Former NSW premier’s threat to sue comes amid debate about whether New Zealand should join pillar two of Aukus pact
Australia’s former foreign minister and New South Wales premier, Bob Carr, says he intends to sue New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, for allegations made about Carr’s closeness to China as debate about Aukus ramps up.
Peters called Carr “nothing more than a Chinese puppet” on the national broadcaster RNZ on Thursday morning.
Continue reading...Centre-right party loses two seats in final tally and will need to rely on traditional partner Act as well as NZ First to form coalition
After weeks of political limbo, the final results of New Zealand’s election have been released showing the centre-right National party will need the support of the libertarian Act party and populist party New Zealand First to form a coalition government.
The governing Labour party was ejected from office after six years in the October election, with preliminary results handing a slim majority to National and its traditional coalition partner Act.
Reuters contributed to this report
Comments by Winston Peters come as China hopes 10 Pacific countries will sign wide-ranging security deal
New Zealand and its allies have failed to listen to “alarm bells” about China’s growing influence, and allowed a “vacuum” to develop in the Pacific, New Zealand’s former foreign minister Winston Peters has said.
His comments come amid news that China hopes 10 Pacific countries will sign a wide-ranging draft deal covering security, trade and investment. The agreement would dramatically increase China’s influence in the region.
Continue reading...Winston Peters condemned two-year ban as ‘dictatorial behaviour’ that ‘should be reserved for third world banana republics’
New Zealand’s former deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, has been banned from parliament grounds for two years for visiting anti-vaccine-mandate protesters who occupied the grounds.
The weeks-long February protests, modelled on the Canadian truckers’ “freedom convoy”, took over parliament grounds and blocked off a number of surrounding streets. In the first days of the occupation, the speaker issued a trespass notice to all attendees. But efforts by police to disperse the gathering were repeatedly repelled, until it descended into a violent riot, with at least 40 injured, while tents, piles of rubble and a playground were set aflame.
Continue reading...Labour’s historic win delivered Ardern a second term while voters punished politicians who embraced populism
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Labour prime minister who was returned to power for a second term with a commanding majority, has often been hailed internationally as a foil to global surges in right-wing movements and the rise of strongmen such as Donald Trump and Brazil’s leader, Jair Bolsonaro.
But the historic victory of Ardern’s centre-left party on polling day – its best result in five decades, winning 64 of parliament’s 120 seats – was not the only measure by which New Zealand bucked global trends in its vote. The public also rejected some political hopefuls’ rallying cries to populism, conspiracy theories and scepticism about Covid-19.
Continue reading...Winston Peters has rebuked a coronavirus sceptic at an election campaign event in Tauranga. New Zealand's deputy prime minister was answering questions from an audience on Tuesday when the unidentified man asked: 'Where is your evidence that there is a virus that causes this disease?'
'Here's someone who gets up and says "the Earth is flat",' Peters responded. 'Sorry sunshine, wrong place.' New Zealanders go to the polls on Saturday 17 October
Even Labour’s tax policy cant’t spark fury. The only numbers people are concerned about are coronavirus-related
Parents will be only too familiar with this scenario. It’s family holiday time. The car is packed with everything but the kitchen sink. Each child is strapped in with their own screen and headphones. You slip the car into gear and drive off. Finally you can let out a sigh of relief; the holiday has begun! Then a small voice from the back says: “I need to go the toilet.” You divert to the nearest petrol station, and sit back and wait for the journey to restart.
That, folks, is the New Zealand general election campaign of 2020.
Continue reading...Veteran politician, who is being aided by Brexiteers Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, is bullish about New Zealand First’s chances at the election
“When you talk about populism, let me ask you this question,” says Winston Peters, the MP who has at times been in a position to handpick who will lead New Zealand. “In your profession or mine: who wants to be unpopular?”
The eccentric veteran politician – rich-voiced and finely-tailored – has held seats in New Zealand’s parliament since 1979 with only two breaks from his time in office, advancing his minor party on a platform of curbing immigration, benefits for pensioners, and exhortations to “common sense”.
Continue reading...Just 29 new cases recorded as deputy prime minister calls on Ardern to move election from September to November
Jacinda Ardern has refused to postpone New Zealand’s September elections over the coronavirus pandemic, despite calls for a delay from her deputy and the deputy opposition leader.
On Thursday New Zealand recorded a significant drop in corona cases for the fourth day in a row, with just 29 new infections, 21 fewer than the previous day.
Continue reading...Winston Peters has been a kingmaker for years but faces a National backlash after helping Labour into office
Winston Peters is a colossus of New Zealand politics, and his New Zealand First party is, once again, poised to be the lynchpin in this year’s election campaign. But so much hinges on whether his party makes it over the electoral system’s all-important 5% threshold.
Being the only centre party in parliament has made NZ First incredibly powerful. It can, and does, pivot between the left and right blocs of Labour-Greens and National-Act. Since 1996 when New Zealand adopted the mixed-member proportional electoral system, NZ First has decided the government three times – throwing its lot in with National once and Labour twice.
Continue reading...New revelations about party funding are a stain on the country’s reputation for transparency
Complacency can be a nation’s greatest foe.
New Zealanders, buoyed by their country’s high ranking in global transparency measures, see little to learn from other states when it comes to cleaning up politics.
Continue reading...