Winston Peters, the bad boyfriend of NZ politics, spoiling for a fight
Former US president Richard Nixon famously had one, and now it seems so does New Zealand’s new deputy prime minister: an enemies list.
Ever the political pugilist, Winston Peters is back in government and quickly spoiling for fights in every direction.
Installed this week as New Zealand’s new deputy prime minister and foreign minister in Christopher Luxon’s right wing coalition government, Peters now wields a sizeable stick. And the 78 year-old leader of the populist New Zealand First party looks intent on using it to bludgeon opponents and adversaries.
Even his cabinet stablemates – Peters is also minister for racing – might not be spared his swing.
Especially so the libertarian ACT Party leader David Seymour with whom he has battled and now governs alongside. History shows Peters takes to governing like oil takes to water. The two simply don’t seem to mix very well. In every governing partnership Peters has joined over his lengthy political career, he has made waves and openly broken ranks with his partners.
Peters undoubtedly has various political talents. Restraint and propriety are not among them. His political history is embroidered with instances of charm, and confidence can disarm and sometimes prove useful for the greater good. He deployed these skills productively in his previous stints as foreign minister in the respective Labour Party-led administrations of Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern.
But his mercurial nature and hawkish instincts are default settings, and he is showing no desire to suppress these as dark clouds continue to swirl above him even after he has taken his seat in cabinet.
Grievance politics is widespread around the world and Peters is its leading proponent in New Zealand. He finds it difficult to shake a grudge. As a prelude to his current state of mind, in a speech to a Wellington audience last year Peters previewed his enemies list, describing a litany of people he believes have wronged the country or him personally. It spanned the legal, political and media communities, and was a big list for a small country.
That list is now actionable as he swiftly issued a declaration of open war against the media. Soon after being sworn into government, Peters charged the country’s fourth estate with unethical behaviour and dereliction of duty. He also censured political journalists for having the temerity to doubt his political relevance after his party was voted out of parliament at the previous 2020 general election, only to return with a thunderclap three years later.
Peters has long baited the media. But his recent attacks feel more virulent and menacing now he is back in power – and in a bad mood.
Before eventually going to Judith Collins, the ex-National Party leader, Peters reportedly sought the Attorney-General cabinet post. This would have given him responsibility for the Serious Fraud Office, an agency also in his crosshairs after it investigated but later cleared his party’s foundation of political donation fraud in 2008.
During the investigation, Peters was stood down as foreign minister and from his other ministerial roles by Clark. She never gave those portfolios back to him.
No one seems safe from Winston’s present dark demeanour, including advocates of te reo Māori – the language of the indigenous Māori people and an official language of New Zealand.
Peters, who himself is Māori, wants to scrub te reo Māori usage from government communications, which increased conspicuously under the previous Labour government. He has also suggested the media should follow suit and reduce its own use of te reo Māori. Peters’ ‘English first/anti woke’ positions are extremely popular with his traditionalist political base, while supported by his coalition partners. The political Left and the wider Māori community assert reducing any use of te reo Māori is a retrograde step for New Zealand.
Luxon should be concerned at Peters’ combat stance. Not only could it serve as unwanted distraction from the policy arguments the new administration wants to make, but it could also sharpen prospects of divide and discord within government.
It may lead to broken hearts for the majority of New Zealanders who voted for a stable conservative government at the recent election.
Indeed, Peters can be seen as the bad boyfriend of New Zealand politics. He has routinely frustrated and even betrayed his political partners. And yet he has frequently managed to slip back into the embrace of those same partners who again covet his support – even if that party knows full well his chequered history in political relationships.
The country has been here before with Peters, who is once more positioned to play an outsized role in the country’s affairs. His New Zealand First party netted just over 6 per cent of the total vote and around the same portion of seats in the new parliament.
And if past is prologue, his term in government will again be marked by controversy and contention with Peters – the big beast of New Zealand politics – drawing focus. It’s already happening.
Winston Peters can exact a high price for his support. In negotiating his government into existence, Luxon had to yield to various New Zealand First policy demands. This included discarding, at Peters behest, National’s flagship tax policy to levy a 15 per cent foreign buyer tax on houses worth over NZ$2 million.
Now the starting flag has lowered, New Zealand’s new prime minister is about to find out precisely what the price of doing business with Peters fully looks like.
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