{"id":501477,"date":"2026-06-29T18:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/501477\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T18:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:50:19","slug":"winston-peters-says-no-to-labour-so-why-do-doubts-remain-the-front-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/501477\/","title":{"rendered":"Winston Peters says no to Labour, so why do doubts remain? \u2013 The Front Page"},"content":{"rendered":"

In fact, he unequivocally ruled out working with the party in 2022 when speaking to the<\/a> NZ Herald\u2019s Audrey Young.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one gets to lie to me twice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And for the years since, he\u2019s been asked time and time again whether he\u2019s changed his mind. Just last week, he took aim at<\/a> Ryan Bridge\u2019s question line when he was pressed about whether he\u2019s continuing to rule out Labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with you people? Do I need to come and put a brand on your head? We\u2019re not going with Labour,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n

But this morning on Newstalk ZB, Luxon seemed to be the one questioning his coalition partner\u2019s loyalties.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gone 50% of the time with Labour, 50% of the time with us,\u201d Luxon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs to what goes through his mind \u2013 as to how he selects \u2013 I\u2019m just looking at history and saying, you know, you can\u2019t be 100% sure, can you?\u201d<\/p>\n

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan told The Front Page<\/a> that while a full repeat of the 2017 coalition arrangement is unlikely, there are still links between parts of New Zealand First and parts of Labour. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a right wing of the Labour Party, and the right wing of the Labour Party is actually quite close to the sort of left wing of the New Zealand First. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you can\u2019t rule out the fact that if a National-led coalition was impossible, which may be the numbers the morning after the election, or when the final vote is tallied, the numbers might say it\u2019s over, you can\u2019t be re-elected. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that were the case, I would find it very hard to believe that the parts of New Zealand First that continue to talk to Labour, which they do, and we know that they do, would not start talking about areas where they would want to collaborate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ChristopherChristopher Luxon and Winston Peters under fire from the Greens during Question Time in Parliament. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

So what was actually announced at the weekend from Act\u2019s \u201crally\u201d and Labour\u2019s \u201ccongress\u201d?<\/p>\n

David Seymour wants a much tougher welfare system. Under its newly announced welfare policy, the party would require all health and disability benefits to be issued by government-employed doctors. <\/p>\n

Act also wants a payment card for work-ready Jobseekers, which will block spending on alcohol, gambling, tobacco, and cash withdrawals.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Chris Hipkins wants to bolster a Covid-era trade scheme. Labour\u2019s pledged to restore a two-year, $500 employer subsidy under the Apprenticeship Boost, and provide apprentices up to a $1000 grant for work-related costs, like tools.<\/p>\n

Coughlan told The Front Page<\/a> that the scheme was first introduced in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe training of an apprentice can be quite expensive for an employer, and over many decades, employers have taken on far fewer apprentices, which has led to issues in the labour market because you don\u2019t have people with the necessary skills coming through to fill jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, during the pandemic, the then-Labour Government announced a scheme to subsidise employers to take on apprentices. It was a two-year scheme, $1000 a month for the first year of taking on an apprentice, $500 a month for the second year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funding for that was time-limited, like a lot of the Covid funding. The funding expired in 2024, but it was quite a popular scheme, so the coalition took it and extended it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they did that, they cut parts of it, so as they extended it and made it permanent, they made it a smaller scheme. Only $500, only for one year, and it was for a much more limited number of professions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat brings us to the present day, where the Labour Party, now in opposition, is campaigning to bring it back to a two-year scheme. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not proposing to make it $1000 a month like the original, but for two years at $500 a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re broadening the number of professions that can apply to join it. So it\u2019s gone to people like road builders, sales and marketing, hairdressers, and far more jobs will be able to get an apprentice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Listen to the full episode<\/a> to hear more about:<\/p>\n

National\u2019s polling problem.Restricting benefit spending.American-style politics.Why apprenticeships matter.<\/p>\n

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime\/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.<\/p>\n

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In fact, he unequivocally ruled out working with the party in 2022 when speaking to the NZ Herald\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,6127,186273,1052,14106,7230,6309,95448,5903,1668,21735,42,6721,47148,43,7805,1523,28630,6729,13120,312,17509,223,61,40,38,41,39,4276,6728],"class_list":["post-501477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2246","tag-already","tag-apprenticeships","tag-benefits","tag-boosting","tag-coalition","tag-do","tag-doubts","tag-election","tag-front","tag-headache","tag-headlines","tag-labour","tag-looming","tag-news","tag-no","tag-over","tag-page","tag-peters","tag-remain","tag-says","tag-so","tag-the","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-why","tag-winston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}