How the nationalists won New Zealand
And what a new party could learn from them
Just over 2,000km from Australia’s shores, the nationalists are in power.
They want to drastically cut immigration, replicate Singapore’s economy, ban hate speech laws, launch an inquiry into the media, and support nationwide exercise programs for Kiwis.
New Zealand First – and its founder and party leader, Rt. Hon. Winston Peters – are the stuff of legend – and the story of their rise, fall, and rise again deserves its own television series.
Winston has been in parliament, on and off, for about 40 years. Starting his career in National – the country’s centre right party – then later forming his own party, NZ First, in 1997.
In that time, he has suffered major losses, brought down governments, created governments, been embroiled in major scandals, political conspiracies, jousted with journalists, lost his base, then won it back again.
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with NZ First in the 2023 election campaign. The experience gave me firsthand insight into how a nationalist party can win – the policies, campaign, personalities, willpower and luck needed to get into parliament.
Ultimately, to me it showed how a small committed team of smart people can have an outsized impact on the future of a country.
It’s worth noting that NZ uses a MMP electoral system, different to Australia and UK, but the core fundamental lessons on how to win remain the same.
Here is how the nationalists won New Zealand.
Timing
In the 2020 NZ general election, NZ First was kicked to the curb. All 9 of its MPs were voted out, and Winston, then 75, was assumed to be stepping down, essentially consigning the party to its end.
This was despite a gruelling campaign that saw him travel 12,000km in 6 weeks, visiting more towns and cities than any of his competitors.
But on the night of the election, NZ First picked up a measly 2.7%. Winston forced a smile and delivered a short ‘wait and see’ speech to his supporters, then ducked off to his ‘Eagles Nest’, with his adviser and lawyer in tow. He left the election party to be managed by NZ First’s 2IC, Shane Jones, who subsequently danced the night away with his wife, and fronted cameras the next day with a ‘substantial hangover’.
Winston would later, in moments of anger, blame his campaign team, and COVID lockdowns, for his poor performance. The real reason was that everybody was outraged that he used his kingmaker status to put Labor’s progressive leader Jacinda Ardern into power, rather than siding with National. This resulted in NZ enduring some of the most draconian lockdown laws in the world, and accelerated the countries economic and cultural decline.
His base punished him for this, and, not for the first time, NZ First were said to be finished.
“The show is over for Winston Peters,” headlined an article by RNZ.
“He's the most recognisable figure in the country's political history… but for Winston Peters and New Zealand First, the show is over.”
Or was it?
Looking back, the lesson was simple. Even populism has expectations. Don’t take your voters for fools. Many assumed Winston chose Labour over National because they offered him a better position in cabinet, and better terms in government. He and his party suffered immensely for what could be seen as a selfish ploy.
2021: Bring Back Winnie
"We are coming back because we believe we can."
After a year of rumours about retirement, in June 2021 NZ First held a conference and Winston announced that NZ First would run in the 2023 election. The worst of Jacinta’s woke regime had taken effect: government departments were being renamed using a Maori language, the transition to Net Zero accelerated, immigration powered on. The economy was in absolute shambles. The sentiment was souring significantly: a Kiwi businessman told me that if Labour got back into power in 2023, he and his family would consider leaving the country, and that he wasn’t the only one.
It took some significant schmoozing, and a lot of listening to supporters' key concerns, to start clawing back some respect from voters after siding with Labour. For years, people in the comment sections and in person protested that they would never vote for Winston again.
Eventually, things got so bad that they had no choice. The economy was in recession, with GDP dropping 0.3% in the September quarter, crime was up, with ram raids and robberies across the country, and Labour, as a solution was doubling down on progressivism. Despite a few other ‘populist parties’ popping up – including many relating to the ‘Freedom Movement’ – NZ First had the brand, the knowhow and was well positioned to capture the reaction against this.
The lesson here is simply: stay the course.
Old dog, new tricks
The first thing Winston did was replace the team running NZ First. I can’t say too much about the previous team, but its new president, treasurer and other members were all full-time, committed professionals. Noteworthy to me was they were all young - in their 30s and 40s.
