New Zealand’s Winston Peters Criticises India Free Trade Agreement.

Auckland; May 2026: New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has announced a policy to automatically enroll all newborn New Zealand citizens into KiwiSaver with a $1000 government contribution, alongside a proposal to buy back the Bank of New Zealand and merge it with Kiwibank to create a new state-owned bank.

Speaking at a campaign event at the Trusts Arena in West Auckland on Sunday, Peters said the party would make KiwiSaver enrolment compulsory at birth for New Zealand citizens as part of what he called the “KiwiSaver Generation”. Under the policy, each child would receive a one-off $1000 Crown contribution at birth.

Peters said the scheme would work alongside New Zealand First’s existing proposal for compulsory KiwiSaver enrolment across the workforce, with employee and employer contribution rates eventually increasing to 10%. “Universal birth enrolment will ensure every child begins their financial life as a KiwiSaver member”, Peters said.

While unveiling plans to buy back the Bank of New Zealand from Australia’s National Australia Bank and merge it with Kiwibank to form a new fully Crown-owned bank, to be called the ‘National Bank of New Zealand’, Peters said the new entity would be commercially run and designed to compete more aggressively with the major Australian-owned banks operating in New Zealand. He said 04 Australian-owned banks controlled about 85% of the banking system and accused them of extracting billions of dollars in profits from New Zealand each year.

Winston Peters said that selling off the bank in 1992 was a ‘disgrace’ and those arguing against buying it back are repeating ‘stupid, neoliberal, nitwit comments of the past’. The proposal would be funded through a mix of sovereign banking bonds, Crown debt, investment from the NZ Future Fund and ACC, and Kiwibank’s existing capital base, Peters said. “This is not nationalisation, this is taking back our country”, he told addressing the supporters.

Claire Matthews, a professor of the Massey Business School has not only expressed her worriedness about finding the money for buying back BNZ, but also about what message it was sending to international companies. “If Winston Peters is saying ‘we will buy it back’, he’s basically saying that National Australia Bank have got no choice. They will require them to sell it to them. That’s nationalisation. That’s a major thing for a government to do”. She further has questioned – why a single bank had been targeted if the goal was simply to make Kiwibank more competitive through a merger. “So, if it’s really just about fostering competition and fostering the New Zealand banking sector, then I don’t think you would be targeting a particular bank. You would simply be saying ‘we would like to discuss it and see if we can reach an agreement’, which is quite a different message”.

Peters estimated the cost of the bank would be ‘more than $7.5 billion’, and if its owner National Australia Bank was not keen to sell, ‘they always face the prospect of nationalisation’. The First Leader further lambasted, “I’ve seen all sorts of experts, and you’ve seen all sorts of experts opening their mouth, letting the wind blowing their tongue around now. All sorts of people saying all sorts of stupid things; they are bound by their past history of having sold the country down the drain. Now look, Canada, Germany, Singapore, and all those countries do what I’m saying here. They make sure they’ve got control of their own bank. And for example, why on earth is our local government account and our central government account with a foreign-owned bank and not our own bank?

The Prime Minister of New Zealand Christopher Luxon reacted sharply to Winston Peters statement, refuting his assertions stating that ‘he won’t’, as “that would be $30 billion of more borrowing that we don’t have. And, you know, that sounds like a Labour or a Greens policy, frankly, that just doesn’t make sense, you know, to borrow more money to buy a private company for the government to own”.

Much of Peters’ speech focused on immigration, superannuation and opposition to what he described as ‘globalist’ policies. He furthermore has criticised the Labour, National and Act over the recently signed India Free Trade Agreement, claiming it would significantly increase migration and allow uncapped numbers of international students into New Zealand with work rights attached. Peters also repeated New Zealand First’s opposition to any changes to NZ Super, including means testing or raising the eligibility age.

He accused both major parties of considering asset sales and reiterated the party’s opposition to selling state-owned assets such as Kiwibank or Air New Zealand. The speech also included criticism of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Paris climate accord, and references to Treaty principles in legislation.

Peters said New Zealand First would continue campaigning against co-governance arrangements and in support of freedom of speech protections. The West Auckland event also served as a candidate launch, with former National MP and minister Alfred Ngaro announced as New Zealand First’s candidate for Glendene, while current NZ First MP David Wilson would contest Henderson.

Team Maverick.