In Palmerston North, Winston Peters, NZ First and their band of faithfuls never lost sight of the fight: the culture wars.
In the span of seven hours, the word “woke” was said 21 times in speeches during the last day of the New Zealand First convention in Palmerston North. There were robust debates, policy announcements, the least surprising “surprise” speaker in former Labour minister Stuart Nash and a few too many security guards for the number of protestors there were holding greyhounds.
The big policy announcement was Peters’ early campaign promise that NZ First would raise compulsory employee and employer Kiwisaver contributions to 10%. It would be funded by cutting taxes elsewhere.
But mostly it was a hectic affair and The Spinoff braved the mean streets of the Manawatū to deliver the moments worth remembering (or forgetting, depending on your woke levels).
Winston Peters reiterates his ‘war on woke’ and immigration
The grand finale of the weekend, the words of wisdom from Winston Peters, saw more than a thousand people spill out of the main room of the Palmerston North Convention Centre onto the second floor level. There was a cinema-style trailer showing Peters walking through parliament, walking through protestors, walking through building sites and businesses, while reiterating his commitment to the “war on woke”. “Wow,” whispered voices in the crowd. “Wow.”
Winston Peters on the podium (Photo: Lyric Waiwiri-Smith).
It ain’t been easy, Peters told his people, with accusations of the party being xenophobic (“they love that word because it has a lot of vowels”) and the threat of 50% of Aotearoa’s population consisting of immigrants within the next 15 years. But there’s a way out from bad times: smarter immigration policies, which would see NZ First demand that all new migrants sign up to a “Kiwi Values document”. If they’re not keen on that, “we’ve got a very fair answer: don’t come”.
But back to the culture wars. There was a list of issues to address, from climate change to Te Pāti Māori to Covid-19 and those who see themselves as “it, they/them, and furry” (which Peters pronounced as “fury”). No protestors managed to slink their way in, so the only boos heard were those reacting to the idea of transgender people using changing rooms or playing sport, or to Chlöe Swarbrick being prime minister. “And in the words of Starship, nothing is gonna stop us now,” Peters grinned. The exit music was Ray Charles’ ‘Hit the Road Jack’.
A rare win for the non-binary community
What ate up the largest chunk of the convention were debates over the 55 proposed NZ First remits. On Saturday, the first 21 remits were passed, including pledges to set an end date for the Waitangi Tribunal, investigating the removal of Round Up in urban areas, reestablishing the Jobs for Nature programme and exploring the use of Thorium Nuclear Fission and Nuclear Fusion.
A reminder to engage in polite and productive debate over the remits went down like a lead balloon with the crowd, of which the median age was those who are eligible for a SuperGold card. If you wanted a turn to speak, you could raise the mini New Zealand flag provided for you at your table, or loudly mutter away in your seat until someone paid attention to you.
The NZ First members raise their flags to vote. (Photo: Lyric Waiwiri-Smith)
By Sunday, members were deliberating over a policy to “establish funding for a health check for all women at the age of 45” – the immediate problem with this one being, as identified by the women in the crowd, that it’s too exclusive. After all, who’s thinking about the need for prostate cancer checks? “You want to delete ‘women’?” emcee Julian Paul asked. Yes, the crowd responded, and now the approved remit reads: “establish funding for a health check for all New Zealanders over the age of 45” – a rare win for the non-binary community.
Members didn’t get through all 55 remits, with the 30th – “encourage and actively promote adoption” – dragging things out a bit. It was an important policy, minister Mark Patterson reckoned, because it’d address those niggly issues that no one really knows how to fix head-on, like upping our birth rates and lightly discouraging abortion. The crowd asked some hard questions in response: doesn’t this wording still promote abortion? What’s to be done about “children being promoted abortion” at schools? And will this actually fix our birth rates?
So, after a lot of back and forth, the remit is now: “support adoption as an option for informed decision-making”.
Chris Trotter was off his rocker
A wistful Chris Trotter, union-man-turned-free-speech-man, gave a rousing but outré mid-morning speech, which managed to hit all the populist talking points within 30 minutes. He warned of threats to free speech – as seen in the recent arrest of Graham Linehan, punished “for the crime of upsetting people online” (the court was told Linehan had “relentlessly” posted abusive comments about a teenage transgender campaigner) – as well as a “conspiracy of magicians who can transform into men and women with a puff of a pronouns”, and the benefits of Trumpism and New Zealand First, which maybe aren’t so different: they both value nostalgic times, and they’re both “daggers in the heart” of neoliberalism.
The merchandise available for the supporters. (Photo: Lyric Waiwiri-Smith)
But not all coalition partners are made equal, Trotter warned. For example, there’s housing minister Chris Bishop, who is “determined to stack future generations of New Zealanders 15 storeys high, in the sort of affordable housing made famous by the East Germans”. Or workplace minister Brooke van Velden, otherwise known as “Herr” and apparently inspired by General Pinochet (whose coup killed thousands of communists, so this might be a compliment). And who could forget deputy prime minister David Seymour, who is “perfecting the art of making progressives choke on their breakfast news”.
But we all know NZ First are the best at trolling the left, Trotter declared. There were highs, there were lows, there was a lot of quoting English poet Ebenezer Elliott at the end of it. God save the people.
Sausage roll eaters, steamed flags and a song about Aotearoa
Putting on a convention for a few hundred members is no easy feat. You need to provide the feeds, and at brunch time, it was rows of sausage rolls. Perfectly average, perfectly middle New Zealand, perfectly a symbol for nostalgic times. And by the time Peters called Chris “Hopkins” a “sausage roll eater” during his leader’s speech, the laughter suggested that everyone else had already forgotten they were guilty of the same act that morning.
Brunch is served. (Photo: Lyric Waiwiri-Smith)
Prepping the convention centre for Peters and his punters required delicate work. A Young NZ First representative was tasked with steaming out the creases of the five flags positioned behind Peter’s podium. Meanwhile, the national anthem played on repeat, and the word “Aotearoa” rang out through the centre. The only thing missing was Peters saluting the flag when he got onstage.
Benjamin Doyle still a target
On Friday, Green MP Benjamin Doyle resigned from parliament amid “an onslaught of hate, vitriol and threats of real-world violence” following bussygate, a scandal ignited and flamed by Peters himself. Police last week confirmed they had investigated 10 reports of threats against Doyle, some of which were ongoing. Peters took the opportunity to continue to fan the flames of conspiracy. When asked by The Spinoff how he felt about Wellington mayor Tory Whanau suggesting his actions led to the threats and ultimately Doyle’s resignation, Peters was not happy.
“Only a mind like yours – ill-trained, ill-educated and not experienced enough – would come up with that allegation”, he said. Just another ordinary Sunday for Winston Peters.