Sunday30th August 2009: Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews NZ First Leader, Winston Peters.

Points of interest:
- Peters confirms he intends to stand again for parliament: “I certainly hope so… that’s my plan”
- Rules out standing for Auckland mayoralty, but fears reform opens the door for privatisation of rate-payers’ assets
- Opposes Maori seats on Auckland super city council: Maori do not need “special, second-rate citizenship”
- Anti-smacking law “is no solution at all” to violence against children
- Got over election loss by taking “a nice long break”; has been “rebuilding” New Zealand First
- Peters…
- on Rodney Hide: “A mendacious sybarite”
- on Peter Brown: “He can be wrong”
- on John Key: “Very new to this game and is starting to make some mistakes”

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

WINSTON PETERS interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL Well fair to say one of the big questions since election has been what is Winston Peters going to do. New Zealand First had its Annual General Meeting in Hamilton yesterday, Leader Winston Peters is with me now. What have you been doing since the election?

WINSTON PETERS – New Zealand First Leader
Well I've been ensuring that the party met all its commitments, that the party's organisation can be rebuilt, and we're setting about doing just that.

PAUL Peter Davis sat here and said that one of the things that Helen felt on election night and the days afterwards was a sense of rejection, that she had diligently served the country for so long and had been tipped out unceremoniously. Did you have a sense of that?

WINSTON Well look in any circumstance particularly sport or whatever, or in business, a loss is a loss, but you’ve gotta get over it real fast.

PAUL And did you?

WINSTON Mm.

PAUL How did you?

WINSTON Well I decided to have a nice long break and do all the things I hadn’t done for many many years.

PAUL I saw you out earlier in the year with an open neck shirt.

WINSTON Well it was fantastic actually. Not the shirt, but the chance to have your life back for a little while.

PAUL Who's going to win the Auckland mayoral election do you think?

WINSTON Oh I think this is a most uncertain question at this point in time. I think all these early polls are nonsense, the fact is that no one knows what the city is actually, and the great concern is would it be a city that will have any soul at all, and I think a lot of people are beginning to now ask questions in a camouflage of how shall I say it, non disclosure.

PAUL Do you oppose the idea of a super city?

WINSTON Well I cannot see any reason at this point in time with what I've learnt and seen and heard to support it.

PAUL Well things might get done?

WINSTON Oh yes and things might get undone as well, what you might end up with is a nowhere city, which you could plant in any western country in the world and say well that’s just another western mess, whereas we want sort of special here, something that is enduring, something that we can be proud of, and I haven't seen enough at this point in time to support this concept, particularly the non disclosure on so many critical issues, and what I do fear is that you’ve got a massive excuse here for what they’ve tried to do for the last 15 years and that is to privatise the ratepayers' assets of this city.

PAUL Quick word on whether you will stand for the Auckland mayoralty.

WINSTON Well I've never said I would, I've never been interviewed by any journalist, notwithstanding all the rumours and humbug.

PAUL Alright, I'm sitting here and I'm asking you.

WINSTON The answer is N O. Do you want me to put a sign up? I've never ever said I would, I have no intention of do that, and I don’t know why a journalist should feel licensed to go and print that nonsense.

PAUL So no you will not be standing for the Mayor of Auckland Super City?

WINSTON For the second time, and the last time – NO.

PAUL Now, where do you stand on Maori seats? You’ve got a view on that haven't you?

WINSTON Well look I've seen people reciting the recent commission setting up the Super City, or the background to it, but you remember the Royal Commission that changed our electoral law, it said under MMP that we would in time no longer need the Maori seats and that’s been proven by the massive increase in percentage of Maori in parliament. I was almost a lone Maori in parliament in a general seat. This has all dramatically changed now to way beyond the proportion of Maori, so don’t rely on shedding one commission whilst you totally ignore the other one and the proven evolution that says there are so many more Maori in parliament today. We do not need exclusive special second rate citizenship, and that’s my fear that I see when I hear some of the nationalistic argument emerging from Maori, and one of your panellists here today.

PAUL Yeah but what Matt is saying is, Maori if they stand on Maori issues simply will not get elected.

WINSTON Oh quite wrong, it's quite false. New Zealand First has just changed its board, its leaders – we've got Maori, there are five people who have got Maori extraction on the board, there are five women. I mean if you want to get fair representation and end up in a circumstances like Obama you’ve gotta keep your eye on the prize, and the eye on the prize is equality. Equality of the electoral system is a critical part of it.

PAUL So Maori should be able to organise, should be able to get elected?

