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Peters promising to stand in Northland again

Author
Annabel Reid, Dylan Moran, Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Sun, 29 Mar 2015, 7:09AM
Winston Peters (NZME.)
Winston Peters (NZME.)

Peters promising to stand in Northland again

Author
Annabel Reid, Dylan Moran, Barry Soper,
Publish Date
Sun, 29 Mar 2015, 7:09AM

UPDATED 12.12PM: Winston Peters is promising he'll stand again in Northland at the next General Election after New Zealand First leader scored a stunning victory in last night's by-election, leaving National licking its wounds - 4000 votes behind.

Now Mr Peters says he'll fight to retain the seat 2017, although he wouldn't have re-contested if he'd lost last night.

"When people send you a message they don't want you, you don't go to the same bus stop. They told me they did so I'll back at the bus stop next time."

Peters is grateful to traditional National Party voters who put aside their party preferences and gave him their tick, but insists he doesn't owe the Labour Party for their implied support.

Andrew Little gave strong hints during the campaign that Labour supporters ought to vote for NZ First.

"We don't owe anyone a favour at all. Let me tell you, I came out an backed Kelvin Davis in the last campaign. I made no bones about it."

But Peters is also hinting that he may not capitalise on his victory and bring in another NZ First MP in on the list. Ria Bond is next up, and already works for the party in Parliament.

"It may be that we decide, because we are for a much smaller parliament, that we won't take this option and that we'll try and demonstrate that we do believe that parliament should be, as the Robinson petition said, no more than a hundred people."

It was a crushing defeat for National, and a bitter pill for its candidate, Mark Osborne, who says he'll be keeping an eye on Mr Peters, "making sure the mister Peters delivers on his many promises that he's made to Northlanders. I'm not quite sure how he's going to do that, four-hundred-odd million dollars' worth."

Osborne says there wasn't any more he or his team could've done in their campaign.

National's campaign director Steven Joyce says it's clear a lot of voters weren't happy.

"Our job is to make sure that we earn the right to represent Northland again, and seek to do that in two-and-a-half years' time."

Joyce believes Mr Peters got ahead in the race early, and National couldn't reel him in.

"He ran a good campaign, he got out in front and stayed there and stayed there. We were always playing catch-up and we did catch-up some but not enough."

"Of course Labour and the Greens swung in behind him and that was the end of that."

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei believes the result is proof that the tide has turned on an increasingly out of touch Government, and deeply embarrassing given Northland was a traditionally safe seat.

"The attempt by National to buy this by-election with their bridges, their money for bridges, while refusing to feed the hundreds and hundreds of hungry kids in Northland just proves how out of touch they were," she said.

 

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