Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Winston Peters might be story of the year

Now, listen — I think it’s a little early in the year to be making too many predictions about election year. But having said that, I do think there is a very strong chance that Winston Peters might be the story of the year.

If he carries on the way he is in the polls, he could well be in the double digits — well into the double digits — by the time November’s election rolls around. He’s already sitting somewhere between 10 and 12 percent in the past couple of polls, and generally minor parties go up in polling the closer we get to election day because of the extra attention they get during the campaign.

Commentators are already talking about the possibility of the next government being just National and New Zealand First — no ACT in there — with the two of them together potentially being enough. That could happen if Winston keeps climbing the way he is, and obviously if National can get its act together and lift its vote share.

If you don’t believe it’s possible that Winston will climb further, just look at what he did this week. He pulled out that classic Winston trick of whipping up the anti‑immigrant rhetoric again. I honestly didn’t think there was much of that sentiment around at the moment — until he started talking, and suddenly the texts about immigrants started rolling in.

Winston can sniff out an election platform like no one else. He knows there’s probably an increased number of people who are gagging for a conspiracy — like “the government is trying to hide the FTA documents they’re trying to roll on us". And what we were also reminded of this week is that he’s completely unencumbered by the facts. A lot of what he said was just complete nonsense.

Here’s a question for you: if it does end up being just New Zealand First and National, and Winston is 81 years old, is this the election where he finally pushes for a turn at being Prime Minister?

Like I said, he could become the story of this election year.

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