Monday, 24 July 2023, 11:20 amSpeech: New Zealand First Party
New Zealand First ConventionRt. Hon
WinstonPeters2pm Sunday 23rd
2023Mt SmartStadiumEastern
Lounge
Ladies andGentlemen. Thank you for
being here, at New ZealandFirst’s campaign
launch.
81 days before ElectionDay, 69 days before
Early Voting begins and 64 days beforeOverseas Voting
starts, we meet here on a mission to saveour
country.
No doubt you’re thinking to
yourself’what’s in it for me?’. Given the other
party slogansalready out there, and one in particular,
that is a verygood question.
This election must be
about theeconomy. Because every issue inevitably comes
back to whatwe must do and how we pay for it. And
there’s the rub,because so many of the political
promises of other partiesbeing made have no chance of
ever being kept.
Why?Well, if those parties have
never delivered what theycampaigned on in better times,
they certainly won’tdeliver on them in troubled
times.
Remember HenryFord’s words – ‘You
can’t build a reputation on whatyou’re going to
do’. Henry Ford built cars that ordinarypeople could
afford. Right? All manner of politicians todayare
promising you a faster horse.
The critical
issuesfor this election are our economy and cost of
living crisis,our broken health system, our lack of law
and order, ourfailing education system, and the cost of
housing andrentals.
But if these five areas of
crisis are notenough already, our very democracy is at
risk from a risingtide of racism and separatism, that
has given birth tosecret social engineering that you
were never warned aboutand most certainly never agreed
to.
What’s theevidence for this? It’s the
Prime Minister’s bonfireafter he got the job – but the
bonfire was for the paperback copies of Labour’s
books, whilst they are saving thehard bound copies for
after the election.
VehicleChange
It is
clear that a great majority of NewZealanders, including
many Labour voters, don’t want moreof the same. They
are hard up against it, with rising costseverywhere, and
no money left over after buying
theessentials.
This majority rightfully expect to
have avoice, yet Wellington is clearly not listening.
NewZealanders are sick of all the changing definitions
ofeconomic and personal income security, and a vacuous
goal of’wellbeing’, whatever that means. They know
that theyare forgotten New Zealanders slogging it out in
difficultjobs and they ask – “where is the promise,
where is thehope, where is the commitment that if we
work, save, and begood citizens then tomorrow will be
better forus”.
And remember many of New
Zealand’s presentday well off started as workers. Very
few of them inheritedtheir wealth, and malignant envy is
no way to level upsociety. There must be rewards for
sweat, tears, sacrifice,and savings. Many of us, and
them, do remember from personalexperience what poverty
smells, tastes, and feelslike.
Our country’s
economic and social malaise didnot happen overnight, but
it’s got dramatically worse injust 33
months.
Too many of our young have no memoryof
when our country was a world leader, in health
andeducation, and house ownership, and personal income
the envyof nearly every other country. Let’s be
honest, we havenot delivered for them what our parents
delivered forus.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we
don’t changedirection we are certain to end up where
we are going -down. So, be careful about the promises
politicians make inthis campaign, and ask this question
– if their policieswork, then why didn’t they work
the last time they hadpower? Remember, ‘if you’re in
the desert a mirage canbe fatal’.
The next
government must have realanswers for problems economic
and social, and not someideological experiment where you
and our country are theguinea pigs. Please ask, when and
where did their policiesever work?
New Zealand has
not paid its way since1972. We must have policies in
2023 to grow, earn, and payour way in to the future. Not
overnight because that isimpossible but improving year
on year as other first worldnations, once way behind us,
now way ahead of us, havedone.
New Zealand’s
Gifted Inheritance
Wehave the resources, and we
work the second longest hours inthe OECD, so it can’t
be the worker’s fault. The faultline of failure leads
to Wellington, and we are going tohave to fix that right
here, right now.
How fewcommentators said a year
ago that New Zealand is heading fora recession? Less
than the fingers on one hand. Not strangereally because
most of these touted experts work for banks,foreign
owned banks – and fake confidence is the reason fortheir
existence.
Today many commentators say we
are’broke’. But what they never say is we’re broke
ofideas and polices to fix this country’s economy,
anddramatically improve our national income and
socialperformance. And what some of these experts
don’t like, isbeing reminded that when we were number
one in the worldmost of the politicians then had never
been to university.They gaslight such success as
“nostalgia”.
Longingfor a past that they say
is no longer possible. Well, we sayit is possible again
– but not with yourpolicies.
That’s why when we
look abroad, we seecountries that have modernised
following the script thatonce made us a world leader.
