few weeks producing an ambitious list of economically populist policy ideas. NZ First’s leader wants to break up the supermarket duopoly and split the gentailers. He’d like to buy back the BNZ as well, so long as he can rustle up a cool $20 billion.

At his party’s campaign launch on Sunday, nobody cared to hear much about that stuff. The reaction was polite, if muted, as Peters ran through his political record on raising the minimum wage and lifting police numbers. A bit of applause broke out when he brought up his plan to give every child born in New Zealand a $1,000 Kiwisaver kickstart. But people went absolutely bananas when he raised the prospect of holding votes on getting fluoride out of our water.

The speech continued in that vein. Funding for ambulances? Schmunding for schmambulances. When Peters mentioned his advocacy for a government inquiry into vaccine injuries, though, the crowd went wild. “Thank you,” yelled one person. “Yes!” screamed another. There were cheers as Peters talked about battling digital ID. Boos at each mention of the UN. Loud agreement as he complained about Britomart train station being named Waitematā now.

Maybe it was just the crowd. Despite NZ First’s ascendance in the polls, the Due Drop Events Centre in Manukau only looked to be about 70% full. Huge numbers of seats, including a set of bleachers at the back, were empty. It seemed those who’d bothered to show up were the hardest of the hardcore supporters. They may not have been representative of the 300,000-plus people who are likely to cast their ballot for the party on the current averages.

But they were a reflection of where Peters has positioned himself. He spent much of his speech railing against the “elitist status quo” and lamenting the “Pepsi or Coke” back and forth between Labour and National. In his mission to pry votes away from that bland, cola-based pair, he’s courted a host of disgruntled communities, from anti-vax groups to co-governance opponents.

His speech on Sunday was a grab-bag of nods to that coalition’s bug-bears. Anti-trans advocates got a shout out, with a mention of getting “men out of women’s sports”. So did climate sceptics, with Peters bragging of his party’s commitment to reneging on the Paris Agreement.

The anti-elitist angle can be uncomfortable for NZ First’s veteran leader, who you may remember as the deputy prime minister of the government from 18 months ago. He’s spent 40 years in parliament, much of it as a key player in the various governing coalitions that established the status quo he now rails against in the strongest terms. He is, in many ways that count, the elite.

Sometimes that comes back to bite him. His big policy announcement on Sunday was a $1 billion commitment to look for oil and gas off New Zealand’s coast. National’s Simeon Brown quickly put out a press release pointing out that Peters was part of the 2017 Labour government that banned offshore oil and gas exploration. In a press conference after his speech, Peters was reduced to flailing about how Shane Jones looked annoyed when that ban was first announced.

There can also be a feeling that Peters is fighting yesterday’s battles. He spoke about the pernicious influence of the UN’s He Puapua report on indigenous rights. He railed against the influence of “cloistered varsity lecturers” and “woke lefties”. His boast about getting men out of women’s sports was one of his loudest applause lines.

But He Puapua is gone. It’s unclear what influence cloistered varsity lecturers ever had but it seems to be virtually nil in the current political environment. Trans people have long been on the wrong end of a list of health and victimisation statistics and have seen their rights further eroded lately.

Listening to Peters, you’d think pink-haired professors were running the world, more so than a party that’s literally been part of the government for the last three years. Though he’s always been conservative, his speech cemented him as an even more fully-fledged culture war warrior.

Cobbling together a coalition of the disgruntled has been an electoral success. Still, you occasionally get the impression there’s a part of Peters that isn’t totally on board with all his supporters’ views. Before he became a leading advocate for the vaccine injured, he posted “no jab means no dole and no parole”. Despite the sparklers and general adulation that accompanied his arrival on stage, there were times on Sunday that he seemed a bit tired.

After his speech, he sidled up to the press conference looking a bit grumpy. A slightly stressed-out advisor told him to remember to mention there were 800 people at the event. He immediately told reporters there were 800 plus there, putting a heavy emphasis on plus. A few reporters spluttered that it couldn’t be true. But Peters wouldn’t budge. It was a classic move from a consummate political veteran. Sometimes you just have to adopt the position that confers the most political advantage during an election campaign. The truth can be secondary.