Rt Hon Winston Peters

Since yesterday I have had a number of calls concerning political 'opinion' columnist Andrea Vance and her article about the role of third parties in the upcoming election.

Vance laid bare both her biased narrative and lack of political understanding with her article.

Vance mentioned every other party in her “analysis”, including ones that have never set foot near parliament and have never won a seat – nor look likely to.

The only Party that was not mentioned in Vance's article was New Zealand First - the only new Party that came to parliament under FPP (First Past the Post) in 1993, and under MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) and has decided the government on three occasions, or been within two seats of deciding all but one election since 1993. This includes having Ministers, Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Prime Minister, Acting Prime Minister, in a coalition government last term.

In addition, New Zealand First for the past two years, despite being out of parliament, has been polling consistently as the fifth largest Party. Yet no mention from Vance. Why?

Multiple polls have even shown our Party within the last six months over the five percent threshold – far above other parties that were mentioned in her article. Yet no mention from Vance. Again, why?

Perhaps that is what happens when a ‘journalist’ is trained by News Of The World, wiped out in a UK scandal, or outed by me in parliament, for her “scoops” which involved the leaking of state secrets by a former Minister.

There is a deliberate and sinister element involved in the clear and blatant omission of New Zealand First in an article that is clearly outlining ‘third parties’ and their prospects in the upcoming election.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that New Zealand First will be a player in the next election. There is only one reasonable conclusion for New Zealand First being omitted – the continuation of the long held bias being shown by both Vance and Stuff. The only difference now is they clearly don’t care who knows about it.

We have some news for Vance and her fellow biased travellers – and it's all bad. We are coming back, despite your desperate efforts, and we don’t need you to do it – but you know that already because of our packed halls around the country that you refuse to report on.

The kiwis packing into these meetings have already worked out that it's not New Zealand First who you are attacking - it's them.

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