Maori defender with a reassuring message for whites.

Maori defender with a reassuring message for whites.
By Louise Williams.
July 25 2002

Mr Peters holds up three fingers to indicate a three-point electoral message in Mt Eden, Auckland, yesterday. Photo: New Zealand Herald/David White

New Zealand's slick anti-immigration campaigner, Winston Peters, "has a country to save". And he has race, and racism, on his side.

The threat, Mr Peters readily warns, is a torrent of Asian migrants who are jeopardising the very values that define his gentle New Zealand: "decency, justice and the willingness to give others a hand up".

"Who will fix it?" he asks, flashing a broad grin across a packed hall of grey-haired retirees on the outskirts of Auckland. His New Zealand First party, of course, he replies to whoops of approval and thunderous applause.

But Winston Peters insists he is no racist. And it is a hard label for his many detractors to make stick.

Mr Peters is part Maori, a credential he ruthlessly exploits. Asian immigrants, he says, are "gatecrashers from an alien culture" who push Maoris, the poorest New Zealanders, to the bottom of the heap.

At the same time he has a reassuring message for whites. He does not want special laws, or endless land claims, for Maoris. He wants "one New Zealand", regardless of colour. But "one New Zealand" that has the right to choose who comes next.

But perhaps most disarming is his showmanship. Backed by the odd burst of rousing music, his message of fear and loathing is packaged in the infectious good humour of a likable rogue.

For the main political parties, Mr Peters's appeal cannot be written off with the lunatic political fringe. Recent polls suggest NZ First could win more than 10per cent of the vote in Saturday's national elections, giving Mr Peters a potential veto or even a coalition role because the frontrunner, Labour, is expected to fall short of an outright majority.

Mr Peters is no flash-in-the-pan Kiwi Pauline Hanson. He has served twice in coalition governments and for almost 10 years has hovered on the edge of power. More than once he has been written off as a spent force. But, with no election button too cheap to push, he bounces back.

In the final days of campaigning, he is going in with the big, emotive guns: immigration and crime. It is not safe to walk the streets and fanatics are breaching lax immigration controls.

The streets of Auckland tell Mr Peters's story. New Zealand has accepted more than 50,000 Asian immigrants in recent years and thousands of Asian students and tourists have changed the face of its main international city.

"There is always some truth in what he says; people can be swayed by his message," said Dr Jacqui True, of the University of Auckland. "Anecdotally we have been losing students because were are perceived to be too Asian."

The Labour Government of Helen Clark is adamant immigration must be maintained to protect the tax base and to compensate for the long-term exodus of skilled citizens.

"NZ First is the same kind of phenomenon as anti-immigration parties in Europe which play on fears and insecurity. There is much more insecurity generally because of economic openness and immigrants are part of that; they are symbols who can be used politically," a political scientist, Jack Vowles, said.

Said another political scientist, Raymond Miller: "Here is a Maori claiming to represent the weakest sector in society. To have a flood of immigrants may have a negative effect on them. He is a very clever politician and he does attract people who really love him."