Winston rides to rodeo 12 as leader

• Comment by PJ TAYLOR

During the 2023 election season, New Zealand First had a campaign ad with leader Winston Peters in cowboy gear riding a horse.

A handsome match, a show of power and strength.

The catchcry was “this is not our first rodeo” – something along those lines.

Because he’s been around for so long politically, he could have been at the first rodeo.

Winston Peters is mercurial, 81 in April – his birthday a day after my Mum’s, who’ll be 88 – and things they’ve got in common are they care for their country and they’re Aries, known for being courageous, energetic, and impulsive.

Aries is also a bold, energetic fire sign symbolised by the ram, according to the internet, and that sounds about right.

Looking for the true character of a person by reading someone’s star sign is about as reliable as looking into political polls for the true nature and strategies of a political party.

You never know exactly what’s there and coming next.

That’s how it’s always been with NZ First when it comes to deciding which other political parties it would agree to form a government with – if in the position – with some of those post-election back-and-forth coalition discussions raging on for weeks, and in the case of the first MMP election, in 1996, months.

Remember the anticipation in 2017? National won the party vote with about 45 per cent, and NZ First decided to form a government with Labour and the Greens.

It took many weeks for those talks to conclude. Now they’re not chatting. Well, hardly, convivially. They’re opponents.

That’s legendary when it comes to keeping the country on tenterhooks, to find out what its next government will be.

He’d be the first to admit the only poll that matters is the election result, but it’s hard to dismiss that the party he’s led in 11 elections – 2026 being his 11th, is getting more support in public surveys than at any point in about 12 years.

Like him or not, and there are plenty that don’t, and his party has been exited from parliament twice in the past 30 years after spells in government, there is no doubting Peters’ commitment and care for his country.

When others his age are out fishing like he enjoys in the Far North during the summer recess, Winston continues to battle on, flying the flag for what he, his party and constituents believe in.

He’s had a SuperGold Card for a good decade and a half now, and when you meet other GC holders, they always say, “thank you, Winston”, and that’s a bona fide political legacy right there.

How many other politicians who have left national politics can be remembered for one significant lasting achievement?

There are many, of course, but the overwhelming number of MPs who departed parliament aren’t remembered for much, apart from their years of representation, and maybe their electorates.

It’s extraordinary in 2026, almost 50 years since he entered the political arena as a National Party candidate, once touted as potentially the country’s first Māori Prime Minister, that he’s still in the game.

But, if the story’s correct, he was named after Winston Churchill, who was also a strong leader whose life was dedicated to public service into a grand old age, speaking directly in commanding style, and wholeheartedly proud of their nation, and cared about where they stood and related to the rest of the world.

He’s been active, communicative, and making contact with countries we have economic and social relationships with, which is crucially important to our quality of life and standard of living.

If we’re not trading and connecting with the outside world, we become closed-off Cuba – stuck in the now broken-down 1950s.

The name Winston is of Old English origin, meaning joyful stone, and when you apply that to Peters, he is a solid creation with a sense of humour. Much the same as Churchill.

It’s staggering in many ways that Peters, who launched into politics out of this Howick area when practising law here in the 1970s, has lasted so long in national politics, and he is most certainly one of a kind.

It’s difficult to think of another senior politician who has served for almost half a century and in senior government ministerial roles in any other like-minded peace-abiding democracies.