Onetime kingmaker, now psychic? New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is predicting a snap general election that Labour will lose and he says his party is ready for a political comeback.
He asserts the Labour government lacks authenticity and credibility.
Peters is predicting problems in Labour will lead to a snap election.
But he says NZ First is ready. “We have already had big meetings. The attendance has been massive.
He says supporters are more ready than they ever have been before.
All this from a party that was kicked out of Parliament in 2020 with a mere 2.6% of the votes following its three-year coalition with Labour and the Greens.
Winston is already on the move for Election 2023.
What poverty tastes like
But Peters believes Labour’s problems are occurring because “so many people in this government don’t know what poverty tastes, smells and feels like. If they did, they would not have this programme of denial that they are engaged in.”
He blames the handling of the economy.
“If we had a decent economy this burglary would not be happening out at South Auckland at a food bank, which is an absolute disgrace. It’s a shocker that David Letele is actually feeding the families of the very people who are robbing him."
He’s just as quick to point out his party was the prince of the provinces.
"You know why we started the Provincial Growth Fund and those things to do with the improvement of industry all around this country. In Opotiki, for instance, there is now the biggest mussel farm in the world and also the Coromandel and the Marlborough Sounds we had project after project designed to do that and Northland for the first time, when the provincial fund was in play, led the statistics."
Lots going wrong
He says New Zealand could have gone on doing that, investing in people’s lives and industry.
Instead, "a lot of what New Zealand is now doing is not working," with declining exports. “There are a whole lot of things going wrong.”
And he says people don't need to look any further than ram raids, violence, theft and education going from bad to worse.
He says NZ First has always believed that affordable homes are critical for New Zealanders along with access to education, access to health and first-world wages “and we have never taken our eyes off that prize”.
"That is what Māori want. That is what Pasifika want. I guess what that’s what everybody in New Zealand wants.".