[14] Spearheaded by Minister of Finance Ruth Richardson, National arguably had gone beyond the extensive deregulation started by the New Zealand Labour Party in the 1980s, enacting widespread austerity and slashing benefits in the Mother of All Budgets of 1991.

[16] After the death of protectionist former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon – who resigned from his Tamaki constituency in protest – Peters became Ruthanasia's leading opponents, and National's most prominent dissenter.

[14][18] He also resigned from Parliament, triggering a by-election in his electorate on 17 April 1993 in which he stood as an independent, winning with 90.8% of votes due to neither Labour nor National running a candidate.

[20][21] At the time of its formation, New Zealand First's policy platform was broadly conservative and reactionary in that it opposed both Labour and National, the major centre-left and centre-right parties respectively.

[27] Peters easily retained Tauranga, and Tau Henare, another New Zealand First candidate, won the Northern Māori seat, giving the party a total of two MPs.

This occurred after an ongoing dispute about the sale of the government's stake in Wellington International Airport,[36] directly in conflict with New Zealand First's general commitment to not sell off state assets.

After the 2002 election, in light of National's decreased strength, New Zealand First attempted to gain more prominence in Opposition, frequently attacking the Labour-led Coalition government on a wide range of issues.

In addition, Peters narrowly lost his previously safe constituency seat of Tauranga by 730 votes to National's Bob Clarkson, and became a list MP.

[50][51] In the months before the 2008 general election, New Zealand First became embroiled in a dispute over donations to the party from billionaire Owen Glenn, the Vela family and Bob Jones.

However, Peters did raise late in the campaign the prospect of a Labour-New Zealand First coalition or confidence and supply arrangement, and express some respect for the National Party, in particular the Finance Minister Bill English.

Policies include ring-fencing GST to the regions it is collected from and writing off student loans of people willing to work outside major centres, and recruiting 1,800 extra police officers.

[69][71] During the party's convention in South Auckland on 16 July, Peters vowed that a New Zealand First government would hold two binding referendums on whether Maori electorates should be abolished and whether the number of MPs should be reduced to 100.

[75][76] During negotiations with Ardern, Peters indicated that he would be willing to consider dropping his call for a referendum on abolishing the Māori electorates in return for forming a coalition with Labour; a bone of contention in New Zealand race relations.

[79] During the post-election negotiations, New Zealand First managed to secure several policies and concessions including a Regional Development Fund, the re-establishment of the New Zealand Forest Service, increasing the minimum wage to $20 per hour by 2020, a comprehensive register of foreign-owned land and housing, free doctors' visits for all under-14-year-olds, free driver training for all secondary students, a new generation SuperGold smartcard containing entitlements and concessions, a royalty on the exports of bottled water, a commitment to re-entry of the Pike River Mine, and Members of Parliament being allowed to vote in a potential referendum on euthanasia.

Peters also made a speech attacking the Labour, National and Green parties that touched upon various issues including transportation infrastructure in Auckland, the increasing use of the Māori language in official reports and public life, the Government's COVID-19 vaccination rollout, purchase of Ihumātao land, elimination of referendums on Māori wards and constituencies, and so-called wokeness in New Zealand society.

Between 2017 and 2019, New Zealand First officials had allegedly channelled half a million dollars of donations into the NZ First Foundation's bank account to cover various party-related expenses such as the party's headquarters, graphic design, an MP's legal advice, and even a $5000 day at the Wellington races.

[97][98] Peters has denied any wrongdoing, while fellow MP Shane Jones, the Minister for Infrastructure, has denounced allegations that the party was offering policy for cash as "conspiracy theories.

[103] On 20 July, High Court Justice Pheroze Jagose permanently suppressed the names of the two defendants in the NZ First Foundation fraud case.

Peters announced that the party would campaign on five key issues: combating "racist separatism," fighting Australian-owned banks and the "supermarket duopoly," investing in health, social services, and elderly care, and adopting "tough on crime" policies including designating all gangs as terrorist organisations.

[117][118] On 13 August, Stuff reported that several NZ First candidates including property and commercial lawyer Kirsten Murfitt, Auckland consultant Janina Massee, Matamata-Piako district councillor Caleb Ansell, and Kevin Stone had expoused various controversial views including COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and "plandemic" conspiracy theories, New World Order conspiracy theories, climate skepticism, Qanon, and support for Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2023.

"[120] On 20 August, NZ First released a policy of promoting English to the status of an official language of New Zealand and withdrawing from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

The Government also adopted NZ First's policy of halting all work related to the He Puapua report and confirming that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has no legal basis in New Zealand law.

[125][127][128] As part of the NZ First-National coalition agreement the Government also agreed to end all remaining COVID-19 vaccine mandates and to hold an independent inquiry into how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled in New Zealand.

This proposed independent inquiry is expected to examine the use of multiple lockdowns, vaccine procurement and efficacy, social and economic impacts on both national and regional levels, and whether decisions and actions taken by the Government were justified.

"[132] In early July 2024, NZ First invoked its "agree to disagree" provision in its coalition agreement with National after the Government decided to allow the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons Learned to complete its first phase and retain its chair Tony Blakely.

Peters quickly rebutted that Statistics New Zealand has underestimated the growth rate of the Asian community in the past, as the Bureau had corrected its estimation by a 66,000 increase between 2003 and 2005.

[172] In April 2008, Deputy Leader Peter Brown drew widespread attention after voicing similar views and expressing concern at the growth of New Zealand's ethnic Asian population: "If we continue this open door policy there is real danger we will be inundated with people who have no intention of integrating into our society … They will form their own mini-societies to the detriment of integration and that will lead to division, friction and resentment".

[181] In 2011, at its annual convention, New Zealand First vowed to repeal the controversial Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 (which it characterised as the "anti-smacking law"), which a vast majority of voters rejected in a non-binding 2009 citizen-initiated referendum.

[73] Following the 2017 general election, Peters indicated that he would be willing to consider dropping his call for a referendum on abolishing the Māori electorates during coalition-forming negotiations with Labour leader Jacinda Ardern.

[77] In 2023, Peters expressed disapproval of the utilisation of te reo Māori names for government departments, describing them as "incomprehensible" to the majority of New Zealanders and criticising "tokenism".