109 Facts About Winston Peters

Winston Raymond Peters is a New Zealand politician who has been serving as the leader of New Zealand First since its foundation in 1993.

Winston Peters was a Member of Parliament from 1979 to 1981,1984 to 2008 and 2011 to 2020.

Winston Peters was born in Whangarei, and raised in Whananaki in rural Northland before attending school in Dargaville.

Winston Peters is of mixed parentage, his father being Maori and his mother being of Scottish descent.

Widely known simply as "Winston", Peters has had a long and turbulent political career since first entering Parliament following the National Party win in the 1978 general election.

Winston Peters has advocated benefits for senior citizens, criticised the media and "elitism", and favoured socially conservative policies.

Winston Peters first served in the Cabinet as minister of Maori affairs when Jim Bolger led the National Party to victory in 1990.

Winston Peters was dismissed from this post in 1991 after criticising his own Government's economic, fiscal and foreign ownership policies.

Winston Peters resigned from the National Party to form the populist party New Zealand First in 1993.

In 1999, New Zealand First returned to opposition before entering government with Labour Party Prime Minister Helen Clark, in which Winston Peters served as minister of foreign affairs from 2005 to 2008.

Winston Peters was acting prime minister from 21 June 2018 to 2 August 2018 while Ardern was on maternity leave.

Winston Peters's father is of Maori descent and his mother has Scottish ancestry.

Winston Peters grew up on a farm in Whananaki, and after attending Whangarei Boys' High School and Dargaville High School, Peters studied at the Auckland Teachers' Training College.

In 1970 Winston Peters returned to New Zealand and studied history, politics and law at the University of Auckland.

Winston Peters was a member of the University Rugby Club in Auckland and captain of the Auckland Maori Rugby team.

Winston Peters married his partner Louise, and later worked as a lawyer at Russell McVeagh between 1974 and 1978.

Winston Peters entered national politics in 1975 general election, standing unsuccessfully for the National Party in the electorate seat of Northern Maori; he gained 1,873 votes, and became the first National candidate in a Maori seat for some years who did not lose his deposit.

Winston Peters first became a member of parliament following the 1978 general election, but only after winning in the High Court an electoral petition which overturned the election-night result for the seat of Hunua against Malcolm Douglas, the brother of Roger Douglas.

Winston Peters lost this seat in 1981, but in 1984 he successfully stood in the electorate of Tauranga.

Winston Peters became the National Party's spokesperson on Maori Affairs, Consumer Affairs, and Transport.

Winston Peters remained as a National backbencher, continuing to publicly criticise the party.

In late 1992, when the National Party was considering possible candidates for the elections in the following year, it moved to prevent Winston Peters from seeking renomination.

Winston Peters stood in Tauranga as an independent and won easily.

Shortly before the 1993 election, Winston Peters established New Zealand First.

Winston Peters started the Winebox Inquiry in 1994; which concerned companies using the Cook Islands as a tax haven.

Winston Peters had bitterly criticised his former National colleagues, and appeared to promise that he would not even consider a coalition with Bolger.

However, after over a month of negotiations with both parties, Winston Peters decided to enter into a coalition with National.

Michael Laws, then New Zealand First's campaign manager, later claimed that Winston Peters had already decided to enter into an agreement with National and used his negotiations with Labour simply to win more concessions from Bolger.

Whatever the case, Winston Peters exacted a high price for allowing Bolger to stay on as Prime Minister.

Winston Peters became Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, the latter post created especially for him.

Winston Peters immediately broke off the coalition and led New Zealand First back into opposition.

Additionally, there was a wide perception that Winston Peters had led voters to believe a vote for New Zealand First would get rid of National, only to turn around and go into coalition with National.

Still in opposition, Winston Peters continued to promote his traditional policies, but became more noticeably concerned about immigration policies.

Winston Peters seemed to hope that Labour would choose to ally with New Zealand First to stay in power.

Winston Peters accused the Labour Party of having an "ethnic engineering and re-population policy".

In July 2005, Winston Peters said New Zealand should err on the side of caution in admitting immigrants until they "affirm their commitment to our values and standards".

Winston Peters promised to either give support in confidence and supply to the party with the most seats, or to abstain from no-confidence votes against it, and that he would not deal with any coalition that included the Greens.

Winston Peters pledged to keep post-election negotiations to under three weeks following criticism of the seven-week marathon it took to broker a deal with National in 1996.

In negotiations with Helen Clark after the election, Winston Peters secured the ministerial portfolios of Foreign Affairs and Racing in the Labour-led government, a move which apparently lay at odds with his earlier promise to refuse the "baubles of office".