Once poor countries likeSingapore, Finland, Norway,
Iceland, Ireland and an Islandcalled Taiwan, transformed
their economies to become wealthcreators, maximising
added value before exporting,maximising IT to assist
wealth creation, providing greathealth systems and
educating their people to the max, andknowing they could
only get there with high wage economies -as we once
did.
And they all have three
morefeatures:
They have taxation policies
that assistbusinesses and workers, not unfairly
hinderthem,They have disciplined populations,
many with apolice ratio to population less than ours,
but far lesscrime, andThey regard their people
as human capitalwhere expenditure is necessary
investment, not wastefulcost.
And so did we
once, when Parliament wasfull of practical people, not
university union politicianswho wouldn’t know a real
worker if they fell over one, anddon’t know how to
fill out a simple ‘profit and loss’account, or
‘pecuniary interest form’.
If you wantto know
who are the most forgotten people in New Zealandtoday,
it is the kiwi worker – and New Zealand First
hasalways cared for them.
New Zealand’s Broken
HealthSystem
When we formed New Zealand First 30
years ago,one of our founding principles was ‘that
expenditure onhealth, was an investment’ – our
country’s human capitalneeded to be healthy, and if
sick, medically treated as fastas possible.
In the
next three years we are going toset up a single health
system – where need, not race, isthe
priority.
To do that, we’re going toreprioritise
government expenditure, provide fundingincreases for
primary health care, and reassign wastedresources to
urgently deal with hospitals and waitinglists.
We
are going to stop $29 billion plus onAuckland Light Rail
which will not work, and spend it onitems like Emergency
Departments and residential care forthe aged. And we are
also going to use savings from wastefulpet projects to
get the specialist medical staff, so thatour
medico-patient ratios are again first world, not
thirdworld.
And we know that we will only get
essentialfrontline staff if we pay them properly – and
pay themproperly we will.
And as a remit at our
conferenceyesterday said, Pharmac was set up so
politicians coulddodge being held accountable. New
Zealand First believesthat New Zealand has long had
inferior first worldpharmaceutical delivery. All first
world internationalcomparisons prove that, we are at the
bottom of the OCED foraccess to medicines, and the eight
plus years delay to getapprovals is simply a national
disgrace.
All the otherpolitical parties believe
in the Pharmac model, we don’t,because we don’t
believe in fobbing off politicalresponsibility.
So
we are going to take money fromwasteful expenditure, to
provide innovative lifesavingmedicines quickly, and
provide timely access to patients todeveloped high cost
treatments.
We are going toprovide the new model
an extra $1.3 billion on top of thepresent $1.2 billion
“existing underbudget”.
NewZealand First is
the “Health Party”.
NewZealand’s Failing
Education System
There is muchgoing wrong with
our education system.
EducationMinister Tinetti
was recently crowing about studentattendance rising to
60%. It didn’t occur to her, for thatto happen the
best schools must be at least 90% and theworse schools
for attendance at 30%. That’s 60,000 plustruant pupils
in any given day, a tsunami of educationalfailure at a
personal and national level and billions ofwasted
taxpayers’ dollars.
New Zealand First’spolicy
is to fix that, as common-sense politicians once did,as
long ago as 1877 when they made
educationcompulsory.
We will not get back to
having a leadingeconomy without first fixing our
education system.
Wewere at the very top of the
education world once. And wedidn’t get there with some
of the stupid educationpolicies we have today.
But
once we have properlytrained our young, we must pay our
workforce competitiveincomes to keep them
here.
New Zealand taxpayers arepaying a fortune to
train too many young people who then gooverseas and
benefit, for free, some foreigneconomy.
New
Zealand First has nothing against an”OE” (Overseas
Experience).
But New Zealand Firstis most
certainly against “OF” – that is, a
skilledworkforce “Overseas Forever”.
New
Zealand First isthe “Education
Party”.
Taxation – Towards AnExport Power
House
It is said that there are only twothings
certain in life – “death and taxes”.
If welook
at our once great past, and today’s ‘small
countryeconomic world leaders’, they have one thing in
common -they are export power houses – like New Zealand
once was.Iceland, Norway, Finland, Singapore, and
Ireland are smallcountries maximising added value before
exporting,maximising IT, maximising education, and
ensuring that theypay their workforce high
wages.
And we must againfollow that prescription
with taxation policies that assistthat
outcome.
That’s why we are going to bring intax
incentives, to promote added value before exports,
IT,and productivity.
That’s why we are going to
ensurethat the tax income brackets are adjusted to
inflation. Thatis New Zealand First’s policy.
We
know we can bothlower taxation on business and give
higher wages forworkers, with our polices to rapidly
double our GrossNational Product.
And for those
that say it can’t bedone, we point to countries like
Singapore to refute theirmyopic ideological mindset. We
will announce details overthe next two months.
