Winston Peters, the political price setter

Saturday, 18 July 2026

EDITORIAL: When NZ First goes into its party convention this weekend, it will do so as a political movement with its tail up. It is consistently polling at 11% or 12% and looks a good chance to return to Government with an even greater share of seats and – assuming the centre-right gets across the line – an even stronger hand at the Cabinet table.

Many in the party – and many outside who oppose it – see NZ First as part of the populist vanguard taking hold around the world. Winston Peters was fundamentally Trumpian in style long before Donald Trump, operating in a world where exaggeration and untruths can be obscured by attacking the media and those asking questions as enemies.

Now NZ First has more fellow travellers: Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in Australia. Mr Farage’s party is polling around 24% to 26% of the vote, although he is now facing a scandal-induced byelection. Ms Hanson's party has polled north of 30%, although it appears to have come off the boil somewhat to around 26%, slipping behind the governing Australian Labor Party.

Many explanations have been offered for the rise of these parties: that the major parties have become too professionalised and detached from their electorates; that governments have failed to lift living standards; that regional communities have been left behind; and that mainstream politics has become too socially progressive or woke for many voters. Covid-19, lockdowns, cheap money and the inflation that followed also delivered a profound shock. Some things in society broke. Yet we are still not entirely sure which, or how to put them back together.

In both the United Kingdom and Australia – especially Australia – these insurgent parties are mounting an existential challenge to the traditional centre-right. The Australian right is fracturing in a way not seen for generations, with One Nation now an existential rival to the Liberals. Britain’s Conservatives are less immediately threatened, but they remain in deep trouble.

In this company, NZ First is the laggard. There is probably a simple explanation. Unlike those countries’ two-party systems, MMP contains within it a release valve. If 5% of the population wants a new party, it can enter Parliament and even wield power. The threshold for Reform or One Nation to translate support into seats is orders of magnitude higher.

While NZ First may be enjoying a moment, helped by weak economic growth, an unpopular Prime Minister and a still-struggling Opposition, New Zealanders have seen Winston Peters in Parliament, on and off, since 1978. They have seen him as kingmaker in 1996, 2005, 2017 and 2023.

That has almost certainly acted as a ceiling on his support. And while NZ First has been announcing a collection of new would-be MPs and is clearly preparing for life after Mr Peters, now 81, it remains the Winston Peters Party.

Mr Peters has demonstrated in each of his stints in Government that he and his party are incapable of fundamentally changing the nation much. He would argue that is because NZ First has never commanded a large enough share of the vote. That is debatable.

Mr Peters’ legacy will only be truly significant if the party survives him, whenever he chooses to retire. While Shane Jones was once expected to succeed him, the field now looks more crowded, with Stuart Nash and other possible contenders.

All parties have factions. The question is whether a post-Peters leadership contest demonstrates strength or tears the party apart.

NZ First does scratch an itch in this election. Its recovery from the low point of 2020, when Mr Peters and his MPs were turfed out of Parliament, has been remarkable.

Mr Peters’ party has also understood the temper of the times. Many voters feel government has failed them and that the New Zealand dream for working people is slipping away. It believes those people want a state more involved in the commanding heights of the economy and less involved in people’s wallets and personal habits. NZ First now markets itself as explicitly socially conservative and economically nationalist. A glance through Mr Peters’ speeches over this term reveals something else: they are aimed largely at current or former Labour voters, arguing Labour has become a party of managerialists and ambitious union officials. NZ First may have benefited from Christopher Luxon’s unpopularity, but that is not where it has directed its appeal.

So NZ First will go into this convention in high spirits. Ironically, given its ingrained media-bashing, the party continues to hold conferences more open to the media than the tightly scripted gatherings of Labour and National. Whether that reflects more genuine grassroots democracy is harder to say.

Now, however, NZ First may face a different challenge. The rebranded Opportunity has now hit 4.7% in two separate polls. That may prove an overstatement, or it may not. But for the first time since Peter Dunne’s United Future surged to 6.7% of the vote in 2002, NZ First faces the prospect of polling strongly while no longer being the inevitable kingmaker.

The price of government is often set at the political margins in New Zealand’s MMP system. For decades, Mr Peters has been the country’s most successful price-setter. The question this election is whether another party can begin competing in that market. If it can, NZ First may find that polling well is no longer enough to guarantee the influence it has enjoyed for much of the past three decades.