The rise and descent of Winston Peters

POLITICS RINGSIDE - BOB JONES

When Winston Peters formed NZ First back in the early 1990s I openly backed him.

I wasn't alone. Numerous academics and professionals have told me they voted for him and even Winston's current bete noir, investigative journalist Phil Kitchin, admits to doing so.

There was a very good reason for that, namely the cynicism then pervading our politics; the legacy of three successive governments. With Muldoon and the Lange governments it stemmed from a sense of philosophic betrayal by their supporters and with Bolger, the lie with the superannuation surcharge 1990 election promise.

New Zealand was crying out for a Don Chipp and Winston fitted the role. When Chipp died two years ago he was honoured across Australia for his massive contribution. As a senior Liberal he had walked from the party to lead the Australian Democrats with the expressed objective, "to keep the bastards honest". His party achieved that to varying degrees over two decades by its periodic control of the Senate. Peters' Winebox expose gave him a great start despite the inquiry's disgraceful whitewash outcome.

Nevertheless NZ First was on a roll and within four years found itself holding the balance of power after the 1996 election and with 17 MPs, deciding who was the government. It was then the rot began. During that election campaign Winston promised he would not join a National coalition. He broke this undertaking for a childish reason, namely his intense hatred of the media and newspapers in particular.

For despite Labour achieving its worst result in decades, the Sunday papers and television all led with triumphant stories of Helen as our first woman prime minister. Winston was livid. "Those bastards [the media] will not decide this election," he said to me during the absurdly drawn out post-election negotiations when at the end of the day he would frequently come down to my office for drinks. Nothing could deter him. My observing that their reaction was reasonable, given his undertaking, fell on deaf ears and I then began to understand his modus operandi. That is to maintain mystique, to always be unpredictable and constantly surprise so that despite his anathema to the media they would never ignore him. And they didn't, drawn like moths to a flame.

Muldoon was always critical of journalists' inaccuracies but never hated them, partly I suspect because he was one at heart and loved nothing more than penning articles.

Lange despised them with an intensity far worse than Winston but held his silence. But Winston's constant abuse of journalists caused an unnecessary antagonism and thus his 1996 U-turn made him a marked man.

I suspect that year's unexpected triumph also changed his goals as he now saw the prospect of one day actually winning the Treasury benches. Overnight he abandoned the role of principled champion of the people for a more populist approach which inevitably descended into demagoguery with all of its negative connotations.

But the 1996 broken promise destroyed his shining knight image and thereafter it's been a downhill ride. His support reduced to 7 per cent in 2001, and a barely scraping home 5 per cent and the loss of Tauranga last time.

The trend is clear. He's doomed in Tauranga, is associated with an unpopular government, and blackened by exposure of hypocrisy and dishonesty on issues he had ranted about. Given all of that it's inconceivable he will crack the 5 per cent mark this election and I suspect he knows it. He'll go down foaming about the "powerful forces conspiracy" mounted against him. There is none, nor are there enough conspiracy theory nutters to buy into this nonsense. He will epitomise Enoch Powell's famous remark that all political careers end in failure.

This has been no Icarus fall, instead there's a whiff of Graham Capill about Winston's descent. There were the baubles of office betrayal, the theft and refusal to return taxpayers money and the swirling rumours around the scampi matter.

Is it possible that somewhere in darkest Africa, an ancient toothless crone muttering gibberish in the corner of her hut might believe Winston's story over the $100,000 Glenn payment? If so then she will be alone in the world.