Yesterday Once More

Winston declares war on the woke, the left, and Labour.

All my best memories
Come back clearly to me
Some can even make me cry.
Just like before
It's yesterday once more.

Songwriters: Richard Lynn Carpenter / John Bettis

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Yesterday, Winston Peters gave a State of the Nation speech in which he declared War on the Woke, described peaceful protesters as fascists, said he’d take our country back, Make NZ First Again, and ruled out working with Labour after the next election.

Left-Wing Fascists.

Prior to the speech, protesters outside the venue encouraged our Foreign Minister to take an interest in civilians being murdered in Gaza, chanting, “Shame on Winston”.

Peters had no time for such matters and referred to the people who had given up their Sunday afternoon to stand against the madness they see happening as “Left-wing Fascists who preach freedom of speech but try their best to deny it to those they disagree with”.

It seemed like a pre-prepared attack by Winston to paint the protestors as intolerant. To be fair, they are. They, along with any decent human being - find what is happening in Gaza intolerable. That’s normal. C’mon, do these people look like fascists to you?

Image: Three News.

The bloke with the “Silence is Complicity” sign seems to be a priest. While I acknowledge that David Seymour has declared Jesus Christ to be an ACT supporter, I find it hard to take accusations of that man being a fascist seriously.

Peters would hardly be the first politician to accuse his accusers of what he is guilty of. If one group shared views that resembled fascism, they were inside the venue, on the stage with a microphone, rather than outside with placards or being dragged out for interrupting Peters, which he appeared quite pleased by.

“Shame on them,” he snarled, “Shut Up and Go home,” but you could see the old crocodile was happy with the diversion.

He grinned and said, “And get a haircut,” as if he were delivering a masterstroke—which I guess he would’ve been if this was about 50 years ago, during a protest against Vietnam, when people were telling hippies who wanted peace to get a haircut.

For goodness sake, it’s 2025; the guy who was being dragged out when he said it was actually bald and the people he was declaring “shame” on were there to protest against mass murder. That’s not shameful - silence is.

War on Woke.

Winston attacked the left in his Declaration of War On Woke, saying they were all about moral outrage, obsessed with accusations, gotcha politics, woke ideology, and opposing everything that offends anyone who gets offended.

He sounded like a right-wing comedian who complains that everyone is woke and that it isn’t fair when the real story is they can’t write funny jokes.

Image: BeFunky.

What on earth is he talking about? He, and even more so his deputy Shane Jones, have been saying the most insane, non-politically correct garbage for the last eighteen months and long before, and nobody ever stopped them. Peters doth protest too much; in fact, it seemed like his whole speech, with its heavy focus on the last Labour government, was about distracting people from the underperformance of this one.

I should give the man some credit. He’s made a career of being the outsider, the champion of the disgruntled who will keep the buggers honest. That’s a neat trick when you consider he came to parliament in the seventies, and he’s been spinning that line about keeping governments honest for decades - despite being part of most of them.

Ruling out Labour.

Peters said in the media standup that followed his speech, “We’re not wasting time with the present bunch of unreformed losers.” I assumed he meant the coalition and that he’d seen the light, or at least the Ipsos poll showing their unprecedented unpopularity.

Of course, he meant Labour, and I was pleased to hear it.

Peters spent a full 20 minutes of his speech attacking the left, using terms like “Marxist”, “Shallow”, and “Impotent.”

Did I really think Chippy and Peters would work together - no, that was hard to imagine, but it was still theoretically on the table and would’ve been talked about as a scenario in the lead-up to next year’s election.

I know many lefties would’ve loathed to see Peters back, but the question remained: if push came to shove - would you rather have an NZF/Labour government with support from the Greens or the current coalition? I think that’s a valid question, and I’m quite glad to see it taken off the table by Peters, who was unusually clear for a man whose election strategy is often to refuse to say who he’d go with.

As Thomas points out in his paywalled article, Peters mentioned Labour 30 times in his speech - more times than he mentioned his own party. Clearly, Peters’ exposure to the light side has scarred him.

No doubt the tales of everything being Labour’s fault will continue for some time and grow more outlandish. They’ll certainly need to.

