Labour brands Winston Peters a ‘wily old dog’, but could they work together?

Wednesday, 17 September 2025

'He's a sausage eater who doesn't know what a woman is,' the NZ First leader says of the Labour leader.

A new poll suggesting a deadlocked Parliament has sparked speculation about whether Labour could somehow cozy up to NZ First again — despite there being no love lost between both party leaders — to form a government.

The RNZ-Reid Research poll on Tuesday showed Labour leading the party vote at 34.3%, with National nipping at its heels on 32.5%. The Greens slipped to 10.9%, NZ First was at 8.7%, ACT 7.2%, and Te Pāti Māori took the biggest hit, falling to 4.1%.

On these numbers, the right bloc (National, NZ First, ACT) and the left bloc (Labour, Greens, Te Pāti Māori) would each hold 60 seats - resulting in a hung Parliament.

With NZ First polling high, above ACT, the kingmaker question again came into focus as Labour and National MPs made their way into their respective Caucus meetings on Tuesday morning.

Labour’s Chris Hipkins and NZ First leader Winston Peters have thrown insults at each other. (File photo)

Labour ruled out NZ First as a potential coalition partner in 2023, before doing so again last year. Peters has likewise rejected working with Labour under Hipkins (describing its MPs as a “group of unreformed losers” at an event in March).

But Kieran McAnulty - Labour’s campaign chair - needed about seven seconds to gather his thoughts when asked if he could work alongside Peters again in government.

He took five stabs at starting a sentence before he said: “He’s [Peters] made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want to work with us, that spells it out really, doesn’t it?”

He then criticised the “divisive approach” NZ First has taken to politics in this Parliamentary term, which he said doesn’t align with Labour’s values.

“We have said that we are going to outline who we are going to work with closer to the election,” he added.

Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni rejected there had been a change in the party’s position on working with NZ First, but said any discussion about coalition partners would come after the election.

But she said Labour had been able to work well with Peters on issues relating to the Pacific region, and international affairs, this term.

Despite watering-down some Labour policies while in coalition, Sepuloni said he supported benefit increases and changes to the welfare system.

Asked how she would describe him, she quipped: “he’s a wily old dog”.

The RNZ poll was taken from September 4-12, capturing Te Pāti Māori's by-election triumph in Tāmaki Makaurau, and the controversy that followed over MP Takuta Ferris' social media posts.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said NZ First was polling above both ACT and the Greens. The latest RNZ poll had NZ First only polling above ACT. (Amended at 12.08pm on September 17)