Winston Raymond Peters PC is a New Zealand politician serving as Leader of New Zealand First since its foundation in 1993. He is of mixed parentage, his father being Māori and his mother being of Scottish descent. He was a Member of Parliament from 1979 to 1981, 1984 to 2008 and 2011 to 2020. In the 2017 election, Peters lost his electorate seat of Northland but NZ First won 9 seats overall, with 7. 2% of the party vote. He has called for more focused and restrictive immigration policies.
About Winston Peters in brief
Winston Raymond Peters PC is a New Zealand politician serving as Leader of New Zealand First since its foundation in 1993. He is of mixed parentage, his father being Māori and his mother being of Scottish descent. Peters has called for more focused and restrictive immigration policies. He has advocated benefits for senior citizens, criticised the media and \”elitism\”, and has favoured socially conservative policies. Peters was Acting Prime Minister from 21 June 2018 to 2 August 2018 while Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was on maternity leave. He was a Member of Parliament from 1979 to 1981, 1984 to 2008 and 2011 to 2020. In the 2017 election, Peters lost his electorate seat of Northland but NZ First won 9 seats overall, with 7. 2% of the party vote. Peters’ birth certificate records his birth in Whangarei and his registration as Wynston Raymondeters. His father is of Makerei descent, his mother has Scottish ancestry. His iwi affiliation is Ngāti Wai and his clan is MacInnes. Two of his brothers, Ian and Jim, have also served as MPs, and another brother, Ron, has also stood as a New NZ First candidate. Peters entered national politics in 1975, standing unsuccessfully for the National Party in the electorate of Northern Maori; he gained 1,873 votes and became the first National candidate in a Mori seat for some years who did not lose his deposit. Like his brothers Ron, Wayne, and Allan, Peters played rugby for the University of Auckland. He graduated with a BA and LLB in 1973 and later worked as a lawyer at Russell McVeagh between 1974 and 1978.
He joined the New Zealand Young Nationals, the youth wing of the center-right New Zealand National Party and became acquainted with Bruce Cliffe and Paul East, who later served as Cabinet ministers in the Fourth Government. In 1975, Peters became a member of the Auckland University Rugby Club and was a captain of the Mātai Wai Rugby Club. In 1978, he was elected to Parliament as a National Party candidate for the Northern Maati electorate. In 1979, Peters was elected as the first Mori candidate to stand for Parliament in a national election. In 1981, he won the election and was the first member of Parliament for the Northland electorate. He served in the Cabinet as Minister of Makaori Affairs when Jim Bolger led the National party to victory in 1990. In 1991, Peters resigned from this post after criticising his own Government’s economic, fiscal and foreign ownership policies. In 1993, Peters formed the populist party NZ First. He held the balance of power after the 1996 election and formed a coalition with National Party, securing the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer—the latter position created for Peters. In 1999, NZ First returned to opposition before entering government with Labour Party Prime Minister Helen Clark, in which Peters served as minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2008. In 2008, after a funding scandal involving Peters and his party, New Zealand first failed to reach the 5% threshold and again left Parliament, with Peters leaving government.
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This page is based on the article Winston Peters published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 23, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
