Rt Hon Winston Peters: “One Clarion Call”

Palmerston North, 7 September 2025

 

Introduction

Mr. President, Members of the New Zealand First Party Board, Ministers and Members of Parliament, delegates of New Zealand First nationwide, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you for being here this afternoon.

Over this weekend New Zealand First has held its 32nd Convention, a time to reflect on our past, our present, and our future.

Today’s public meeting here in Palmerston North is the culmination of this weekend’s event.

To all those members who began our political party 32 years ago, under a First Past the Post electoral system, a deep and genuine sentiment of gratitude to you all.

Over the decades you dedication has remained steadfast, and we have grown to become the most successful new political party in modern New Zealand history.

We salute you here today as the next generation, together with a former one, taking this party forward to new levels of success.

It hasn’t been easy.  It has come with abuse and attack after attack from those who saw New Zealand First, and still do, as the greatest challenge to blind ideology and social elitism. We, from the very beginning, were for one country, one people, one law, one flag, regardless of gender, race, or religion.

And today we meet, here, in public, in Palmerston North, as a political movement in revival with boundless prospects ahead of us, strong, visionary, whilst being driven by this most elusive quality in politics – ‘Plain Common Sense’.

 

Protesters

This is an open public meeting.  We are a modern political party doing politics the old-fashioned way.  We travel our country, hold countless meetings, to meet with fellow New Zealanders.  We say public meetings because that’s what they are – public.

• Not party membership only
• Not admission by ticket only
• Not screening the audience first

But fully public meetings as politics should be.

We rent the venue and pay all the associated costs.  We have come to the Manawatu to speak with you and answer your concerns.

But there is one catch. 

If you have come, like some did at our March State of the Nation speech in Christchurch, to merely shout out, to lamely try to disrupt, to arrogantly ignore your fellow Kiwis’ right to be an audience of peaceful dialogue, then you have come to the wrong place.

If some here have that aim, then leave now, raise your own money, rent your own venue.

Disrupt here and we will throw you out.

So, we trust you have all come here to listen and not to try and hijack a public, lawful meeting.

We are not letting bludging Marxism prevail here.

 

Economy

New Zealand today is paying the economic price for political extremism and neo-liberal experimentation. So much of our economic wealth is owned or controlled offshore.

• Banks, insurance companies, energy companies, and tourism industry companies
• Silver Fern Farms was sold offshore
• West Coast Dairy again sold offshore
• And now the meat industry’s Alliance is on the market to Ireland
• And Fonterra’s products division is on the market to France

All when agricultural prices were going up.

When, oh when, will New Zealand ever learn?

New Zealand First will stop this overseas fire-sale.

That is why today New Zealand First announces our policy in response.

KiwiSaver will be reformed.

KiwiSaver will become compulsory.

Both the employee and employer contributions will be increased to, in total, at first 8%, then later to 10%.

But here is the difference, KiwiSaver’s and employers will receive tax cuts to cover the increases.

And we are going to turn KiwiSaver into a serious ‘New Zealand asset-owning entity’.

Ladies and gentlemen, recently because of Labour’s appalling economic management, a number of small but critical provincial air services were in trouble. Shane Jones and New Zealand First’s Regional Infrastructure Fund stepped in to save them.

These airlines serve our provincial exporters and are critical.

This is an example of those certain circumstances where government intervention is essential.

And around this country, New Zealand First has helped like that, over and over and over again.

 

Labour’s Economy

In 2023 the dire state the economy was in was grossly understated and misunderstood by most. 

That massive ‘economic tanker’ was on autopilot heading for disaster.  The Government was given the wheel with the expectation to turn it off its wayward course. 

It takes time to turn around the ‘economic tanker’ the Labour Party left this government.  It is imperative we get our economy pointing in the right direction – and we are. The difficulty cannot be understated.

The people who are feeling it  the most are the hardworking Kiwis who are bearing the reality that has been biting them, and continues to bite them, every day.

New Zealand First understands with great clarity the struggles of workers in our country who are working harder, sometimes two or three jobs, just to get by – to afford food for the table, rent, fuel prices, clothes for their kids, power bills, and affordable, reliable essential services.

New Zealand First also understands that the responsibility we have as part of government is to make progress and give hope and relief to ordinary New Zealanders.

We were left with an out-of-control Labour Party debt caused by a myriad of wasteful, failed, ideological projects and ballooning inflation.

The list of the waste, incompetence, and indifference that has led us to grappling with a struggling economy left by Labour is never-ending – which is why they have no policies in their manifesto to fix it. Nothing.

