On the day a Parliamentary inquiry into monetary policy backed off recommending new inflation-busting tools for the Reserve Bank, Mr Peters blamed the bank for the woes affecting the New Zealand economy, and accused governor Alan Bollard of pursuing "blind ideology".
The inquiry by Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee was launched at the height of the housing boom, which fuelled rising interest rates and a high dollar which was damaging exporter returns.
The housing market is now in decline and the associated pressures have also eased.
The report said the committee heard extensive evidence on a variety of alternatives to the official cash rate (OCR) - the Reserve Bank's main inflation-fighting instrument - including a mortgage interest rate levy, an interest-linked savings scheme and a capital gains tax.
But it did not find "the arguments in their favour compelling enough to support them being pursued further at this time".
Mr Peters said the Reserve Bank Act had resulted in New Zealanders paying the highest interest rates in the Western world and no-one could explain why.
High interest rates kept the kiwi unsustainably high and although it had fallen recently, it should be lower.
Farmers and exporters were suffering yet they continued to support political parties who supported the Act.
"A huge vacuum cleaner is extracting money out of your pockets to go to foreign banks," he told 30 people attending the Otago Chamber of Commerce meet the leaders meeting.
NZ First would introduce its "Talfanz" (the alternative for all New Zealanders) policy if it was part of the next government rather than see exporters - the most important part of the economy - suffer at the hands of the Reserve Bank Act.
Asked by National Party Dunedin North candidate Michael Woodhouse what the party had done in the past three years to change the Act, Mr Peters said NZ First had instigated the inquiry by the finance and expenditure select committee into the Act.
Mr Woodhouse later told the Otago Daily Times that review was introduced by Finance Minister Michael Cullen.
Mr Peters was joined in his criticism of current monetary policy by the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union.
Association chief executive John Walley said the select committee had missed the point.
"Currently, our monetary policy has a sole focus on inflation control, and the Reserve Bank uses interest rates to effect that control.
"As the select committee pointed out, the effect of this policy on the exchange rate is problematic, but they seemed confused about alternatives."
Submissions to the committee fell into two camps - those wedded to the status quo and the "real economy" that was suffering a protracted overvaluation of the exchange rate.
It was clear to whom the select committee chose to listen and as a result the tradeable sector would continue to be hammered, he said.
EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said the decision to keep the current monetarist model was a disservice to New Zealand.
"Using interest rates to control inflation only leads to a high dollar which in turns leads to our export manufacturing being priced out of the global market."
Even though the OCR was finally coming down, New Zealand had seen years of productive manufacturing suffer from monetary policy focused on attempts to control inflation in unproductive areas of the economy, such as property speculation, he said.
In regard to housing, the report recommended cutting planning red tape and investigating "land banking" by developers.
It also recommended adequate infrastructure development to reduce economic bottlenecks and boost non-inflationary growth and a sharp policy focus on productivity for the same reason.
The report included a minority view from NZ First that the Reserve Bank should take into account additional factors such as employment, export competitiveness and the exchange rate when setting the OCR.
At present, the bank has a narrow focus on inflation when fixing the OCR.
