Winston Peters

This prompted a by-election in Tauranga some months before the scheduled general election. He stood as an independent and won easily. Read Less

The party suffered for the rash of party-switching. Additionally, there was a wide perception that Peters had led voters to believe a vote for New Zealand First would get rid of National, only to turn around and go into coalition with National. New Zealand First collapsed to 4.3 percent of the vote, and would have been shut out of Parliament had Peters not managed to hold onto Tauranga by 63 votes. This only allowed New Zealand First to win five seats. Under New Zealand's MMP rules, a party that falls below the 5 percent threshold can still qualify for MMP by winning one electorate seat. Still in opposition, he continued to promote his traditional policies, but also became more noticeably concerned about immigration policies.

In the 2002 election, Peters performed well once again, campaigning on three main issues: reducing immigration, increasing punishments for crime, and ending the "grievance industry" around Treaty of Waitangi settlements. This message regained much support for both Peters and his party, especially from among the elderly who had in the past backed Winston Peters, and New Zealand First won 10 percent of the vote and 13 seats. Peters seemed to hope that Labour would choose to ally with New Zealand First in order to stay in power. However, Clark explicitly rejected this possibility, instead relying on support from elsewhere. This appeared to anger Peters considerably. Read Less

Peters tried to regain Tauranga in the 2008 election and lost to National's Simon Bridges by a margin of 11,742 votes, a much larger loss than in 2005. With New Zealand First gaining 4.07 percent of the vote and failing to reach the 5 percent threshold to enter Parliament without winning an electorate seat, Peters did not enter the 49th New Zealand Parliament. In his concession speech, Peters promised, "This is not the end", and alluded to the fact that while New Zealand First would not have any members in Parliament, it was still New Zealand's fourth largest political party, with 4.07 percent of the vote. Despite this, political commentators described the defeat as "the end of the road" for Peters. Read Less

Later it was reported he had started writing a rugby column for a local magazine. Read Less

Peters was born in the Northland city of Whangarei. He is of mixed ethnicity, his father being Māori and his mother being of Scottish descent. His iwi affiliation is Ngāti Wai and his clan is McInnes. Two of his brothers, Ian and Jim, have also been MPs, and another brother Ron has also stood as a New Zealand First candidate.

After attending Whangarei Boys' High School and Dargaville High School Peters studied history, politics and law at the University of Auckland and graduated BA and LLB before working both as a teacher and a lawyer. He was a member of the University Rugby Club in Auckland and captain of the Auckland Māori Rugby team. He also played in the Prince of Wales Cup for the Māori All Blacks trials. One brother, Wayne, played rugby for Otago and North Auckland in the then National Provincial Championship and was in the Junior All Blacks while another brother, Allan, represented Wanganui in rugby. Read Less