To hear it told by others, Winston was both NZ First’s major asset and worst enemy. The challenge for the team was to make sure it was no longer just the ‘Winnie’ show. They tried to do this by redirecting focus from Winston’s personality, to his and NZ First’s policies. They accentuated his extensive political experience, playing it off against his competitors. And they pushed new talent, specifically their second from the top candidate, Shane Jones.
“The rain has washed away the blood of the person who was murdered, but the stench of the sewer rats, who committed this crime, still lingers.”
Shane launched his campaign using a video on TikTok that went viral. He became the ‘force from up North’, standing up for the community and talking about crime in the area, placing an emphasis on the Maori community – or ‘whanau’ (family) - who he urged should take a share of responsibility for these crimes.
Shane was the perfect NZ First candidate. Northland has a reputation for being ‘rough’, and Shane was seen as the hard man set between woke Labor and soft National. Half Maori and half Croatian, he could have the difficult conversations that needed to be had, and could chat just as easily with Prime Ministers as he could with rough country folk or criminals.
I also found out later Shane had actually studied at Harvard.
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“We must go hard on these ferals. These animals. Northland, rise up!” The algorithm rated Shane. Using a campaign focussing on quantity over quality, Shane started shooting videos all over the country. My advice was that to get engagement online you needed to trigger ‘arousal emotions’. After we stopped laughing, we discussed what this would mean: anger (crime, elites, wokeness), pride (community, country, people), fear (Net Zero disaster) and joy (humour). Shane was one of those terrific and experienced campaigners who could do all of these things. He was an enviable speaker, and admitted later that he had studied acting in school.
Speaking out against the highly controversial race-based ‘co-governance’, Jones quipped what was perhaps the best line of the campaign. “It’s time to put the K back in Iwi, we’re all Kiwi,” (Iwi meaning nation in Maori).
He also did a Northland rendition of ‘Midnight Train’, and coined the phrase ‘Get Cuzzy Off the Couch’ (get Maori family members working).
So sclerotic and percentage-minded were the major party candidates, so hemmed in by media-set boundaries, that simply by virtue of being different, being interesting or entertaining, or simply speaking his mind, he was already more interesting and engaging than anyone else.
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Their other top candidates were also strong points: they signalled NZ First was serious. Casey Costello was a former Detective Sergeant and leading figure in pushing back against the ‘woke Maori agenda’. Others had council experience, others business experience, others were professional media figures.
One interesting candidate that I had the chance to chat with was Lee Donaghue, a younger candidate who was formerly an actor, working in Hollywood and London previously. Lee gained political prominence after appearing as the only normal bloke on a stage of the ‘young voters debate’ (it’s worth skipping to Lee’s moments).
“We’re also going to look at one of the causes [of the housing crisis] a lot of people haven’t thought about is immigration. You can’t bring in 100,000 people and expect that everyone’s going to have a place to live.”
Lee - handsome, well spoken, and well presented - put forward political solutions for young people in a balanced, nation-first way. It again added an air of legitimacy to NZ First’s brand, which the media often tried to tarnish as a group of basket cases.
Lee didn’t get into parliament this time unfortunately, but I hope the party sees the promise in him. Not only could he be an effective spokesperson, but on image alone he does the party a magnitude of good, especially as much of its voter base skews older.
Further to its candidates, NZ First also has an established ‘Young NZ First’ component, with bases in universities across the country. This has already served as an excellent funnel to find and promote talent (some of its members now work for the party), it’s a good way to garner young energetic volunteers, and again, it legitimises the brand.
There are multiple takeaways from its people. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a political figure like Winston. The excellent opportunity nationalists have in positioning and in digital media, which rewards provocative and engaging messaging. The importance of professionalism, and the next generation. It’s clear that NZ First chose its candidates with this image in mind, and despite still using Winston as the lead man for the media, much work was done on the ground and online by the rest of the candidates. The lesson to me was: take your candidates extremely seriously.
Part 2: Policies and messaging
I realise I’ve written too much already, and will break this into two parts, with Part 2 focusing on policies and messaging. Coming soon!
An economy with fundamentals like New Zealand should only be in recession if there's a fkn nuclear winter or an asteroid strike. The level of mismanagement required is staggering. The combo of high agricultural export with high tourism is a knockout in any other culture; only benefits and social coddling could blunt it.