Welcome to a new year

As the end of the summer break nears and young Kiwis prepare to head back to school, the political year commenced with the annual Rātana celebrations, held near Whanganui. Rt Hon Winston Peters has attended Rātana for several decades, and was joined this year by some of the New Zealand First caucus, including Hon Shane Jones who also spoke.

Members of Parliament will be back in Wellington this week for the first sitting week of 2025.

Hear more from Winston and Shane in their first interviews of the year:

• Winston Peters: first discussion of the year with Dale on Waatea
• Winston Peters on Donald Trump and tariffs
• "We need to get over ourselves": Shane Jones defends mining on DOC land
• Shane Jones: 2025 Political updates including big changes in the National Party...

The NZ First caucus

Leading into the first sitting week, our New Zealand First MPs have been back on the ground in their local areas, meeting with community groups and businesses to kick start 2025.

Shane Jones opened the Kaikohe A&P Show last weekend before heading further south during the week to attend Rātana.

Casey Costello caught up with the team at Mā Te Huruhuru Charitable Trust in South Auckland on social housing initiatives for the area before heading to Rātana.

Jenny Marcroft has been in the mighty Waikato, meeting the amazing Women’s Refuge team in Tokoroa, and catching up on Tuatahi’s progress with fibre installation for more of rural New Zealand.

Jamie Arbuckle was in Taranaki and New Plymouth catching up on community projects across the area, after enjoying some time in at his local track over the summer. Read more HERE.

Mark Patterson is back on the air discussing all things agriculture and what is happening in the meat industry at the moment. Read more about this HERE.

Andy Foster joined Winston and Shane at Rātana on Friday, alongside fellow MPs Casey Costello and Jenny Marcroft.

Tanya Unkovich was back in our Auckland office hearing about the tireless work being done to support people affected by Covid mandates and vaccine injuries, and then visiting another incredible Hospice team in her area.

Bring on 2025

New Zealand First brought stability, experience and commonsense to government throughout 2024. We are progressing the policy commitments from our coalition agreement that focus on what we heard from Kiwis around the country during the 2023 campaign.

There is much more to do. Make sure you are following us on our social media channels, and pass this newsletter on to other like-minded Kiwis so we can spread our message even further.

Check out the New Zealand First YouTube Channel for our latest updates.