New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is blaming some of his party's loss at last year's election on Covid-19.
Peters has stepped back into the spotlight after his party crashed out of Parliament in October's election.
He pushed back when asked what went wrong for his party, he told The Country's Jamie Mackay that elections overseas have also shown that people go for what they know when faced with a situation like this.
"I don't know if you can recall, Jim Anderton was running for the mayor of Christchurch, and then there was a huge earthquake, and he didn't stand a chance."
He says the country is becoming too politically-correct, citing the upcoming Dawn Raids apology as an example.
An apology for the 1970s raids targeting Pasifika overstayers was due to be made by Jacinda Ardern on Saturday, but has been postponed due to the Covid situation.
Peters told The Country the Government is going too far.
"Everything I've seen about that is not true, it's fale. There was never any demand for politicians for that to happen, and it was not stopped by the so-called people who are claiming to be a succes story."
He says it was stopped because too many Māori were being picked up as they looked like Pacific people.
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