Do we like Winston Peters?
Our score: 3 out of 10. Real harm in his own words on migrants, trans people and climate, with decades of service and an early land-rights win alongside.
Winston Peters grew up poor in the far north, with a Māori father and a Scottish mother. As a young lawyer he helped Ngātiwai challenge a government plan to turn Māori land into public reserves, and the government backed down. He entered Parliament for National in 1978 after winning an electoral petition, then made his name in Tauranga.
The arc since has been a political rollercoaster. National dropped him from Cabinet in 1991 and expelled him in 1992, so he founded NZ First in 1993 and became deputy PM and Treasurer in 1996, before being sacked in 1998. A donations scandal brought a 2008 parliamentary censure for misleading the House, and he lost his seat and the party fell out of Parliament. He came back in 2017, left again in 2020, and returned in 2023 as Foreign Minister.
The latest stoush is the big one. In Parliament he said to Xu-Nan “Go back to your own country”, then added that this was democracy. Labour's deputy leader said the comments were racist and that he shouldn't stay Foreign Minister, National's campaign spokesperson called them racist, and China lodged a formal protest. Peters called the accusation drivel and has not backed down, and Shane Jones said Xu-Nan should know his place.
On trans people, NZ First's member's bill would define woman and man as adult human biological female and male in all law. In an RNZ interview Peters said people making a claim they don't hold would face a biological test. Labour and the Greens called it a culture-war distraction, and former NZ First MP Tracey Martin, who led the 2021 self-identification law, pushed back on how he described it. Back in 2013 he also voted against marriage equality, with NZ First wanting a referendum instead.
On the planet, RNZ's fact-check of his Paris Agreement claims found them unsupported or overstated. In 2023 NIWA's Dr Sam Dean disputed his claim that humans make up 3 percent of atmospheric carbon dioxide, giving 33 percent instead. In March 2026 he called for a vaccine-injury inquiry after a Royal Commission report that endorsed vaccines, while Hipkins noted he once strongly backed vaccination.
The good stuff is mostly public service rather than charity, and we found no charity record. Beyond the 1975 Ngātiwai case, he is credited with uncovering the Māori Loan Affair in 1984. His 2026 pitch centres on doubling the economy and investing in infrastructure, though he also wants the Māori electorates scrapped. NZ First sits near the 5 percent threshold ahead of the 7 November election.