Former Labour Party president Mike William's was unimpressed with Winston Peters' "state of the nation" speech on Friday.
Speaking on Newshub Nation's political panel, Williams said "there was nothing new in Winston's speech at all".
Williams was joined on the panel by Newsroom political editor Jo Moir and NZME head of business Fran O'Sullivan.
"Familiarity breeds contempt," Williams said, "and it was a very familiar speech."
Williams had hoped for some new "blockbuster statement or policy".
He went on to say Peters' attack on wokeness is nothing new, "everyone's doing that".
"And a lot of them are doing it a lot better," Williams said.
"I was very disappointed because he can be extremely entertaining on his day, and he just wasn't."
Moir noted there were "a lot of the same lines and a lot of the same jokes" in Peters' speech.
"His argument is that it is new policy because it hasn't been picked up yet, but when you've been hearing about it for more than a decade, is it really new policy?"
Moir recognised NZ First is in a difficult position politically right now.
"When you look at the momentum behind the ACT party right now, with a lot more MPs, they are operating in the same territory," Moir said.
She also noted that "when you're not in Parliament you don't have a lot of the same resources".
"I'm not sure whether the machine behind NZ First has the same ability to get them back into power as the last time he was out," she said.
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