They have left us with a mess and now shout “you fix it”.  All the while being encouraged by a culpable mainstream media.

We need incentivisation and investment to get our economy running again.

That is why we have already started to lay the pathway to help industries by fast-tracking essential, economy-building, job-creating projects. It means that we focus our already successful industries whilst we rapidly build new ones in areas as diverse as aquaculture, mining, and critical minerals. It means enabling bright new entrepreneurs to sprout their enterprise in New Zealand and rapidly build them in our national interest.

And that will require us to sideline the ‘sandal clad, greenie, luddite activists’ who for ideological extremism would rather see our economy tank than to progress better lives for ordinary Kiwis.

We need less bureaucracy and less of those woke elitists holding our country up – less red, brown, and green tape, less of the woke pearl clutching ‘do-gooders’, and more of the ‘Kiwi can-doers’.

The reality is, as we said over and over in the last campaign, this economic and social recovery is going to take time.  This is particularly so, given the recent uncertain geostrategic events.

We can now see a better sky on the horizon, we have made good progress, but the hard work is not yet over - we take our responsibility seriously. Remember on countless occasions New Zealand First has raised the roof when others wouldn’t even raise a finger – we do not shy away from our responsibilities.

 

Immigration

How many times have we been attacked for being xenophobic and racist, look around the world – it calls to mind the quote from The Mikado “the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own.”

We need a focus on smarter immigration policies – where we shift the dial to a highly skilled, critical workforce that our country needs, and provide real reasons for these Kiwis to stay in New Zealand to rebuild our country together.  A system that consistently provides the skills we need domestically, working alongside the education system which fills the skills we need in our industries.

We need a smarter immigration system that focuses on the needs of the employers, industry, and Kiwi workers. Smart, not more, immigration.

Ladies and gentlemen, it may come as a surprise to most, but 30% of all current New Zealand residents were not even born in New Zealand. That’s approaching a third of all who live in New Zealand weren’t born here.  Thirty years ago, in the 1990’s, it was just 14%.

On that same upward trend, without smart immigration policies, in as little as just another 15 or 20 years, that percentage will be approaching 50% of people living here not having been born here. That’s your children and grandchildren’s generation.

It’s not just about the number of migrants coming into our country, it is about all those young, trained, driven, smart, working-age Kiwis that are leaving. 

Under Labour’s final year, they let in 132,000 new migrants, net.  There was a record number of people leaving New Zealand to go to Australia last year and apply to be citizens – the most concerning statistic is that half of those New Zealand citizens who left, were not even born in New Zealand.

New Zealand is being used as a steppingstone into Australia.  We take them in, train them, upskill them, look after their families, and they then move to Australia or elsewhere.  How is this an effective immigration policy?

Ladies and gentlemen, the fact is, in the past four years around 622,000 new migrants have come to this country, with a net number of 165,000.  That increase in our population is almost the size of Hamilton over just four years.  But the past is not the most concerning part.  It is where we could be headed without a smart immigration policy and what that means for the future of our country.

Concerns are growing, as to some of the people who have come here who don’t salute our flag, don’t honour the values of our country, don’t respect the people living here, don’t respect the right to have our own religion and freedom of speech.  These are values that we need to fight to protect.  If you don’t want to sign up to those values, don’t come.

New Zealand First is a nationalist party, while other parties are self-confessed globalists.  Kiwis are becoming increasingly worried about immigration issues.

People around the world are fearful as to where their countries are going – just look at some States in America, the UK, Ireland, Germany, and recently in Australia - and New Zealanders are no different. They are more acutely aware of the problem we’re dealing with here than the politicians are.

They have seen the international circumstances of careless immigration policies transforming cities, changing cultures, changing centuries of development and social life, and people feel at risk because of it.

That is why New Zealand First will be campaigning on all new migrants needing to sign up to our ‘Kiwi values document’, giving a commitment to respect our country and our culture – or don’t come in.

Some people will be calling us ‘racist’, or ‘xenophobic’ – those people can’t even spell the word.

We’ve got news for those people and it’s all bad. No, we are not ‘xenophobic’, we are ‘nationalists’ and we are ‘patriots’.

They paint nationalism like it is something evil. We say we must stand for nationalism because it is critical for the future survival of our nation.

We believe in a country called New Zealand, with one law, one people, one flag, and one set of values that our forebears fought and died for. And if we are the only party willing to stand in the way of globalist politicians and bureaucrats trying to take our country away, then so be it.

