By Lucy Craymer
WELLINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Winston Peters, the veteran leader of New Zealand First, has borrowed heavily from the culture-war playbook that has energised populist parties across the English-speaking world, railing against "woke" politics, gender policy and high immigration ahead of next month's general election.
So far, political analysts say, the payoff has been limited. While right-wing populists have surged in countries such as Britain and Australia and Donald Trump's "Make America
Great Again" platform secured him a second presidential term, Peters' decades-old New Zealand First remains a smaller force, even as it sharpens its message ahead of the country's November 7 vote.
Peters is betting that frustration over immigration, cost-of-living pressures and debates over national identity, gender and abortion can push his party to a stronger result and make it indispensable to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's centre-right bloc. But some analysts say the same rhetoric that has resonated abroad is running into a more secular, less polarised electorate at home.
Given current tight polling and New Zealand's proportional representation voting system, Luxon's National Party will need the seats of New Zealand First and the right-wing ACT party for a chance to form government again and keep the country on its conservative track.
"This time it's almost now or never in terms of getting far greater power to implement our alternative to how to run an economy," the 81-year-old Peters told Reuters, arguing voters had previously given New Zealand First only limited power. "We are expressing how they think. That's why they're turning up."
Grant Welman, who runs a handyman business, said the crowd at a Peters event in Tauranga was made up of "everyday Kiwis" with "a deep concern for the direction of the country."
The father of two said he worries about immigration outpacing infrastructure and dislikes identity politics, though he is not wholly convinced by Peters himself.
"I am voting New Zealand First this election, not because I believe they're the greatest, but I do believe that they are the best choice available."
MOMENTUM FADES
Founded in 1993, New Zealand First has long combined social conservatism on issues such as immigration and Indigenous rights, with an interventionist economic programme that includes stronger state support for the elderly and regional development. Peters has played a pivotal role in coalition-building, helping form four of the past 10 governments and serving as foreign minister in three. This time around, he has ruled out a coalition with the centre-left Labour Party.
But Peters faces a new challenger to his role as kingmaker with the emergence of the centrist Opportunity party, which could hold the balance of power after the election. It supports immigration, policies on LGBT rights and enhanced environmental protections.
Peters - who rejects the populist label, saying all politicians want to be popular - has framed his attacks on "woke" politics as a defence of common sense, experience and national sovereignty.
New Zealand First has sponsored a bill to define "woman" and "man" in law, has proposed immigration curbs and advocates leaving the Paris climate accord.
"The 2026 campaign is the most explicitly right-wing pitch NZ First has made in its 33-year history," said Josh Van Veen, a politics academic and former New Zealand First staffer. "This might well be inspired by a global populist movement, but the polling would suggest it doesn't have quite the same appeal it does elsewhere in the Anglosphere."
New Zealand First won 6.1% of the vote in 2023 and rose as high as 13.6% in an April poll. But recent surveys suggest that momentum has faded, putting the party's support around 10%.
By contrast, Pauline Hanson's One Nation is nudging 30% support, while Reform UK is at about 23.4% in British polling averages.
LIMITS OF THE MESSAGE
New Zealand appears to offer fertile ground for populist politics. Nearly 30% of residents were born overseas, housing and living costs are high, and arguments over the Treaty of Waitangi - the country's founding pact with the Indigenous Maori - have grown sharper.
But analysts say some of the conditions that fuel right-wing populism elsewhere are largely absent.
"There just isn't a big constituency for the kind of MAGA-style politics that Peters and (NZ First lawmaker Shane) Jones sometimes lean into," Van Veen said, pointing to a recent 29-country survey that found New Zealanders the most open to immigration and a 2023 survey showing a majority support protections against discrimination for transgender people.
Luke Oldfield, a political science lecturer at Victoria University, said not all elements of US-style reactionary politics resonate in New Zealand, a country where more than half the population says it has no religion.
Ben Thomas, a political commentator, said New Zealand was somewhat insulated from the culture wars because its proportional voting system did provide a "release valve for those views" and stopped them infiltrating the major parties as has been the case in the United States.
"It would be nice to think about New Zealanders as sort of rough-hewn, earthy common sense, which leaves them somewhat inoculated from those kind of global forces," he said, while warning those views might still emerge in the coming years.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Alasdair Pal and Lincoln Feast.)
