Election 2026: NZ First claws at National, Labour for disillusioned vote
Saturday, 18 July 2026
ANALYSIS: Riding high in the polls, NZ First leader Winston Peters is about to address his largest ever party conference in Auckland.
About 360 delegates - by Friday morning’s count - have coughed up $295 for a ticket to listen to speeches, participate in remit sessions and relax at a gala dinner over the next two days.
Former National Cabinet Minister Alfred Ngaro (Glendene) and former Labour Cabinet Minister Stuart Nash (Napier) have special speaking slots to explain why they’re chasing political comebacks under an NZ First banner.
It’s part of the party’s push to position itself not as a minor player in the upcoming election, but a group with both the talent and solutions to fix the country’s problems in a way neither major party can.
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It’s an ambitious pitch but one Ngaro and Nash are enthusiastically backing: both telling The Post - almost verbatim - they didn’t leave National/Labour, the major parties left them.
Washed out in the red tide of the 2020 Election, Ngaro said National had become “a bit more progressive and liberal” since he first became an MP in 2011.
“When you try to be all things to all people, you then begin to water down the values, you begin to potentially compromise the things that were principles and values you stood strong on and that's the challenge when you try to be a big party,” Ngaro said.
Nash - sacked by former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for breaching the Cabinet manual - said Labour no longer had the best solutions to the cost of living crisis.
“The reason I'm with NZ First is because I actually believe that this is the only party standing up for good, hard working Kiwis in a way that Labour used to, but now no longer does.”
Ngaro said he felt passionate about lowering the price of food and power bills, and credited Peters as being the only MP “bold enough” to advocate for a stronger Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic response.
For his part, Nash also felt strongly about food and power prices, and believed it important NZ First’s caucus members could be just as comfortable in a rugby clubroom as they were in Parliament.
While this weekend’s conference - or ‘convention’ as the party likes to call it - marks the technical start of NZ First’s campaign, Peters has been in campaign mode for well over a year.
Opinion polling indicates a steady increase in support for NZ First since Peters handed over the role of deputy prime minister to ACT leader David Seymour.
NZ First registered its strongest result in the Reid Research poll series in nine years on Tuesday, at 11.5% of the general vote.
It has eight MPs now - 11.5% would give it 15.
The party has already promised to campaign on splitting up the power gentailers into separate generators and retailers, breaking up the supermarket duopoly and making KiwiSaver compulsory at birth, with a $1000 government contribution for citizens.
It also wants to restrict voting to citizens, hold a referendum on the Māori seats, set up a special economic zone with less red tape at Marsden Point and buy back the Bank of New Zealand.
NZ First will announce another policy on Sunday afternoon and the party seems intent on keeping it under its hat until then - telling The Post only that it would relate to the subject area “New Zealand”.
Peters will take centre stage in the large auditorium of the Due Drop Events Centre in Manukau on Saturday morning - the same venue National used to launch its 2023 election campaign.