Winston Peters has the potential to become the 'kingmaker' of New Zealand politics.

Winston Peters has vowed to crack down on a "Wild West" corporate culture in New Zealand by limiting some of the payouts corporate executives receive.

Peters announced his proposals at a business meeting in Whangarei on Friday.

Citing the PWC 2017 Executive Reward Report, Peters explained that the average increase in payouts for executives had increased by 4.6 per cent over the last year, where the increase for workers had increased only at the rate of inflation.

HAMISH MCNEILLY/STUFF Winston Peters at a public meeting in Dunedin yesterday.

"New Zealand has developed a culture of stuff up and win – the bosses and directors get paid more even when their companies do less.

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"Who suffers? It's the shareholders, investors, customers and above all, workers. Kiwis have lost billions from finance company failures to taxpayers caught up in the latest $500m Fuji Xerox fraud," he said.

Peters explained that his policies were already in place overseas.

"We will adopt policies similar to what the UK, Australia, Netherlands and most of Europe have. This is to tame corporate New Zealand's Wild West nature by giving shareholders a 'say on pay' and workers, a much fairer deal," he explained.

New Zealand First will change the Companies Act to give shareholders and cooperatives a 'Say on Pay' for directors and CEOs, which gives them a right to vote on corporate payouts.

In Australia, if 25 per cent of shareholders in a company vote against an executive's payout on two occasions, the directors of the company have to stand for re-election.

Peters has also vowed to ban "golden hellos" (executive recruitment bonuses), and limit "golden parachutes" (executive redundancy) to the same conditions workers have.

"Workers are lucky to get redundancy scraps and in some cases, nothing at all.

"Frankly this is not good enough. This is why New Zealand First commits to give workers a fair go and the shareholders of large companies a 'say on pay,'" he said.

The party will also require a three-year holding period for "shares schemes" so executives who leave a company are unable to immediately benefit financially after leaving a company. New Zealand First said this will prevent "short-term nest feathering."

Another proposal is to stop boards using "fit and proper person tests" to rule out potential executive candidates, which the party described as "loose and unreviewable." This will come under changes to the Prudential Supervision Act 2010.

"New Zealand First will incentivise performance, not mediocrity in order to put us ahead of the west, instead of being back in the Wild West," Peters said.