Winston Peters on why he’s attracting more Māori to his campaign, and why’s David Seymour so dog on me?

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters addresses party supporters at a public meeting in Whangārei. Photo / Michael Cunningham

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New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says he is attracting more Māori to his campaign meetings because he’s a straight shooter and doesn’t talk BS and he has no idea why David Seymour is so rabid on him.

The evergreen politician is back on the campaign trail drumming up support for his party and a possible return to Parliament in October.

The veteran, who has been in Parliament since 1978, said Māori who turn up to his rallies are like himself — and don’t want to hear “Treaty of Waitangi gobbledygook”.

“And they know one thing — that a whole lot of these other parties have got all of this Treaty of Waitangi gobbledygook and what they’re going to do, but none of it gets down to the ordinary Māori,” Peters said.

“We deal with ordinary Māori issues like wages, like decent wages, like health access, the things they really want, and uplifting and investing in their real assets, not what I call sociological department of Auckland University voodoo stuff which is supposed to be great for Māori but never gets down to the poor people at the bottom and never will.”

The latest Newshub-Reid Research Poll shows New Zealand First up 1.1 per cent to 4.1 per cent as it edges closer to the 5 per cent needed to return to Parliament.

Peters said there was only one political party that had consistently been anti-mandates.

“I’m not anti-vaccinations but I am anti-mandates and that’s a big difference,” Peters told Sean Plunket’s The Platform.

“On issues like co-governance, marine coastal issues and the Treaty of Waitangi reinterpretation, there’s only one party who has the authenticity on that and for 42 years, that is me personally,” Peters said.

While Act leader David Seymour, like Peters part Māori, has ruled out ever sitting around a Cabinet table with the 78-year-old Peters, it might not be his call if National leader Christopher Luxon needs NZ First support to form a government.

Peters told Plunket he was not sure why Seymour was so dog on him.

Act leader David Seymour told about 450 people at a Palmerston North public meeting the party will end "Labour's soft-on-crime experiment".

“I’m not having a spat with David Seymour — he seems to be having a spat with me,” Peters said, and couldn’t recall ever calling Seymour out.

He said Seymour needed to “get over it” because there was a crisis and we had to form a better government.

Seymour, Peters said, had previously sought advice from him when Act’s End of Life Bill struck late issues, and the only reason he could see why the Act leader was now calling out NZ First, was to keep his own votes going.

“It’s the tail wagging the dog, before the dog gets out of the pound in Luxon’s case,” Peters said.

Joseph Los’e joined NZME in 2022 as Kaupapa Māori Editor. Los’e was a chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and prior to joining NZME worked for 12 years for Te Whānau o Waipareira.

Additional reporting Waatea.News.Com and The Platform