Winston Peters didn't mince his words on immigration and the "bulldust" that New Zealand has a "rockstar economy" at a business breakfast on Wednesday.

Winston Peters is going to war on immigration and says "it's about ethnicity and it's about race".

Speaking to a fairly packed Wellington Chamber of Commerce audience on Wednesday the NZ First leader stuck to what he knows best - immigration and media bashing.

While he delved momentarily into water, climate change and Reserve Bank reform, his roughly 40-minute slot was largely dedicated to the "schizophrenic mismatch of information" the media is publishing on immigration.

LAWRENCE SMITH/ FAIRFAX NZ Finance Minister Steven Joyce didn't get left out of a Winston Peters business speech on Wednesday. Joyce very rarely misses a mention when it comes to Peters.

Of course no Peters speech is complete without a dig at Finance Minister Steven Joyce, who made his own pre-Budget pitch to the same audience last week.

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Joyce has more policies that have had "more reruns than Gone with the Wind," according to Peters.

But the issue of immigration is where Peters really knows how to wind it up and it was that policy area that was the backbone of his speech centred on the "gap between the facade and the reality" being stark for more and more Kiwis.

In fact Peters says "most of the world is a hell hole" and if immigrants can get to New Zealand and escape their own country then they'll do everything they can to do so.

"But it's not a sign of our staggering success," he said.

"It's a sign of the lax and loose policies we've employed that's allowed so many people to come here."

Peters says the "massive immigration influx is distorting all the economic indicators".

The result is the creation of a "very flattering but misleading impression that New Zealand is an economic success" and miles ahead of other countries, like Australia.

Suggestions New Zealand has a "stunning first-world rockstar economy" are "bulldust".

The Government spin is that somehow we can manage a staggering influx of immigrants each year with no cost, "or they say this is a sign of this country's roaring success because so many people want to come here".

"That's a staggering statement," Peters said.

The only hint of policy that came out of the speech was around small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and NZ First's plans to use tax policy to support and encourage the growth and innovation of the SME sector.

But he didn't plan on announcing the specifics of the policy until closer to the election when the polls have "caught up with NZ First's serious growth in support".

At that point Peters says people will take the party he leads seriously.