2017 election During the lead-up to the 2017 general election, Peters reaffirmed his support for the campaign by families of the victims of the 2010 Pike River Mine disaster to reenter the mine to recover their loved ones. Peters publicly stated that re-entry to the mine would be non-negotiable in any coalition deal and dismissed claims that it was too dangerous to re-enter the mine. On 13 July, Peters traded barbs with Green Party MPs Barry Coates and Metiria Turei. Coates had written on the left-wing The Daily Blog that the Greens would prefer a snap election to being left out of a Labour and New Zealand First coalition government. Meanwhile, Turei had criticised what she alleged was Peters's "racist approach towards immigration". Peters responded that Coates' comments were the "height of stupidity". He also rejected Turei's claims that New Zealand First was racist and warned that there would be consequences for the Greens in any post-election talks. Green co-leader James Shaw later clarified that Coates' remarks did not represent Green Party policy. At New Zealand First's convention in South Auckland on 16 July 2017, Peters announced that if elected his party would hold a double referendum on eliminating the Māori seats and reducing the number of MPs in Parliament from 120 to 100 in mid-term 2017–2020. Peters also outlined his party's policies which included reducing immigration to 10,000 a year and nationalising the country's banks. Peters also proposed making KiwiBank the New Zealand government's official trading bank. In terms of law and order, Peters said that his party would build no more prisons but would make prisoners do hard labour six days a week. During the 2017 election held on 23 September, Peters lost his Northland electorate seat to the National candidate Matt King by a margin of 1,389 votes. Despite losing his seat, New Zealand First secured 7.2% of the party vote with the party's parliamentary presence being reduced from twelve to nine seats. Since Peters ranked first on the New Zealand First list, he remained in Parliament as a list MP. Following the 2017 election, Peters entered into coalition–forming talks with senior figures from the National and Labour parties. Neither major party had enough support to govern alone. National Party leader and Prime Minister Bill English signalled an interest in forming a coalition with NZ First; a potential National–NZ First coalition would have had 65 seats between