Andrea Vance
Welcome to the NZ First manosphere of the undead
So, what’s up with the whole toxic NZ First manosphere? Winston Peters’ roll-call of candidates is basically a doomscroll through the darkest, most aggrieved corners of the internet. It’s an algorithmic collection of outrage merchants, culture-war hobbyists, and men convinced Western society is on the brink of collapse, and they’re only one homemade podcast away from saving it. With the party polling at a steady 11 or 12% and chasing its 1990s glory days, a cast of embittered political zombies has shuffled back onto the scene, looking to reanimate their dead careers.
On Friday, Peters dug up his old crony Michael Laws, helped along by broadcaster Sean Plunket, who’s kindly given Laws gainful employment at The Platform, his second-hand shop for washed-up talk-show hosts.
Laws has spent the better part of four decades finding new and creative ways to keep his snout firmly attached to the public trough. For a man who built a lucrative talkback brand railing against bureaucratic waste and privilege, Laws has spent almost his entire adult life being paid by your rates or your taxes. He started as a parliamentary researcher in 1985. Then he became an MP. Then a city councillor. Then a mayor. Then a district health board member. Then a regional councillor.
When he wasn’t pulling a government salary, he was a shock jock collecting listeners by throwing rhetorical hand grenades. Now that regional councils are being dissolved, Otago’s Laws needs a new gig.
The hypocrisy is spectacular, only outclassed by the sheer malice of his track record. We are talking about a man who was officially censured by the Broadcasting Standards Authority for suggesting someone should take a shotgun to a newsroom and clean out its journalists. His idea of wit is describing the deceased King of Tonga as a “bloated, brown slug”.
Even his eventual exit from Parliament back in the 90s wasn’t some principled stand. He resigned as an MP and from Napier City Council after a comedy of ethical failures dubbed the Antoinette Beck Affair.
The TLDR is he helped award a council poll contract to his wife’s company. To defend this he claimed the poll was created by a fake woman named Antoinette Beck, whose “signature” was forged by Laws’ own parliamentary secretary.
And yet, Laws has always found safe harbour with Peters. Cleverly, they’ve both sussed that in the attention economy, you don’t need a legacy delivery, just a stream of vitriolic grievances.
NZ First also gives sanctuary to refugees of collapsed political movements.
Alfred Ngaro is the consummate political nomad. He spent nine years as a National Party MP and Cabinet minister before voters dumped him after a weird period where he flirted with starting a Christian party while still in the caucus. After leaving Parliament, he took over conservative outfit NewZeal, and spent three years in the wilderness whining that National abandoned its core values and his new party was built on unshakeable principles. That moral purity lasted exactly until the 2023 election when NewZeal captured 0.5% of the vote. With the realisation that moral certainty doesn’t secure one of those gold-plated parliamentary pensions, Ngaro folded up his movement and signed up for NZ First.
When asked why he’d ditch a party built on deep conviction, Ngaro didn’t blink: strategic realism. And there is nothing realer than $180k a year and generous taxpayer-funded perks
Further down the list is culture-war mercenary Elliot Ikilei, crawling out from under another failed political project.
He led the New Conservatives straight into electoral oblivion and moved to fronting the ultra-divisive Hobson’s Pledge.
He screams into the void about academics, warning that our children are being heavily indoctrinated by transgender activists, climate change, and various other monsters hiding under the bed.
Still, if this edgelord wanted voters to buy this new loyalty to NZ First, he probably should have deleted his tweets.
Back in 2020 when he was trying to build his own brand he openly mocked Peters’ pledges (“Oh a promise from NZF - tell me more!!”), weaponised party scandals, and told voters that NZ First was “aiding and abetting Globalists and Leftists”.
Back then, he confidently declared that “the people have seen the flip flops and will not be fooled again”. As, it turns out, Ikilei will be hoping the public will in fact have missed his flip flop and are fooled.
Also driving into the salvage yard is Stuart Nash. His career ran off the rails in two high-profile acts. First sacked from Labour’s Cabinet over ministerial confidentiality breaches, and later exited the private sector after crude, locker-room remarks about women’s bits on - quelle surprise - The Platform.
Unlike the party list’s other rage-baiters, Nash took his medicine. He apologised profusely, took responsibility, and retreated.
The point is that absolutely no other mainstream political party would have taken him back after Pussygate.
Peters sees a discount on a premium asset. Nash remains a formidable retail politician with deep roots in Hawke’s Bay. Backed by former All Blacks captain Taine Randell packing down as the party’s candidate in neighbouring Tukituki, Nash will be a genuine force on the ground in Napier. And now a grateful one.
This roster of cast-offs makes sense when you realise they are just matching the energy of the leadership. Deputy leader Shane Jones makes no apologies for shouting about sending the “Mexicans” home and dismissed his “butter chicken tsunami” tirade as necessary hyperbole to get cutthrough. When he isn’t targeting minority communities, Jones is tilting at windmills, railing against woke banks and climate groupies.
And Peters routinely unleashes the kind of language usually reserved for radioactively toxic live threads.
Those opposing his gender legislation are “egotistical mouth-breathers” whose “egos are only matched by their learning difficulties”. When Rainbow Action Tāmaki threatened legal action over the playground insults, Peters weaponised it for content.
The genius of Peters is that he’s realised politics no longer rewards governing as much as it rewards engagement. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually looking for votes, or just fishing for clicks. But it does send up the Bat-signal to every exiled, fringe, attention-seeking or ageing political desperado.
NZ First was always a populist party built around the singular charisma of Winston Peters. Today, it has evolved into his optimised content farm.
The joke is on the resurrected candidates chasing Parliament’s spotlight.
It’s a classic manosphere hustle, lads. You buy into the brand expecting to be alpha disruptors but as a NZ First backbencher, your only job is to be embalmed and keep the caucus seats warm.
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