Winston’s wishes: What NZ First is campaigning on

Analysis - With New Zealand First consistently polling above the five percent threshold to enter Parliament, and an increasing chance National and Act will need its support to form a government, Newsroom looks at just what its policies are.

At NZ First's campaign launch in July, leader Winston Peters said the election "must be about the economy" but there was a clear indication race-based discussion and policy would feature heavily.

"The critical issues for this election are our economy and cost of living crisis, our broken health system, our lack of law and order, our failing education system, and the cost of housing and rentals," Peters said to the Auckland crowd.

"But if these five areas of crisis are not enough already, our very democracy is at risk from a rising tide of racism and separatism, that has given birth to secret social engineering that you were never warned about and most certainly never agreed to."

Even a speech on foreign policy last month very quickly made mention of race relations, accusing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of wasting resources.

"Instead, in foreign policy as elsewhere, this government is caught in its bi-cultural cul-de-sac... the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will on October 1 augment its Māori Policy Division, a group with currently four positions, with an additional 11 positions.

"This will help neither our diplomatic nor trade ambitions. It's a shocking waste of scarce resources that neither MFAT nor the country can afford."

Before that a speech in Taranaki on emissions reduction began with an update on Labour leader Chris Hipkins' decision to rule out working with NZ First.

"Shortly before coming to this meeting, I was notified by a journalist that the prime minister has just held a press conference and ruled out working with New Zealand First. It seems that Mr Hipkins is in some sort of time warp. He has taken over a year and a half to finally read my speeches back to me - via a press conference with the media.

"He's announcing something that everybody already knows, which is that New Zealand First has already ruled out going into any form of government with Labour - because of their racist, separatist policies."

On Thursday evening just as Peters was about to be broadcast live via TVNZ's multi-party debate, his party's 47-page policy manifesto finally arrived.

And there are a number of policies committed to race.

This includes removing Māori names of government departments, the withdrawal as a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and introduction of a bill to make English an "official" language of New Zealand.

Up until Thursday evening, the party had a policy to repeal the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity, which is a document providing direction to council to protect, maintain and restore native biodiversity.

"The NPS took legal effect on August 7 with vague and open to interpretation references. It institutes co-governance and tangata whenua consensus decision making into environmental law. This major shift in our law threatens our primary sector," the policy document said.

However, upon the release of the manifesto that policy had gone.

The party had also wanted to remove GST off "basic foods including fresh food, vegetables, meat, dairy, and fish" but again as of Thursday night that had gone, and was replaced with a policy to set up a Select Committee inquiry to find out if that would be worth it, before making any changes.

There are 11 Select Committee inquiries NZ First wants to initiate according to its manifesto, ranging from forestry, NCEA, aged care and exploring the introduction of an exporters' tax of 20 percent for new business or product lines.

The party would also adjust tax income brackets for inflation from April 2024 and make the lowest tax bracket (currently $14,000 per annum) tax free by April 2027, look at allowing KiwiSaver to pay down a mortgage and get people "who have spent years on the dole" back to work.

The party would limit someone's eligibility for Jobseeker Support "to a total maximum of two years over a lifetime".

On residential aged care, NZ First would immediately fund 2000 new standard residential care beds and secure bi-partisanship agreement to fully fund care and dementia beds in the long term.

Entitlement for Superannuation would stay at 65 and there would be rates relief and two free GP visits a year for SuperGold card holders.

The party also wants to develop a Seniors Housing Plan to address the increasing number of seniors in rental accommodation and requiring Accommodation Supplement support.

NZ First would introduce a new patient-focused medicines buying agency to replace Pharmac and increase its funding.

"The new agency will be focused on patients' health and recovery - not cost savings and lack of essential medicines."

The Fees Free policy would remain but students would get their third year of study free, instead of their first.

The party would set up a Ministry of Energy, which would focus on energy supply and resilience. The Electricity Authority would be scrapped. A Ministry for Infrastructure and a Housing Commission would also come into the picture to focus on unlocking land and solving the housing crisis.

There's also a plan to establish a Regional Infrastructure Fund to "ensure rural New Zealand has world-class infrastructure".

Live animal exports would resume with stringent welfare codes of practice, and the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee would be required to have 50 percent farmer representation.

Law and order policies focus on harsher penalties for serious and low-level offenders.

This includes a greater use of mandatory minimum sentences for serious violent and sexual offenders, the introduction of a "degrees of murder" regime that "utilises life for life for first degree murder", and harsher penalties for fleeing drivers.

NZ First also wants to set up a prison just for gang members and designate gangs as 'Terrorist Organisations' under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

A designation freezes the assets of terrorist entities and makes it a criminal offence to participate in or support their activities.

Like National, NZ First also wants to include gang membership as an aggravating factor during sentencing.

Lower-level offending would also be reviewed with an increase in fines for offences such as shoplifting, and texting while driving, and introduce a law to target "dangerous littering".

It also backs mental health units that would respond to mental health police callouts.

In education, it wants to investigate a universal student allowance and immediately introduce a dollar-for-dollar debt write-off scheme so that graduates in identified areas of workforce demand may "trade a year's worth of debt for each two years of paid full-time work in New Zealand in that area".

It also says it will "focus on education and not parent-unmandated indoctrination".

In health, the majority of St John's funding requirements would come from the government, Mike King's Gumboot Friday mental health initiative would get $10m over three years and there would be improvements to prostate and breast cancer screening and treatment.

The party also has a plan for media, including a Royal Commission of Inquiry into media independence in New Zealand as well as promising funding for news media internships and a requirement for journalism schools to show how they are providing a "diverse talent pipeline" for the sector.

It wants spending on Defence to reach 2 percent of GDP by 2030, work toward a free trade agreement with the United States and undertake an independent review into New Zealand Trade and Enterprise "to ensure a stronger focus on all export businesses large and small".

The party also has a policy on public toilets.

"We will pass legislation to ensure that all new public organisations that provide publicly used facilities, including in areas of sport, education or commercially, must provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. In addition, all current provision of publicly used facilities will not allow anyone access to facilities which are designed for the opposite sex use."

And similarly "we will pass legislation to ensure any publicly funded sporting body that does not have an exclusive biological female category, where ordinarily appropriate, shall be immediately ineligible for any public funding".

And a policy to bid for the 2026 Commonwealth Games that were due to be held in Australia.

"Using the fiscal planning of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, which ran at a profit, we could rightly ask the Commonwealth for financial help, and have the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.

"It is an opportunity to showcase Christchurch and the South Island to the Commonwealth and the rest of the world. Organised properly, along the lines of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, it won't be a cost, but a benefit, with a levelling up of Infrastructure and Employment for the Canterbury Region."

There is also a number of Northland-specific policies including moving the Ports of Auckland operations to Northport and connecting the railway to Marsden Point and Northport from the Northern Main Trunk line.

Developing the Dargaville Aerodrome was removed as a policy on Thursday.

- This story was first published by Newsroom