Analysis: With less than three months until the country goes to the polls, Winston Peters is at a fork in the road.
By Jo Moir of RNZ
The New Zealand First leader needs to quickly choose whether to stay the course with his committed and loyal voter base or potentially put it all on the line seeking new votes on the fringes.
While the spotlight this week was firmly on Christopher Luxon's second confidence vote in four months, the week before it was Peters who was causing headlines for the wrong reasons.
A 1News-Verian poll on Wednesday gives an insight into how the public responded to both.
It had National unchanged on 29% and New Zealand First dropping three points to 8% – putting it equal with rising minor party, Opportunity.
Newcomer rises to 8% to bring it neck-and-neck with New Zealand First. (Source: 1News)
The poll was conducted between Saturday and Tuesday. 1News pulled out of the field early as a result of Luxon's summoning of his MPs to Wellington, only collecting 847 respondents of a usual 1000 sample size, leaving a margin of error of +/- 3.4%.
New Zealand First had been soaring in polls prior to this month – in RNZ's mid-July poll it registered its strongest result in the Reid Research series in nine years reaching 11.5%.
Since then, Peters gave a speech in Parliament's general debate where he got sidetracked by heckling from Chinese-born Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan, who he told to "go back to your own country", and continued, "that's where they lie like a flatfish".
The comments drew protest from the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand and prompted a response from the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, saying he stood by the comments - up until that point Peters had been claiming the comments were made as NZ First leader.
The reaction to the comments has been swift and angry, from the Chinese-Kiwi community, to opposition MPs, and even Peters' very own coalition partners, with Luxon saying it was "racist".
And it's not only non-NZ First voters seemingly fed up with the inflammatory rhetoric.
The comments are clearly impacting its own voter base.
The New Zealand First dilemma
The current iteration of NZ First supporters comprises two very distinct groups: the pro-industry, mining, exporting, economic-growth-over-environmental-concerns types, and a much newer mob of fringe culture-war antagonists.
Broadly speaking, deputy leader Shane Jones speaks to the first group and Peters the second.
There's crossover for sure, with Jones having led the charge on recent anti-immigration rhetoric, warning of a "butter chicken tsunami" from signing an Indian FTA.
But for the most part he steers clear of culture war talking points like Covid vaccination injuries and who should be using which public bathrooms.
Increasingly, NZ First party stalwarts are tiring of the messaging being focused on appealing to the fringe newcomers.
With National increasingly a party polling under 30% there are votes ripe for the picking, and the latest poll indicates it's Act benefiting from National's stalling and NZ First's drop.
Peters spending his time speaking to a small, disillusioned, and disenfranchised group of New Zealanders is not going to give him any wins with voters tossing up moving their vote away from the diminishing 'purple vote' of National and Labour.
On top of that, NZ First is also at risk of giving Act some of its base, voters who back a return of the coalition but are losing faith in Peters' distractions.
Peters already has a playbook for how badly this could end – it was the 2020 election where he went from being deputy prime minister and foreign minister to being out of Parliament altogether.
Having spent both the 2017 and 2020 election campaigns on the road with Peters, the difference in strategy between the two was incredibly stark.
In 2017 Peters was firing on all cylinders, admittedly from a position of opposition, which he relishes, but also being very deliberate about targeting National and Labour voters and speaking to middle New Zealand as a kingmaker who could keep Act and the Greens in check.
By 2020, he was campaigning on a coalition with a Labour government in the middle of a pandemic, with a hugely popular prime minister.
Just before he went out on the road, Peters said he would run a "relentlessly positive" campaign focused on what Labour and New Zealand First had achieved in coalition together.
Then, within the first few days of the campaign starting in August, then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced the election date was postponed from September to October while Auckland dealt with a new community cluster and the rest of the country would remain at Level 2.
The restrictions significantly impacted the way parties could campaign – Peters' usual town hall meetings and public gatherings weren't allowed, and very quickly he turned on Ardern and started running a campaign opposing her at a time her personal popularity was skyrocketing.
It was a fatal mistake by Peters, and one many in his party didn't support, including senior MPs at the time, Ron Mark and Tracey Martin.
While one camp was telling him to stick to the original strategy, there were others encouraging his resentment and hyping him up to go on the attack.
By election night in Russell, he only had Shane Jones at his side, having isolated himself from the rest of his MPs, and the party was ejected from Parliament.
There's a huge lesson in that three-month period of NZ First's history and Peters is now right back there with a decision to make.
Coalition parties fight their own corners
The Herald-Motu Research Poll of Polls has this week shifted the probability of the coalition having enough support to form a government after the election from 61% to 51.5%.
National has just been through a second confidence vote in four months of its leader and prime minister and has some serious work to do convincing prospective voters it's worried about the country, and not just itself.
Act, however, is running a different race and deliberately trying to keep the coalition together while also looking to make gains from National and NZ First's slip-ups.
The 1News-Verian poll registered the party on 9% – up three points.
Act party supporters have been clear they want stability from the coalition, prompting a focus from the leadership on proposing its own policy and not spending too much time criticising its partners' ideas or personal blunders.
Leader David Seymour has the shackles of being deputy prime minister but is also deliberately trying to give an air of being measured and mature while Luxon and Peters have repeatedly scrapped it out publicly.
He also has the benefit of new candidate Paul Henry, who not only draws big crowds to any public meeting, but can also say some of the things Seymour can't.
Henry isn't an MP in government and has the luxury of being able to take a whack at Luxon and Peters and not look like he's trying to take down the coalition.
Peters returns to Parliament for a new sitting block next week where his tone and focus may give a good indication of the road he's chosen.
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