 

War on Woke, and the Fight for Freedoms

Earlier this year at our State of the Nation speech, New Zealand First declared a war on woke – and long live common sense.

We have won many battles over the last 18 months, but the war is not over. As John Philpot Curran said in the late 18th century, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance”. And we must be vigilant.

The woke agenda of the left has crept in like a cancer that has spread so deep into their divisive thinking it has become their sole focus.

You hear woke words from the out-of-touch lefty politicians and bureaucrats like – ‘pregnant person’ and ‘person who chest feeds’, ‘it/they/them/us’ and ‘furry’.

You still see them advocating for biological men to participate in women’s sports, to allow men into girls’ and women’s bathrooms.  The woke left are willing to cower to the few and isolate the vast majority of Kiwis who just want to be left alone to live their lives, without the constant wokeness being pushed down their throats.

That’s why New Zealand First is fighting this war on woke, for your right to just get on with your lives, without fear of being cancelled, gaslit and shut out.

When we raised this issue two years ago, they all said we were going down a rabbit hole.  In this case we are, and they are the rabbits we are after.

Hipkins, who wants to be Prime Minister of this country, still can’t define what a woman is…but what we would find most interesting, is trying to find out what his definition of a man is.

New Zealand First has been constant in our pushback on woke ideology in our laws, our systems, our bureaucracy, and our society.

New Zealand First is the Party that ensured the removal of the gender participation guidelines from Sports NZ. It is not about being anti-anyone or anti-anything, or stopping anyone from participating in sports.  This is about girls, women, safety and fairness.

New Zealand First has written and submitted Members Bill’s and legislation on:

• Fair Access to Bathrooms – where no one with a male appendage will be walking into a female bathroom.
• Protection of Freedom of Expression – where your voice will be heard at any government owned property without fear of being cancelled or shut-out.
• Reinstating a mandatory referendum on the local’s choice for having fluoride in their water or not.
• Definition of a Woman and Man – where we ridiculously have to actually define what a woman is. Mr Hipkins, for your benefit, it is: Adult, Human, Female.
• Display of Flags – where only our official New Zealand Flag can be displayed on government buildings and not be used as some political protest group’s platform for their wacky or foreign flags being shoved down our throats.
• Cash Transactions – where we are fighting for your right to always have the ability to use cash for any transactions. It is ironic there needs to be legislation for this as it is written on the notes that it is ‘legal tender’.
• New Zealand Name of State – where we have to legislate that our country’s name is actually New Zealand, not Aotearoa, which was a name given by colonialist William Pember Reeves in the late nineteenth century.
• Anti-Woke Banking – which is currently being debated in the House, where banks cannot deny you service because of the bank’s woke-ideology.
• And the Protection of Physical Identification – where we are fighting to protect you from the new age of Digital ID overreach.

In addition, a government announcement that we are making today, pertains to one of our New Zealand First coalition agreement policies.

Cabinet agreed last week that legislation will be brought into the House shortly, that English is finally, officially legislated to become an official language of New Zealand. 

This is another promise we made, and this is another promise we are keeping.

We understand with great clarity the importance of our mission. There is much more to come.

We are continuing the fight against the woke ‘Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion’ (DEI) in our departments and systems. We are continuing to fight against the use of Puberty Blockers in children. We are continuing to fight against the ridiculous ‘Relationship and Sexual Education’ (RSE) in our schools – we need education in our schools not indoctrination.

There will be more to be said about these in a very short while.

And by the way, as for those unelected elitist globalist organisations, decisions about how New Zealand responds to any health emergency are made in Wellington, not Geneva. We will preserve New Zealand’s sovereign decision-making ability.

Ladies and gentlemen, it sometimes may seem to some that this war on the woke and the wacky that we are all facing may be insurmountable because it is so deeply embedded in our bureaucracy, universities, and government departments.  But we all must remain eternally optimistic.  It is the only chance we have.  No one said it would be easy, but we will continue the fight for you, for our country, and for our future generations.

 

Climate Change

There has been much said about the Paris Agreement of late, with faux outrage at our being the first to call for its reevaluation and New Zealand’s place in the agreement.

Here are some facts.

In 2016 the then National-Act-Māori Party Government ratified and signed us up to the Paris Agreement.  Paula Bennett went to Geneva in the dead of night and signed this country up to it on behalf of that government.

For all the good intention that there was, it was steeped in naivety.  As the saying goes ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’

As was stated earlier this year at our State of the Nation speech, it is sobering to hear the statistics and facts that our country is now finding itself in with the Paris Agreement.