In
this cost of living crisis, weare going to Exempt Basic
Foods, like fresh food,vegetables, meat, dairy, and
fish, from GST.
Wechallenge the tax purists, to
explain why other First Worldcountries can do this, and
we can’t.
New ZealandFirst is the “Sound
Economics Party”.
Law andOrder
Three
days ago in Auckland, sadly, two innocentvictims lost
their lives, police officers were injured, andten others
were hospitalised. The offender was shot by thepolice –
a tragedy for his family.
What’s goingwrong with
law and order in this country is best describedby the
Police Commissioner’s comment who said that
theoffender – ‘had not breached his Home
Detentionconditions’.
Ladies and gentlemen, he
got hold of ashotgun and right there was a massive
breach. And if wecan’t understand as a country what
constitutes illegalbehaviour, then we are destined to
see it repeated over andover again.
But even
worse, how did someone sentencedfor choking someone
almost to death receive just five monthshome
detention?
How was he able to get home
detentionand access to a firearm if he was assessed as
being “athreat to others”?
Our courts are
failing us withthese soft sentences that put community
safety last, andoffender’s rights and excuses
first.
These judicialfailures need an inquiry –
just like all those policeofficers who now have to be
stood down and questioned justbecause they did their job
and shot someone who was shootingat innocent people and
them.
We want justice andcommon sense returned to
our country.
New ZealandFirst’s says anyone who
is a threat to the safety of ourcommunity shouldn’t be
on our streets.
Ladies andgentlemen, the other
parties are shouting ‘law andorder’, much like a
drunk person leaning against anevening lamppost at night
– for support not illumination.All the other parties
on the right, had a policy of ‘catchand warn’, and
on the left, have a policy of ‘catch
andrelease’.
They have a record of having frozen
policebudgets, closed over thirty police stations, and
cuttingfrontline police numbers.
How is that being
‘toughon crime’?
Only one Party has a record
of investingin our police – New Zealand First. We got
a massiveincrease in frontline police numbers, not once
but twice,when we were in government. And on law and
order we are theonly party whose promises you can trust
– not on what wesay but on what we have
done.
New Zealand Firstwill:
Designate
gangs as terrorist organisations- like Western
Australia and Queensland;andEstablish a
dedicated gang prison to minimiseprison recruitment of
non gang members.
Mostimportantly, to
address the causes of crime we have policiesto address
real needs – such as enforcing compulsoryeducation,
making housing including public housingaffordable for
ordinary families, make health care availablefor people
who need it, and getting people, who have spentyears on
the dole, back to work.
And something else.Crime,
whether its “gang collar, blue collar or
whitecollar”, we will treat the same. New Zealand
First is theonly party that has had the courage over the
decades toexpose white collar crime when the rest
wouldnot.
Remember the vitriol that has come our
way fromthe establishment when we said white collar
crime is goingon and we are going to prove to you what
is happening -and prove that to you we did.
New
Zealand First is the”Law and Order
Party”.
The Attack On OurDemocracy –
Separatism
The first New Zealand electionwas in
1854, M?ori voting was added in 1867, and women gotthe
vote in 1893.
As Abraham Lincoln said,”Democracy
is government of the people, by the people, forthe
people”. That means one person, one vote, and
everyvote of equal value.
Secretly, before 2020
and after,the Labour, Greens, and M?ori Party have
launched afull-scale attack on the essence
ofdemocracy.
Ordinary M?ori want safe affordable
homes,ready access to health care, educational
escalators fortheir young, and first world wages. That
is what allordinary New Zealanders want, and it’s
those four policiesthat New Zealand First is committed
to delivering on – nomatter what race you are, what
church you are, what genderyou are.
Yesterday, in
her insightful speech CaseyCostello set out the numerous
racist attacks on ourdemocracy.
And the
revisionists agenda is to force allgovernment and
quasi-government agencies intocompliance.
Ordinary
M?ori never asked for any ofthis. Only the elite M?ori
have.
There is no historicjustification for them,
which is why they have set out tore-write and
reconstruct history.
To get to wherethese
politicians want to take us, they deal in lies,including
these four claims:
That Europeanarrival
ruined the peaceful paradise of M?ori,Thatthe
Treaty saw M?ori begin a partnership with
QueenVictoria,That the Treaty was not about
M?oriceding sovereignty,That the Treaty meant
M?ori’self-government’
Stop for a
moment and askyourself, whether you’re M?ori or
non-M?ori, can any ofthose four statements be remotely
true?
