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A lighter travel schedule will allow Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to campaign regularly in the Tauranga electorate seat that he has finally confirmed he wants to win back.
The New Zealand First leader officially announced yesterday he would stand in Tauranga in this year's election - confirming months of speculation he would try to reclaim the seat he lost to National's Bob Clarkson in 2005.
Mr Peters said he had made a large number of trips in his role as Foreign Affairs Minister in the first two years of the parliamentary term.
While it was an exhausting schedule, it meant he had a smaller number of trips to make this year, freeing him up to campaign in Tauranga.
"I'm getting there nearly every week now, as I have done for a long time, so I don't know why that would change," Mr Peters said.
New Zealand First will need to win an electorate seat in order to return to Parliament unless it can lift its share of the party vote over the crucial 5 per cent threshold.
Mr Peters will be taking on National's 31-year-old Simon Bridges in Tauranga, in what is shaping up as a battle of two different generations.
Asked if he lived in Tauranga now, Mr Peters said he did "a lot of the time", but he also had to be in Auckland sometimes.
In his speech to announce his candidacy the New Zealand First leader conjured up the image of famous boxer Muhammad Ali - talking about how the sporting legend took knocks, criticisms, and came back time and again.
"You see what really made him great was not the number of wins he had - and there were many - but the number of great wins where he came back from a loss," Mr Peters said of Ali.
He then talked about his experience and record of delivering things such as a new harbour bridge in Tauranga, and called on voters to back a representative who could get things done.
