New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says the Government will appeal “as fast as possible” after the High Court overturned its ban on new puberty blocker prescriptions for children and teenagers.

The court found the ban breached their right to freedom from discrimination.

“That’s why we’re going to say to the minister, go out and appeal this as fast as possible, and we can’t wait because appeal time runs out,” Peters said.

He made the comments in an interview with Chris Lynch Media. Peters said the ruling turned on whether the Government had consulted properly, not on the medical evidence.

“Anybody could use that excuse and just make it up by way of a decision,” he said. In his view, the court was “finding an excuse to reverse” a Government decision.

He said the UK and Scandinavian countries had already restricted the treatment because it was “just too dangerous”.

Peters said the effects of puberty blockers were permanent, and a child’s right to choose should be preserved until they were an adult.

“That child will one day look back when their mind has been changed and think, ‘Why on earth did that happen to me? And did I ever have any say as to what has happened to me?’ And it’ll be all too late,” he said.

He predicted young people who regretted treatment would take legal action.

“They’re going to go and get a good lawyer and say, ‘I never had any say. I’m going to sue. I’ve got a civil case here.’ I can just see that coming in the future,” Peters said.

He said he had been at meetings where people stood up and said the choice had been made for them.

“They’ve got up and said that the choice was made for me, and I’m going to be regretting it for the rest of my life. And you’re sitting there thinking, how did society do that to this person?” he said.

Young people were frequently confused on many issues, he said.

His message to parents of children who wanted to transition was to wait.

“This could be a phase. This could be permanent. But please wait and find out whether that is the child’s decision when they’re at a better age to make that decision, when they’re an adult,” Peters said.

“Plain filth”

Peters also took aim at media questions linking his past comments about Labour leader Chris Hipkins to an attack on a politician in Australia.

“No, no, just plain dirt, plain filth,” he said. “I said to them, you know, go away. You can take your bias, your dirt somewhere else.”

He said a crowbar had been put through his office window, and there had been guillotine imagery aimed at him, without the same media interest.

“Not a word, not a matter, not a syllable, not a sound,” Peters said. He warned some journalists he would stop talking to them.

“You’re not worth talking to. You’re a waste of time,” he said.

“Absolute drivel”

Peters dismissed the polls showing National and Labour running close. “I think the pollsters are chaff in the main,” he said.

He said the polls varied by more than 14 percent in some cases and relied on samples of around 1000 people.

“We think they’re dramatically wrong, and whoever’s going to get a shock on election night,” Peters said.

He did not believe Hipkins could become Prime Minister, because a left-wing government would be “an impossible combination that can’t be put together”.

He described members of Te Pāti Māori as “deep racists” who wanted two systems, and said the Green Party had “a number of communists” whose views “come straight out of Marx and Trotsky”.

Rail back to Christchurch

Peters is confident commuter rail will return to Christchurch, with trains planned from Rolleston and Rangiora.

“We’re not going to do a review. We’re going to put the train on and see who gets on it,” he said.

The service would need to prove itself within a year before being extended further into the South Island, he said.

The local mayor had told him a modest railway station at Rolleston would cost about half a million dollars, and Peters urged that it be built as quickly as possible.

Three bottom lines

If New Zealand First holds the balance of power after the election, Peters said it would insist on a plan to double the size of the economy by 2050.

It would also push for a health policy focused on prevention, starting with nutrition and exercise in schools.

New Zealand spent about $32 billion a year on health, but only $1.7 billion went to “the fence at the top of the cliff”, he said.

Peters said Christchurch and the South Island had a different culture.

“They’ve got more manners,” he said.