Winston Peters was a member of the Executive Council, although he was outside cabinet; he was able to criticise the government in areas not related to his portfolios, which experts said was an unprecedented situation.

In October 2006, Winston Peters affirmed that he would continue to serve as leader for the 2008 election.

Winston Peters negotiated with then Prime Minister Helen Clark despite widespread opposition to the card on the grounds of high cost.

Winston Peters attracted media attention in 2008 over controversial payments for legal services and party donations.

Winston Peters had received $100,000 in 2006 to fund legal costs of challenging the election of Bob Clarkson to the Tauranga electorate.

Winston Peters denied knowing about the source of the money but this was not corroborated by his lawyer Brian Henry and Glenn contradicted Winston Peters's denial.

Jones confirmed that he had paid the money to the Spencer Trust and was asked by Winston Peters to make the donation.

Winston Peters denies that he had asked Jones for a donation to the party.

On 29 August 2008, Winston Peters offered to stand down from his portfolios as Foreign Affairs and Racing Minister, pending an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office as to whether the donations from Sir Bob Jones and the Vela brothers reached New Zealand First as intended.

On 10 September 2008, Winston Peters gave evidence to the Privileges Committee of the New Zealand Parliament in an attempt to refute evidence given by Owen Glenn.

Winston Peters was later cleared by the Serious Fraud Office with respect to political donations, however some matters were referred back to the Electoral Commission as it was determined that, while no fraud had taken place, some electoral law matters with regard to funding declarations were not complied with.

Winston Peters has referred to the affair as part of the "most vicious character assassination seen in any campaign this country has ever witnessed" and unsuccessfully sued Television New Zealand for defamation.

Winston Peters tried to regain Tauranga in the 2008 election and lost to National's Simon Bridges by a margin of 11,742 votes, a much larger loss than in 2005.

Winston Peters generally shunned the media spotlight following the 2008 election.

Winston Peters hinted at a political comeback and attacked the New Zealand government's review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

In late 2010 and early 2011 Winston Peters made a number of appearances on television and radio where he made it clear his and New Zealand First's intention to contest the 2011 election.

Shortly after the election, Winston Peters stated that his party would be in opposition and hold the "balance of responsibility".

Winston Peters denounced Dotcom as a "crooked German" who "had been here for five minutes".

Winston Peters was joined by Prime Minister and National Leader John Key and the Maori Party candidate Te Hira Paenga.

Winston Peters publicly stated that re-entry to the mine would be non-negotiable in any coalition deal and dismissed claims that it was too dangerous to re-enter the mine.

Winston Peters responded that Coates' comments were the "height of stupidity".

Winston Peters rejected Turei's claims that New Zealand First was racist and warned that there would be consequences for the Greens in any post-election talks.

Winston Peters outlined his party's policies which included reducing immigration to 10,000 a year and nationalising the country's banks.

Winston Peters proposed making KiwiBank the New Zealand government's official trading bank.

In terms of law and order, Winston Peters said that his party would build no more prisons but would make prisoners do hard labour six days a week.

Since Winston Peters ranked first on the New Zealand First list, he remained in Parliament as a list MP.

Winston Peters indicated that he would not make his final decision until the special votes results were released on 7 October 2017.

Winston Peters clarified that the defeat of the Maori Party during the 2017 election had eliminated the rationale for his call to abolish the Maori electorates.

Winston Peters stated that foreign ownership of homes would be one of the topics discussed during negotiations with both National and Labour.

Winston Peters called for Labour to scrap its contentious water tax policy on farmers.

Winston Peters refused to negotiate with the Greens directly on the grounds that they had campaigned on a partnership with Labour.

Winston Peters described the Greens as a minor party with a minimal role in any potential government.

On 19 October 2017, Winston Peters announced that New Zealand First would form a coalition with the Labour Party under Jacinda Ardern, citing changing international and internal economic circumstances as the reasoning behind his decision, coupled with a belief that a Labour government was best-placed to handle the social and economic welfare of New Zealanders in a global environment that was undergoing rapid and seismic change.

On 26 October 2017, Winston Peters assumed the positions of Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister for State Owned Enterprises and Minister of Racing.

On 19 January 2018, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that she was pregnant and that Winston Peters would take the role of Acting Prime Minister for six weeks after the delivery, which happened on 21 June 2018.

Winston Peters declared that New Zealand First MPs would not be allowed a conscience vote on the issue and would vote as a caucus to support the bill at first reading.

