Summarised by Centrist

New Zealand First has opened its election-year convention with leader Winston Peters promising to “turn this country’s democracy upside down”, as the party reaches 11.5% in the latest RNZ Reid Research poll.

The result puts NZ First close to twice its 2023 election support and comes as the party prepares to launch its campaign.

Peters and deputy leader Shane Jones warned the party’s new candidates to maintain message discipline and leave major announcements to the leadership.

“Just because there’s a microphone under your mouth doesn’t mean you have to answer,” Peters told delegates.

The candidates include former Labour ministers Stuart Nash, Rino Tirikatene and Dover Samuels, former National MPs Michael Laws, Alfred Ngaro and Harete Hipango, and former All Black Taine Randell.

Winston spars with media after his Ferries Announcement

Q: Why have you moved away from KiwiRail owning… to KiwiRail leasing the ships off a state owned company?
A: Well, it makes commercial sense.
Q: Can you explain that commercial reasoning?
A: Yes, that's economics 101,… pic.twitter.com/GM40kKypjw
— NZ Media World – by Brynn Neilson (@1nzmw) July 17, 2026

Delegates will vote on 34 policies, including privacy protections against compulsory digital ID, reviewing iwi and religious tax exemptions, raising the student-loan repayment threshold to $60,000 and funding winter health checks for seniors.

Peters also pledged to campaign against the government’s recently signed free trade agreement with India, claiming it would add only 0.1% to GDP by 2050.

“We’re not going to have New Zealanders deluded, and we’re not selling our country down the drain,” he said.

The convention follows Peters’ announcement that New Zealand’s two new Cook Strait ferries, expected to enter service in 2029, will be named Kupe and Cook, honouring the Polynesian navigator and Captain James Cook.

Peters predicted a “noisy minority” would object to the Cook name, saying “snivelling wokesters” would work themselves into a lather while offering only passing approval for Kupe.

“A mature country does not run from its history,” Peters said. “A serious country does not vandalise its memory to satisfy the latest fashion in whinger politics.”

Read more over at NZ Herald and Stuff

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