WINSTON They can organise and they can be elected. Look if you can get a Chinese Mayor of Dunedin, Chinese Mayor of Gisborne, of a big city, one a small provincial city, it they could do that with so little proportion who are Chinese, why can't Maori, and we've seen it, I've seen regional chairpersons who are Maori, but you’ve gotta organise the Maori world and understand what the prize is.

PAUL New Zealand First you had your Annual General Meeting yesterday, will you be standing at the next election Mr Peters?

WINSTON Well I certainly hope to but that is a decision as I try to tell journalists of the party organisation.

PAUL You told them quite rudely yesterday as a matter of fact.

WINSTON Well you know you shouldn’t have to extrapolate long understood political principles and the law in front of people who claim to be political journalists.

PAUL I've been unkind to you. Will you stand – are you planning to stand?

WINSTON Well that’s my plan. Two things important, (a) that you are at the same time of that mind, and (b) the party agrees with you.

PAUL You are reaffirmed as Leader of New Zealand First? You plan to continue to be Leader through the next election?

WINSTON Well again you know we have two AGMs before that, and we are a democratic party.

PAUL Would you be inclined to stand for the party's list, or would you look at a constituency do you think?

WINSTON Well currently we do both, you cannot be a list MP unless you're standing for a constituency. We'll have to see what's happens.

PAUL Right, you were reported back in July I think it was as having apologised to the party for making mistakes in the run up to the last election.

WINSTON Well we all make mistakes.

PAUL What were those mistakes you were referring to?

WINSTON Well I'll tell you what they weren't. They were not to have broken the electoral law, they were not to have broken any law of the country, they were not to have offending any law under the Serious Fraud Act, and those are the three deceits that that mendacious sybarite you had here at the beginning of this programme told those three officials, not one of the SFO or the Police or the Electoral Commission ever spoke to Winston Peters. That’s my evidence about the lies that were told about me and my party.

PAUL` Still the Privileges Committee found that you knowingly misled parliament. so you failed to tell the truth therefore you lied.

WINSTON Excuse me, no. What the Privileges Committee said, if you read it very carefully and ask any decent qualified lawyer was, we don’t have a law on this, we're gonna construct one now, and we're gonna retrospectively apply it to Winston Peters. Now let me tell you this. Nick Smith had the same trust fund to pay off his defamation bills, why was he not in front of the committee? This was an electoral petition, I wasn’t to know who was subscribing and I didn’t have to know.

PAUL Is it worth going over all this old stuff?

WINSTON No, but you’ve raised it …

PAUL But Peter Brown your former deputy, he criticised the way you ran the last campaign, he said New Zealand First are not making 5% rest entirely on your shoulders, he said you ceased to be a team player, is that fair?

WINSTON No it's not fair, look Peter can be wrong. Let me tell you this here, that I had members of my party, and this is a sad development, who thought that freedom and openness was the ongoing mantra of everything and that if a journalist put a microphone under their mouth they were required to answer even if they didn’t know what the answer was, as was proven numerous times. When some member said well I didn’t know that, it doesn’t mean he was entitled to know that at all.

PAUL John Key says New Zealand First won't be back, he says you're a cult party based around you.

WINSTON Oh really. Well Mr Key's very new to this game and he started to make some mistakes as we speak, and many of his supporters are starting to find out. Let's just wait along.

PAUL Mr Key is polling very well however.

WINSTON Yeah but I've seen five Prime Ministers in my career.

PAUL Where do you stand on the smacking controversy?

WINSTON Well you cannot have good public policy where you say – whilst the law says this we'll allow the Police to define it this way – that’s awful public policy, it's not part of our history either, and Mr Key is denying 88% of New Zealanders their right to an answer, their answer should be in the law, not with the Police Commissioner or some lowly constable thinks down on the street. This is wrong.

PAUL I spose both National and Labour shutting down the smacking issue, given the result of the referendum provides a good platform for you, on one issue at least?

WINSTON Well it's not a platform I like because I tell you, I was aghast at this from the very beginning, you will see that the mass majority of my party voted against this bill, we were some of the few who did, and I'll tell why I did, I know something about the brutalising of children, and it's gone on, 16 people have died, young children have died in horrible circumstances since Bradford's bill because she's set out to get the wrong target, not decent families in this country were the object of her bill, and yet she said that she would have a solution. My evidence is this, 16 young people have died, her solution is no solution at all. What we need in this country, and particularly in the Maori world, and in the Polynesian world might I say, is to focus on peer pressure against the violence in our society. Let's not duck around the bush here.

PAUL How different is it going to be to get back into parliament given you're not in parliament, to come in from outside again?

WINSTON Well when I first got into parliament I wasn’t in parliament, and I believe we can do it again.

PAUL Very good. I think you very much for your time Mr Winston Peters.

ENDS

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