New twists on an old theme

Winston Peters. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Winston Peters had never met the late great Prince Tui Teka when the Maori showman lent him his big flash blue V8 to campaign around Northland in.

Presumably the big singer had heard about a sprightly young Maori lawyer trying to break into politics and wanted to help.

It was Peters' first attempt to get into Parliament, in 1975, as National's candidate for Northern Maori, at the age of 30.

The trouble with Tui Teka's Australian gas-guzzler, recalls Peters, now 60, was that everywhere he went, people said: "Look at that fancy Queen St lawyer in that car."

After four days he returned Tui Teka's car and borrowed a suitably dented vehicle from a friend.

"The next week I'm campaigning up there and I hear these Maori people saying, 'Well, he can't be much of a lawyer - look at his car!'

"The moral of that story is, you just cannot win."

Peters loves re-telling the story. It has a hint of the romanticism of politics. And Peters loves campaigning.

This time around he started earlier than anyone else, campaigning so hard, especially around Grey Power. It is difficult not to believe he was expecting a July election.

After a spell last week, he has been back on the trail in Northland, campaigning in grittier, more controversial style about the evils of Islamic extremism in New Zealand.

It is a new twist on the old Peters' theme of immigration.

It will stir insecurities already aroused by the London bombings, and provoke outrage, but Peters can no longer be accused of cranking up the immigration issue every election year.

Ever since the last election, he has cranked it up almost every day of every week.

Tomorrow in Takapuna, New Zealand First launches its election campaign in what Peters calls a piece of "exquisite timing".

He decided to start the race before Prime Minister Helen Clark named the election date of September 17. Not so exquisitely timed were the political polls that came out yesterday, including the Herald-DigiPoll survey, showing not only a substantial drop for New Zealand First and his own support, but National taking quite a bit of his elderly vote.

That will be galling given the effort he put in on the trail and the "golden card" promises he made to the elderly, who have never been particularly loyal to Peters.

They deserted him along with everyone else in 1999, despite him getting their super surtax removed.

Peters spoke to the Herald this week from his caucus room at Parliament, sitting at the head of a huge table that accommodates New Zealand First's 13 MPs (it polled 10.38 per cent last election), among them six Maori.

It was before the poll came out showing a slump from 11.8 per cent to 7.1 per cent and he had good reason to feel pleased.

He had been making steady gains in the polls, and had succeeded in getting his party recognised as a key player.

He has a team of long-serving advisers behind him: Graham Harding, a former Police Association secretary, and Ernie Davis, a former principal, both of whom have been with him for about 10 years.

He also has a more recent recruit, political adviser Damien Edwards, formerly from the Australian High Commission.

The effective simplicity of Peters' last election campaign - "can we fix it? yes we can" and promising to deal with three issues in three years - belies the preparation he and his team put into campaigns.

There is no doubt that National has borrowed heavily from the Peters' branding formula of simple differentiation.

As pleased as he is with his preparation, Peters still has some serious issues facing him in the next seven weeks.

Because New Zealand First is National's only route to government, his party is continually coupled with National in public and media discourse, not to mention by opponents for effect.

The fact that some of his MPs were sprung by the Herald taking private soundings with National MPs about a power-sharing prime ministership with an unsuspecting Brash earlier this year did nothing to help New Zealand First look like the genuine honest broker.

Peters' response has been to promote the proposition of New Zealand First on the cross benches in a United Future-type role - sitting outside government but getting policy concessions for supporting it on confidence and supply.

It was a device used at first to counter the constant association with National. But it has now caught on in the caucus, and the cross bench is thought to be gaining solid support within the New Zealand First caucus as the best serious option.

The dilemma Peters faces is whether to go that one step further and say so before the election.

To not do so will attract not only the old question about whether he would prefer National or Labour but double the doubt over whether he would go into coalition or sit on the cross benches.

The trouble is that the cross benches are not a common concept among the voting public and such a gesture, aimed at gaining influence and power, could easily be interpreted as the party eschewing power and ultimately being denied it.

Peters would say, the moral of that story is that you can't win. And there's little romance in losing.