Winston Peters warned that NZ First would withdraw support if the proposed law was not put to a public referendum.

Little rejected Winston Peters's demands for a referendum on the grounds that the legislation was a parliamentary matter.

In July 2019, during a visit to Washington, DC, Winston Peters proposed a bilateral free-trade agreement between New Zealand and the United States.

On 5 May 2020, Winston Peters expressed support for Taiwan rejoining the World Health Organization during a press conference.

On 28 July 2020, Winston Peters announced that New Zealand was suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to the Hong Kong national security law, which he claimed "eroded rule of law principles" and undermined the "one country, two systems" rule.

Winston Peters defended his actions and claimed that he was trying to raise NZ$50 million in private sponsorship to offset some of the costs of the NZ$250 million redevelopment of New Zealand's Antarctic base Scott Base.

In late August 2017, Winston Peters admitted being overpaid in superannuation for seven years while living with his longtime partner Jan Trotman.

Winston Peters described it as a private matter and expressed outrage that it had been leaked.

However, the High Court ruled that Winston Peters's privacy had been deliberately breached during the lead-up to the 2017 general election in order to publicly embarrass him and cause him harm.

On 20 July 2020, Winston Peters was ordered by the Auckland High Court Justice Venning to pay a total $320,000 to the defendants Bennett and Tolley, State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes, the Ministry of Social Development and its former chief executive Brendan Boyle.

Winston Peters continued to serve in a caretaker role until 6 November 2020, after which he was replaced by Grant Robertson as Deputy Prime Minister, and Nanaia Mahuta as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

On 20 June 2021, Winston Peters announced during New Zealand First's annual general meeting in East Auckland that he would continue leading the party for the 2023 general election.

Winston Peters made a speech attacking the Labour, National and Green parties, the increasing use of the Maori language in official reports and public life, the Auckland cycle bridge, Auckland light rail, the Government's COVID-19 vaccination rollout, purchase of Ihumatao land, Bright Line Test, elimination of referenda on Maori wards, and so-called wokeness in New Zealand society.

In February 2022, Winston Peters expressed support for the Convoy 2022 New Zealand protest outside Parliament, which called for an end to vaccine mandates.

Winston Peters claimed that the mainstream media had been gaslighting protesters and urged Ardern and her Cabinet to speak with protesters.

On 3 May 2022, Winston Peters was trespassed from Parliament for two years by the Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard for visiting anti-vaccine mandate protesters.

Winston Peters has been labelled a nationalist and a populist by political commentators.

Winston Peters favours cutting taxes; however, he was critical of the free market policies enacted by the fourth Labour and fourth National governments in the 1980s and 1990s, opposing privatisations and deregulation.

Winston Peters's platform retains elements of National Party economic policy from the Muldoon era.

Winston Peters has cultivated support amongst the elderly in particular, and support for his party has been concentrated among New Zealanders over 60 years of age.

Winston Peters is opposed to high levels of immigration, in order "to avoid New Zealand's identity, values and heritage being swamped".

Winston Peters has highlighted the "threat" of immigration in both cultural and economic terms.

Winston Peters responded that Statistics New Zealand had underestimated the growth-rate of the Asian community in the past.

Winston Peters has used anti-establishment and anti-elite rhetoric, such as criticising what he regards as the "intellectually arrogant elite in government and bureaucratic circles".

Winston Peters has a generally fraught relationship with the media, with media interactions often described as confrontational.

In June 2016, Winston Peters advocated interviewing immigrants and reducing immigration numbers between 7,000 and 15,000 a year on TVNZ's Q+A show.

Winston Peters clarified that he was not opposed to refugees nor Muslim migrants per se.

Also in June 2016, Winston Peters backed Brexit and told the New Zealand Parliament that he hoped "Britain [will] show its independence from an ungrateful European parliamentary yoke and come back to the Commonwealth".

In March 2017, Winston Peters criticised the then Foreign Minister Murray McCully for endorsing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 without consulting his fellow Cabinet ministers.

Winston Peters has condemned discrimination on the basis of religion and he denounced Islamophobia following the Christchurch mosque shootings.

Winston Peters called for the terrorist perpetrator to be deported to his home country Australia.

Winston Peters added that efforts towards combating Islamophobia should not be used to "shield the actions of terrorists in the name of Islam".

On 21 May 1998, Winston Peters was appointed to the Privy Council and gained the style of "The Right Honourable".

In 2007, Winston Peters was bestowed with the chiefly Samoan title Vaovasamanaia, meaning "beautiful, handsome, awesome, delighted and joyful".