Former deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has ruled out a run at next month's Tauranga by-election.
The former MP, who held the Tauranga seat between 1984 and 2005, has previously refused to give a position on whether he might make a tilt for the electorate. A by-election was forced by the resignation of National MP Simon Bridges, who has been the area's representative since 2008.
Candidate nominations end at noon on Tuesday, but the New Zealand First leader has told Newstalk ZB his party has met and decided not to put forward a candidate for the June 18 election.
"They have decided this is purely a political matter happening now. It is not in the interests of the country, it is not logical," Peters said on Tuesday morning.
"When you have a three-year contract as a MP, at election time you are promising the electorate you will be there for three years. Just because of some personal fancy, you don't like what is happening in-between time, walking off is not part of that contract.
"At a time when we've got so much wasteful spending on consumption, and not wealth creation, not exports, and not long-term viability, here we've got another example of a waste and no political party in Parliament think that's of any concern at all."
Peters has his own history with by-elections.
Following disagreements within the National Party in 1993, the then-Tauranga MP resigned from the party and Parliament, causing a by-election to be held. No major political party stood a candidate, allowing Peters to win as an independent. In 2015, after National's Northland MP Mike Sabin resigned amid personal issues, Peters stood in the electorate and won.
He told Newstalk ZB the Northland by-election was a different situation as the incumbent MP "had to leave", while in 1993, his issues with National meant he had "no mandate at all to be in Parliament".
New Zealand First's focus would be on the 2023 election, Peters said.
Peters lost his seat in Parliament at the 2020 election and has been extremely vocal over the last year on political matters. He visited the protest at Parliament in February and was briefly trespassed from Parliament's grounds until a U-turn from the Speaker.
Bridges announced his resignation from Parliament in March, saying he wanted to explore commercial opportunities and spend more time with his young family. He will be hosting a digital audio show for Stuff and writing columns for the National Business Review. It's also reported he may be the next head of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.
"For me personally, it is time. It is not about National. It is a good time for National because they have got momentum. I am going to explore commercial opportunities and I have got a young family. At 45, I feel it is their time as well," Bridges said when announcing his resignation.
Among the candidates for the Tauranga by-election is National's Sam Uffindell, Labour's Jan Tinetti, and ACT's Cameron Luxton. Te Pāti Māori said last week that it won't stand a candidate due to a "safety issue" and the electorate being an "unsafe environment".
