‘Take our country back’: Winston Peters fires up as he launches comeback campaign

“Forgotten New Zealanders” are the focus of NZ First’s campaign, with Winston Peters marketing himself as an experienced pair of hands to fight against either “woke” leftist policies or the right’s “extremist” neoliberalism.

Peters, who’s been in and out of Parliament since 1979, launched his election campaign with a video assuring supporters that “the tank hasn’t run out”.

“This is not our first rodeo,” he said.

The wide-ranging speech concluded with Peters unveiling the party’s slogan: “Take our country back.”

NZ First would campaign on five key issues, he said. This would see the party take a stand against “racist spermatism”, fight Australian-owned banks and the supermarket duopoly, invest in health and social services, as well as crime and eldercare.

He also made tax promises, saying NZ First would push to inflation adjust tax brackets. But Peters refused to provide further details about the tax plan, and also wouldn’t discuss specifics or the costs of other policies.

The “tough on crime” stance came with two major promises from Peters. He said NZ First would build a “gang prison”, and designate all gangs as terrorist organisations. This would open up exceptional state powers to imprison gang members, but Peters said those gang members would be offered jobs before being arrested.

He hit out at parties on both the Left and Right of Parliament. Labour and the Greens, he said, were “woke and politically correct”. While National and ACT would set New Zealand back, he said, and were packed with “extremists”.

His criticisms positioned NZ First on the cross bench, attempting to appeal to would-be voters disenfranchised with the current political system. He argued the country had lost its way, with issues of crime, underinvested public services, and a “secret social engineering policy”.

For health, the party got in behind former MP Jenny Marcroft’s proposal to reform Pharmac and increase the medicines budget by $1.3 billion.

About 500 people gathered at NZ First’s campaign launch at Auckland’s Mt Smart stadium on Sunday.

It was a mixed crown, with a large Indian delegation that arrived together, longtime NZ First supporters, a few younger faces, and some activists from anti-vaccine group Voices for Freedom and other fringe political movements.

The crowd cheered with Peters ruled out working with the “racist” Labour Party, when questioned by Stuff.

There was also enthusiastic applause when Peters declared NZ First would stop the “indoctrination” of children. Issues of gender identity and sexuality were raised often this weekend, as NZ First has held its election-year AGM.

It secured formed Shortland St star Lee Donoghue as a candidate. During the AGM on Sunday morning, he pushed the party to take a stand against “gender ideology”.