Mr Peters, in Dunedin to meet party faithful, told the Otago Daily Times that the prospect of a giant Chinese energy company Qinghua Group assessing several billion-dollar projects across the South Island would probably not have happened if compulsory superannuation had been introduced after the 1997 referendum.
Instead, New Zealand would have had its own funds to invest in projects to create thousands of jobs.
In 1997, Mr Peters went head-to-head with former National Party prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley over the need to introduce compulsory super.
Mr Peters' proposal was resoundingly rejected in a referendum.
"It's not too late to learn from that lesson. They might have voted me down but they didn't vote away the problem.
"The New Zealand economy is in an unsound shape. It's like a shaky business helped by a PR department putting out spin on how things are when really, they are not getting any better."
When the NZ dollar went to US80c, exporters felt the pain.
The dollar was the 10th most traded currency in the world.
Trading of the currency was out of balance with the amount of exports coming from a country with a population of four million, Mr Peters said.
"People are making money out the dollar as it goes up and down but they are not New Zealanders."
Singapore, China and Taiwan - all major exporters - controlled the value of their currency but the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Finance Minister Bill English thought they were smarter than the Asian governments, he said.
"What I am saddened by are the students who won't get a job this summer and the people facing lives without jobs."
The official unemployment figures from Statistics New Zealand were 6.4% but a recent Roy Morgan poll of 10,000 people had the "true" unemployment rate at 9.7%, Mr Peters said.
Other disturbing trends were that one in four households had lost all the equity in their house and were worried how they could keep up the payments on it.
The former treasurer in a National-led government was also critical of the much used phrase that the country was undergoing a "savings-led recovery".
Saving meant moving from red to black, not getting less red, he said.
For the last 20 years, New Zealand had been suffering from consumption-led economic growth, Mr Peters said.
"The last people who believed they could eat their way to wealth were Hansel and Gretel and they belonged in a fairy tale."
Until New Zealanders were told the truth about the state of the economy, and presented with a long-term plan for a sustainable recovery, they would be going nowhere, except to Australia, he said.
Mr Peters still believed in the need for compulsory superannuation in New Zealand and tax cuts to encourage people to save. The Cullen Fund was better than nothing but there was still work to be done.