Every Iwihistory of the inter-tribal
wars makes the ‘M?ori Gardenof Eden’ a complete
myth. Look at the local M?ori historyhere.If
no one in Britain or the UK or the wholeBritish Empire
was in partnership with the Crown on the 5thof February
1840, then how could it be constitutionally truethat
M?ori were, two days later?The fact is
M?oriceded sovereignty to the Crown when they signed
the Treaty.The Chiefs back then said so, as did many
leading M?orilater, including Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir
Maui Pomare, and SirPeter Buck. Yet today’s elite
power-hungry M?ori andtheir cultural fellow travelers
deny history andfact.All M?ori Iwi pre-1840
and well after, wereunder the control of their ‘Tino
Rangatiratanga’. Thatmeans their Chief’s word was
gospel. If there was backthen co-government, which
Chief’s word, if different, wasgospel?
The
elite’s argument does not standthe slightest scrutiny.
And every ordinary M?ori knowsit.
New Zealand
First is the “One Standard ofCitizenship
Party”.
SocialEngineering
Behind closed
doors a small unelectedcabal of opinionated virtue
signallers want to “integrategender content into the
curriculum”. They want to stop thescience curriculum
being about physics, chemistry, andbiology, but include
sexual and gender education. They haveno authority to be
doing this. They never ever askedyou.
This
election is about stopping them.
Thegovernment has
no place in the nation’s bedrooms – so whyare our
school children, from age five, now being taughtabout
‘relationships, gender, and
sexuality’?
NewZealand First is going to restore
education and stopindoctrination.
New Zealand
First is the “CommonSense Party”.
Caring For
Seniors
In ourcountry are about 890,000 people
who are seniors, whoreceive Super and enjoy the tens of
thousands of shoppingbenefits, plus free travel, that
comes from the GoldCard.
When over the years every
political party hasattacked seniors and changed the law
to harm their incomes,one party alone has defended
seniors.
In past times ofeconomic difficulty, the
seniors have been the first one theother parties have
attacked.
New Zealand First willmakes sure, as in
the past, they don’t succeed.
NewZealand First
is the “Standing Up For
SeniorsParty”.
Conclusion
In the last
two days themedia have gone back to their 30-year-old
question -“who are you going to go with?” How many
times must wetell them that our record means we will
never go withparties that have racist policies. The last
Party otherpolitical parties want to talk to before
Election Day is NewZealand First, and the first Party
they want to talk to -the day after.
Ladies and
gentlemen, this is the mostcritical election in our
lifetime.
Under MMP you havetwo votes. One for a
local electorate political Partycandidate, the other for
the political Party of your choice;the Party Vote. New
Zealand First is asking for your PartyVote – to keep
them honest.
New Zealand is at aninflection point
and a change in government is critical. Butit must be
for a much better government and not just’it’s our
turn now’. You’re entitled to ask them”your turn
to do exactly what?”
And one thing thatthe last
three years has proven is that certainty, commonsense,
and experience, is critical to good government. Ontheir
own the Labour Party has proven an uttermess.
And
looking across the political divide askyourself this
question, “Is this their first rodeo?”Because for
many it is. They have never had a Ministerinside of
Cabinet. They will need our certainty, our commonsense,
and our experience.
New Zealand First is aParty
for ordinary New Zealanders. We understand theeconomic
challenges and we don’t have extremist policiesthat
have never worked in the history of
anycountry.
New Zealand First is the insurance
votersneed to avoid an ideological lurch in
eitherdirection.
We are a Party that for thirty
years hasput New Zealanders First. Certainty, Common
Sense, andExperience is desperately needed in New
Zealand now, andeven more so after this coming
election.
It’s withthat in mind that we ask you
to get ready, to make acommitment, right here right now,
to save ourcountry.
If you do, the future
iscertain.
Democracy will prevail.
But it
is’Now or Never’.
We oppose
racistco-government.
We oppose their Three Waters
takeover.
We oppose our country’s name
beingchanged.
We oppose separatism in policy and
inlaw.
We oppose this insidious woke agenda being
drivenby an elite cabal of social and
ideologicalengineers.
We support policies – based
on need, notrace.
We support the rule of law –
where everyone isequal before it.
We support the
right of free speech -and that means we support the
right of New Zealanders tosay, ‘I disagree’ and not
be mandated out ofexistence.
We support the right
of New Zealanders todisagree with government policy and
not be punished forit.
And we are never going to
work in Parliament withany political party whose
policies threaten thosefundamental rights.
We have
watched over the lastthree years Labour and its cohorts
taking our country awayfrom us.
That’s why we
are asking you to Party VoteNew Zealand
First.
We’ve got the polices, the grit,the
experience, and the courage to stop them and rebuild
NewZealand.
We are asking you to join
us,and,
“Let’s Take Back
OurCountry”.