Most voters give a new government a grace period during which they can blame the last lot and point fingers. This usually lasts about six months, 12 months at a push. Here we are now, though, 18 months after the election, and claims that everything’s on Labour must be starting to wear thin.

If Peters’ grand strategy for 2026 is still blaming Labour after a whole term in office, I think he’s in trouble - and he’ll need a distraction. Maybe someone else to blame things on?

Pick a Cause, Any Cause.

Winston knows all about adopting positions to win votes. You get the impression that it doesn’t really matter what they are; they’re just a means to an end—Winston's re-election. Whether it was anti-Asian sentiment in the 1990s or championing anti-vaxxers in recent years, Peters knows how to pick trigger issues, and he’s been riding the anti-woke train for some time.

Long before the advent of Trump, Peters was calling the media “fake news”. He has fought to keep trans people out of bathrooms and out of sports, and he loves Trump's attacks on diversity initiatives that play nicely to the prejudices of the mob.

When Peters wasn’t continuing his bitter vendetta against Labour, he was delivering the sort of rhetoric that suggested he’d spent too long listening to Fox News on his recent trip to the States.

Like this: “The woke agenda of the left has crept in like a cancer that has spread so deep into their divisive thinking it has become their sole focus. And sadly, it is a malady, a malaise, that has overcome most of the mainstream media.”

Or how about this beauty? “We face now, across the House, parties that subscribe to an ‘Anthem of Hate’, a ‘Rissole of Racism’, and ‘Collection of Communist’ type economics that even China and Russia have long ago abandoned.”

I don’t know who’s writing Peters’ speeches, but they sound hungry. “A Rissole of Racism” is a pretty weird description; it sounds like something Peters’ supporters might have enjoyed once they returned to their “Lifestyle Communities.”

Image by David.

Taking our country back

After attacking the left, Peters turned to reclaiming our nation, saying, “Together, we are going to take back control, take back our country, and Make New Zealand First Again.” It was very Trumpian, but it did raise an obvious question:

I couldn’t work out who he meant. Winston is the deputy PM and is responsible for making Luxon PM - who are these people in control that he spoke of?

Greg wondered whether he had lost his mind or was drunk, but that seemed like more of an “and/or” question to me.

Todd pointed out, “He knows his audience reacts to generalised claims with zero facts behind them... They're coming for your rights’ ‘One law for all’ ‘We're taking back our country’. It's low-grade politics to excite the easily frightened and the gullible.”

Sarah nailed it, “From the majority of us who believed the Ardern government did a great job keeping us all safe during Covid, who care about our environment, our oceans and waterways, our native birds and forests, our disabled, our children who live in poverty, our addicted, our mentally ill, the list goes on and on.. the non-haters, the empathetic and the kind.”

Susan said, “Remind me how many years this man has spent in government. As a National MP, then headed NZF in combination with the Nats (twice) and Labour (twice). If he's let the country be 'taken' in that time, it's on him, and he hasn't taken it back yet; he never will.”

Having aligned himself with National, I suspect that Peters will find diminishing returns from attacks on the former government, a song that National will also play loudly and strongly.

If Peters is to return to power, it will be due to attacks on the right differentiating himself, especially regarding foreign ownership and privatisation, rather than against the left.

If voters are to keep Winston around, it will be because of his role in lessening the neoliberal damage of National and ACT or these culture wars against the woke. People will get sick of hearing those in charge continue to focus on their predecessors rather than their own role in running the country.

His State of the Nation speech was as expected, but surely he can’t go on much longer. Good grief, the man will be 80 next month.

I hope that doesn’t sound ageist. My issue with Peters is the things he says, not the number of candles on his cake, although I’m not sure you’d want to encourage him to breathe heavily over a naked flame. Realistically, there is a practical limit to how long he can continue.

If NZ First slips below 5% next year, it won’t be back. In the worst case, if it does return, I suspect Peters will hand the reins to Shane Jones sometime next term.

I’m really hoping it’s the former scenario. Have a good one, all you lovely people.

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Ngā mihi,
Nick.

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I’ve always loved this cover - Red Kross with Yesterday Once More.