New Zealand First voters around the country took to social media Sunday to express confusion, disappointment, and at times disgust upon hearing that leader Winston Peters had chosen to start the first major campaign weekend by speaking in Tauranga.
Peters entered government in 2023 promising to restore English as the country’s predominant language, supporting a bill to make it official, and stripping ministries of their non-English names. Most of the name changes involved Māori names, with the exception of Ministère des Sports et des Loisirs, which was bizarrely named in French.
Those policies were a large part of the reason he was able to exceed the 5% threshold, and is now riding much higher in the polls, around 10%.
But supporters now say they feel betrayed, and that if he was serious about his support for English, he should at least speak in it.
“Well, I just thought it was a bit… I mean, a bit confusing?” said Garrick Warren, 56, of Thames, who said he’d voted for New Zealand First the last two elections. “You go into one election saying one thing, and now you come into another election saying, well, I don’t know what you’re saying because it’s in tarunga, or whatever it is.”
Warren said he hadn’t listened to the speech.
“Well no, I mean, I haven’t. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to understand a bloody thing.”
Many others took to comment threads across the internet to express that they, too, didn’t understand a bloody thing.
“outrageos! thought you was a good one. lost my vote,” said Rose, from Queensland.
“please winnie tell me this is a fkng joke,” wrote Michael, location unknown, but whose profile picture was half a motorbike.
“please tell John won’t be home for xmas, darren getting married,” said June, of Dargaville.
Peters could not be reached for comment today, but a spokesperson for the party said supporters should relax, as he would be making a campaign stop in English, a small township of 22 people in the Chatham Islands, later in the campaign cycle.