Some of the world’s largest economies have no intention of honouring the targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

That means that no matter what we do, our sacrifice will make no difference.  Worse still, in trying to honour our commitments, $22 billion plus of our hard earned taxpayer’s money will be siphoned offshore in a total, self-defeating economic and climatic shambles.

It’s just common sense that instead of draining our money offshore, into foreign economies, we invest it in looking after our own environment, right here in New Zealand.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s look at the facts.  Just under 60% of the world’s CO2 emissions come from four countries: China, United States, Russia, and India.  New Zealand’s emissions amount to only around 0.17%.

Why are we making a rod for our own backs, punishing our farmers and our taxpayers and our economy, when China or the US could sneeze and produce more CO2 overnight than we do in a year? How is that solving “global climate problems”?

That’s why we were the first to call for a revaluation of our Paris commitments months ago.  We need to stop this idealistic flight of futility.

 

Labour, Greens, and Te Pati Māori

A Labour, Greens, Māori Party government would be an absolute circus and utterly destroy our country economically and socially.  Do not underestimate the damage they would do.

They have become the ‘parties of moral outrage’ – obsessed with accusations, ‘gotcha politics’, woke ideology, and opposing anything that happens to offend anyone that gets offended.

 

Greens

The Green Party is in total disarray – they are now up to list member number 20 coming into parliament – whoever that may be. No doubt they will bring with them an array of wacky wish lists and woke ideals. 

Here we have Chloe, who is so arrogant that she has demanded to take the role of Prime Minister and Finance Minister.

Ladies and gentlemen, we would end up a soviet-era communist state within three years.

The Greens don’t care about, nor do they understand, the reality of our economic and social future as a country. 

They care more about gender, wokeness, unicorns, and a geopolitical war happening on the other side of the world that they know nothing about.  When was the last time they asked a question in the House about climate or the environment? Or Māori babies being murdered, where are their protests about that?

The Green Party of just 20 years ago has morphed from an environmentally focused party with some values to back that up, to a valueless, rudderless party who think that anyone that disagrees with them is evil and should be shouted down.

 

Māori Party

The Māori Party have tried their hardest to be the ‘martyrs in the media’ for their shallow transparent causes. But no one asks them who they actually purport to represent.

They suffer from the same affliction as the Greens thinking they represent everything ‘green’ - they don’t. Just as the Māori party don’t represent Māori. As the saying goes, ‘to be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant’.

They claim that 20% of New Zealand are Māori. Well, if that were even true, the Māori Party only achieved 3% of the vote.

The vast majority of Māori did not vote for them. So who do they represent exactly?

Ladies and gentlemen, the fact is the Māori party are not pro-Māori, they are anti-white. And according to a recent post from one of their most arrogant MPs, they are anti-Asian, anti-Indian, and anti-Black too. In fact, they are anti ‘the wrong blood quantum Māori’ also.  They say it themselves; if you are Māori and don’t agree with their views then you are the wrong kind of Māori.  How racist can you get?

They are not pro-Māori, they are anti-democracy.

They want a totalitarian race-based separatist country. They want a separate parliament, separate laws, and separate land – we are not making this up, this is literally what they say.

That is why they will always be so divisive in their rhetoric. That’s who they are and that’s what they do. And who wants to work with them? The Labour Party.

Maybe Hipkins needs to start answering some questions on the Māori Party and what his plans will be.  This should be highly concerning for every voter out there and the media need to start doing their jobs and getting some answers out of Labour and Hipkins.

And as for their electoral returns, where are the authorities?

The Māori Party have still to submit an audited report from the last election.  Why has nothing been done?

The Māori Party should be deregistered, investigated, and not be allowed to stand in the next election.  It is an utter disgrace that they have been allowed to run in the byelection when they have not followed the law and are treating this country and our electoral system like a joke.

Where is the media hounding them daily about this?  Everyone in this room today will know one thing for certain – if it was New Zealand First in this position we would be front page every day and half of the press gallery camped outside our houses.

Remember, when the malicious Serious Fraud Office, at the behest of the Electoral Commission, launched their lying attack on New Zealand First, and spent $4.2 million of taxpayer’s money only to fail at court three times?

The question is ladies and gentlemen, have you seen an apology from the media?

Now contrast that with what’s happening with the Māori Party, and the media and authorities’ ‘hands off approach’.  This has an acrid stench to it at many levels.

