The imposing personality, coupled with a piercing glance of Rt Hon Winston Peters can be a bit intimidating, especially for any young political correspondent. Here is the man, known to ruffle quite a few feathers, dubbed to be the next kingmaker in New Zealand, former deputy Prime Minister and leader of New Zealand First Party, sitting in front of me over dinner, agreeing to give a short, sudden one to one interview; fair to say, a bit surreal.
Any nervousness on my part was soon gone, however. There was actually no serious, strict hierarchical conversations, no showing-of-place gesture, the very approachable man laughed and smiled and shook hands, and after a few cordial exchanges, I shot the first question, without impertinence ofcourse…the generally omniscient cockiness of a political journalist replaced by a little awed reverence.
The first question was something which is probably on everyone’s mind. Which side will he tilt? Is he flexible or rigid ideologically?
“NZ First has a specific set of principles for 20 years, we don’t align with any political parties, we have a fixed ideology, and we follow those specific set of rules” he was all business and professorial. “Questions of coalition don’t concern us, it is a habit of the media, to try and predict, we don’t form fixed rules first, we let the people decide, democratically, and then we decide, which situation is most closely aligned to the party principles”.
Yes, but he is regarded widely as the next kingmaker. “I’m not a clairvoyant…I cannot predict, but I can assure, no one is forming the next government, without NZ first in it”, self-assured calm confidence oozing out of every word.
What about economy? What is the broad economic vision of New Zealand first? “We believe in a high wage economy, based on high productivity, as we don’t want low wage structure, simply as then we will have China, India, Latin America and half of Europe to compete against. See Taiwan, Singapore, Scandinavian countries?” now it was my turn to be questioned. “We are the only party in New Zealand, consistently advocating and speaking up for fundamental policies like these. Policies like savings, export, increase in wage structure of the common people, and tax breaks. Where were Labour and National thus far? Who’s now talking about Reserve Bank needs to change, need for savings?”
So, structural changes need to be made, even when the market is free?
“It is a lie that this country is free market” he sounds a bit agitated. “If you allow your banks to be controlled, how will that be a free market? Other parties believe market will sort out themselves, but can’t show one place that happened. Singapore is a planned economy, so is Taiwan. There needs to be some oversight.”
“The ruling parties are too scared to be anti-business.”
I was a bit skeptical about his view on migrants, but then I decide to ask anyway. Contrary to popular perception, however, he didn’t go all nuclear. “In India won’t it be Indians first? In China, it will be China first. In Japan, it is Japan first. In New Zealand, every politician is all over the place! Anyone here legally, should have same rights and protection of the law, as someone being here for thousands of years. We have far too high volume of immigration without any planning. Here we have been absolutely careless in every respect”. That sounded logical. So what about all the controversy?
“Here, prostitution is a job. Pick up any newspaper, pages of prostitution advertisements. What does it make of my country? Why is there no fixed data about immigrants in our country, in a computerized age? If we do business like that we will be bankrupt tomorrow! It is not a matter of racism at all; it is just a matter of plain commonsense!”
Fair enough.
I thought of going back to economics before ending. So, his prescription is demand-side economics, free globalized market, but with balanced state oversight and plans. What about benefits? After all, isn’t that the reason EU crashed? Isn’t welfare economics a dying phenomenon?
“We’re not against the unemployment benefits, people need to feed their children, but we are against it being a lifestyle. We’re closing railways in Dunedin, and importing them from China, because we have it cheap. That’s wrong, we ought to make them here, get people jobs.”
“Our country is run by a bunch of economic lunatics”.
“You can quote me on that”; his last parting shot.