Peters serenading under Labour's balcony this time round

By FRANCESCA MOLD

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has for the first time made a blatant pitch to be a coalition partner in a Labour-led government.

Until now, Mr Peters has refused to signal which major party he favoured as a partner, saying he would wait to see the outcome of the election before making a decision.

But in a speech in Masterton yesterday, he said: "To keep Labour under control, it has to be New Zealand First."

Mr Peters said his party had demonstrated its ability to serve as the "honest broker" in Parliament.

New Zealand First had worked with the present Labour-led Government and had previously experienced and learned from being in a coalition with National.

He said the Green party, which has been touted as the most likely coalition partner, would not be able to handle Labour's "arch manipulators and spinmeisters".

Mr Peters said an election result that put Labour in a position to govern alone would be tragic for New Zealand.

"There are no good reasons to entrust Labour with that sort of unbridled power," he said, pointing to the 1980s sale of assets by the Labour Government of David Lange.

Mr Peters said New Zealand First disagreed with Labour on three main election issues - immigration, law and order and the Treaty of Waitangi.

His party has taken a hard line on immigration and crime. Mr Peters wants the number of immigrants allowed into New Zealand slashed from 53,000 this year to about 10,000.

He said New Zealand had a limited capacity to absorb immigrants. There was also a concentration of migrants in Auckland, which meant they had little reason or incentive to move beyond their own community.

Many immigrants came from societies where democracy, the rule of law and individual freedom were not prevailing values.

Mr Peters also launched a tough new crime policy this week, calling for the introduction of a three-strikes system for criminals, an automatic 10-year jail term for repeat drink drivers and a requirement for all people arrested to give a DNA sample.

Full news coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/election

Election links:
The parties, policies, voting information, and more

Ask a politician:
Send us a question, on any topic, addressed to any party leader. We'll choose the best questions to put to the leaders, and publish the answers in our election coverage.