 

Labour

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s just remember one thing.  The spiritual home of the Labour Party is the West Coast, the site of the miners’ strike in 1908 which started the Labour Party in 1916. The Party that used to represent the workers of New Zealand; the gold miners, the coal miners, the labourers, the foresters, the fishermen, the hard working blue-collar battlers of our country. The catch cry used to be ‘a fair day’s pay, for a fairs day’s work’. They represented those workers in the very industries which have now become the anathema of who and what the Labour Party represents today. That’s a fact.

Who do Labour now represent? It seems they don’t even know themselves.

The fact is, the last three years of the Labour government oversaw a deteriorating economy, deteriorating education and health systems, worsening law and order on our streets, massively increased debt, record immigration, crumbling infrastructure, a cost-of-living crisis, and a hugely divided society.

The Labour Party has descended away from its roots and has abandoned and forgotten the very people and industries who founded their party over a hundred years ago.

The Labour Party’s focus is now on issues such as race, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), wokeness, and drumming up racial rhetoric that all only serves to divide our country and ignores the vast majority of New Zealanders who just want a functioning health system, a top class education for their kids, first world wages, and an affordable home.

To now focus on woke globalist, Marxist, economic, cultural, and social engineering policies – as they do now - shows just how shallow and impotent the once great Labour Party of Savage, Fraser, and Kirk has become.

The Labour Party left middle New Zealand a long time ago. It’s evident just how shallow and impotent they have become.

Labour no longer represents the workers.

Don’t you find it strange how we have repeatedly called Labour and the Greens a bunch of Marxists, but we have never heard them deny it?

This is a form of ideology from a bunch of people who are too dumb to know that Karl Marx was responsible for millions of deaths and the suffering of millions more.  This is the social cancer of our society, and it is represented in our parliament. 

 

Covid Inquiry

Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins, Grant Roberston, and Ayesha Verrall have all colluded and decided to decline to give evidence at the COVID-19 Royal Commission public hearings.

The ‘Podium of Truth’ has become the ‘Podium of Evasion’.

These former ministers do not want to sit in a public hearing and answer the hard questions that every New Zealander deserves to know.

If ever there was a definition for “a different kind of ‘abuse of’ power”, this is it.

New Zealand First demanded a second inquiry to ensure there was public accountability for the decisions made during the pandemic.

These former Labour Ministers are undermining the entire action and purpose of the inquiry to avoid public scrutiny.

The Royal Commission has stated today that “the COVID-19 pandemic was a significant event that affected every New Zealander…we remain of the view that the public being able to see former ministers questioned about those decisions at a public hearing of a Royal Commission of Inquiry would significantly enhance public confidence in our process.”

Those former Labour Ministers have shown they care nothing about public confidence, and worse, are treating the entire public with disdain and contempt.

The Royal Commission has stated that the refusal of former ministers, in this case, to attend the public hearing is a refusal to answer questions in a public hearing.

Those former ministers were at the heart of decisions that affected hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, cost livelihoods, careers, businesses, connection with families, and had a disastrous effect on the economy and future of our country – yet they refuse to be held to account.

The public deserve an answer about why they are refusing to be held publicly to account.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Labour, Greens, and Māori parties all espouse the same values and views of the unelected global totalitarian elites who want to design some sort of faux-utopia future for the country.  And they do it under the lie that it is all in the name of ‘protecting our future generations’.  Which, by the way, is exactly what Stalin and Marx said. 

These people are now littered within the Green, Labour, and Māori Parties, and dare I say it, our bureaucracy. 

New Zealand First is the only true nationalist party. We are a party that believes in our country, puts New Zealanders first, and ensures we don’t have global cultural Marxist influences ruining the economic, social life, and security of this country.  We are New Zealand First.

 

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, we are all here because we love our country, and we want to be proud of it. So, it’s not just about politics. 

True democracy is a rare flower in the multi-millennial history of humanity.

We have inherited the gift of a free country and it’s our job to preserve it.

We will be remembered for our stamina, our perseverance, and our commitment, to a free and just society.

In the words of Starship, “nothing is going to stop us now”.

We are all New Zealanders, the heirs of a once world leading country now seeking to restore that heritage for our children and generations yet to come.

Our forebears didn’t let us down. Let us not let our future generations down.

We are the generational heirs of a God given gift, freedom in Godzone country, and all equal.

If you are for one country, one people, one flag, one law for all, and all equal before it, then we are asking you to become part of a rightful cause, be part of our mission with one clarion call.

We are going to put New Zealand First.