NZ First leader Winston Peters will deliver his state of the nation speech in Christchurch today.

The marathon speech – organisers have set down a whole hour for it – will begin at 2pm. The Herald will stream the speech at the top of this story.

Organisers have been tightlipped about its contents. One source suggested Peters might speak about concerns supporters have with reforms to genetic modification (GE) laws, which are currently before a select committee.

Those laws, included in a Government bill introduced by Science Minister Judith Collins, were supported by NZ First as a member of the Government. However, support for it appeared much stronger from National and Act, with NZ First’s support looking somewhat conditional.

NZ First’s sole speech at first reading, from Minister for Rural Communities and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson, suggested the party was not wholly committed to the bill going all the way.

“New Zealand First will be led by that select committee report. We must not trade away our GE-free competitive advantage lightly,” Patterson said.

“We must take the feedback of that sector, particularly our major exporters, extremely seriously. Fonterra has historically been very cautious on this technology. I understand their attitude has softened a bit of late, but it is those major exporters, particularly, that we must look to, to give some guidance. We must understand the trade-offs we are making,” he said.

Fonterra’s submission on the bill has indeed softened – it is supportive of the new regime overall. However, it is concerned about labelling and traceability rules, partly to allow certain products to continue to enjoy non-GMO certification. The dairy giant was also concerned about the extent to which the Government’s bill relies on similar Australian legislation.

The bill relies heavily on Australia’s Gene Technology Act of 2000 and makes several explicit references to it in legislation.

Fonterra was concerned these rules may not in all cases be appropriate for New Zealand and would also mean that if the Australian Government ever decided to amend the rules carried over in the New Zealand legislation, it would automatically amend the New Zealand regulations too.

Peters is also likely to hit out at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). NZ First recently introduced a member’s bill aimed at banning these measures from the public service.

This will be Peters’ first major speech since his trip to the United States, where he met Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The pair discussed tariffs, with New Zealand concerned about the Trump administration’s threats to impose tariffs on agricultural goods from April 2.

Peters has so far not been drawn on the outcome of those discussions, if any. Ahead of the trip, Peters had said it was mainly a listening exercise to discover what the US wanted out of the relationship.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.