NEW ZEALAND FIRST CONVENTION 10 NOVEMBER 2002

ADDRESS BY THE RT HON WINSTON PETERS

“SOWING THE SEEDS OF SECTARIANISM”

Against all the predictions of the so-called experts, New Zealand First had an outstanding election campaign.

This convention celebrates our success and pays tribute to those who worked so hard for it:

party members and supporters; the Parliamentary team; the Wellington staff; and the many other New Zealanders who - in various ways - contributed to the campaign

and in particular a special thanks to the Tauranga Branch of New Zealand First – Roy, John, and the whole dynamic team.

Our success was a team effort, and our campaign did what it was planned to do – to reach New Zealanders.

We campaigned on issues of fundamental importance to this country, the issues that the other parties avoided because they were either too hard, or not politically correct.

To those who claim we are a one issue party what do they think our three fingers just three months ago were about? Which party first called for and then brought about policies to achieve an export sympathetic dollar. Which other party in New Zealand has a real export policy, a first world defence policy, an age care policy for the elderly, or hard line policies to prevent “entry level” crime amongst our young.

At the last election only one party had a detailed policy of tax incentives for exports and research and development. The rest hold meaningless conferences to talk about it; we have internationally precedented policies to deal with it.

That is why the Armstrong fiasco of recent weeks must be so bewildering to many New Zealanders. The CTU, irrelevant to the interests of modern working men and women, has an appointee on every committee going, and yet you couldn’t see Helen Clark for dust and small pebbles when it publicly emerged that Armstrong was trying to get a business group to have the same influence and ear of Government that the CTU has. No wonder small business despairs of New Zealand politics when the National Party leads the charge against Armstrong and Helen deserts her friend when it is known they have been dining with each other.

Which other party has a one country one law policy for everyone? And we are proud of the fact that we put more people with a Maori background in parliament in real terms than any other political party whilst rejecting a separate franchise based on race.

We changed the character of the campaign battlefield. Labour’s blitzkrieg strategy to rule alone – like they did in 1984 - was stopped in its tracks.

Helen Clark’s attempt to ambush voters with a snap election was foiled and New Zealand First achieved an election result from which we can build a solid platform to promote our policies and to hit the Treasury benches in 2005.

If five can become thirteen, then thirteen can become thirty! and even more. More New Zealanders can now see the sense of our policies and the stand we have taken to retain the integrity of our national identity.

There is no doubt that this identity is threatened.

It is threatened by state-created ghettos of division on one hand and by state-sponsored ethnic engineering on the other.

The Government is taking our country down the road to separatism.

Let me warn you that it is a road that will leading to divided – and mutually exclusive - societies in New Zealand.

The ultimate destination looks very much like the hotbeds of ethnic and religious conflict - places such as Kosovo, Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland.

Creating ghettos of division in a divided society will cause conflict whether the division is on racial, religious or some other basis.

In a divided society people live in what are essentially separate states – distinct entities - and these entities endure from generation to generation.

In such states people put loyalty to their own ‘community’ above loyalty to their country.

Each group is deeply distrustful and antagonistic of the other.

A state of undeclared civil war exists and often the uneasy truce is shattered by communal strife and violence.

The tensions inevitably lead to demands for a separate sovereignty. Ultimately there are demands by groups or ‘communities’ for their own independent state.

New Zealand First is not being alarmist, nor are we fantasising.

The facts speak for themselves.

Two major forces have been at work in recent years and they are taking New Zealand down a disastrous sectarian road.

Those forces are:

The Treaty of Waitangi grievance industry; and

Mass immigration

In the name of the Treaty, the Government is promoting separatism. Despite problems with this well meaning but inadequate document rather than espouse separatism it guaranteed identity.

Why then today are some radicals espousing an independent Maori sovereignty - an aspiration being aided and abetted by the Treaty juggernaut.

The Treaty industry serves to promote:

Separatism;

Division;

Grievance; and

Resentment.

It is also corroding the foundations of New Zealand law – the legal framework of our society.

Other than the handful of elite who have jumped aboard the gravy train, the Treaty Industry bestows no real benefit to the majority of Maori.

It addresses none of the urgent issues facing Maori. Issues such as affordable health care, education, good housing and most of all employment, remain unresolved.

Ignore the Household Labour Force figures. In some Maori communities up North the unemployment rate is up to eighty percent.

New Zealand First has practical solutions to these problems. They are inclusive solutions. They have to be.

Laws based on race were found to be offensive in South Africa and in southern states of America.

Yet the New Zealand Government in 2002 is busily enshrining racially based provisions into New Zealand law.

As an example of how the Treaty industry is infiltrating our laws and governmental infrastructure look no further than the Local Government Bill currently before Parliament. It seeks to promote separate Maori wards in each and every local body in this country.

A future with race-based law – however cunningly concealed and disguised is a scenario for sectarianism and we do not want it.

Similarly mass immigration will create ghettos of separatism.

What do the latest figures for permanent and long-term arrivals reveal?

The net permanent and long-term arrivals for non-New Zealand citizens for the year ended August 2002 was around 55,000. This is higher than the New Zealand birth rate!

And yet only a few years ago – when launching Labour’s immigration policy in 1996 - Annette King promised that a Labour Government would substantially reduce the flow of immigrants into New Zealand!

Back then Labour was complaining about an “ad hoc” approach to immigration, placing huge pressure on schools, hospitals and housing, particularly in Auckland.

Sound familiar?

Yet since then Labour has done a U-turn to an open door policy! Labour is oblivious to the fact that with only four million people, out of control immigration is swamping our limited capacity to absorb and integrate migrants.

What is happening is that the Government is overseeing a wholesale replacement of New Zealand’s population. For every New Zealander that leaves three immigrants, mainly from the third world, replace them.

We now have a situation where one in five residents were born overseas.

In the Auckland region one in three were overseas born.

As a result, huge swathes of our major population centre have become migrant communities.

The media already refers to the ‘Asian community’ the ‘Indian community,’ and the ‘Pacific Island’ community as if these communities were distinct and independent, self contained entities – states within a state.

What are the prospects for the children – the second generation of these migrant ‘communities?’

Will they be permanently locked into these ‘communities?’

Or can they become mainstream New Zealanders as all proceeding migrant groups have become?

We are witnessing the Balkanisation of our country.

It is time to ask serious questions about national identity and what New Zealand expects of those who join us.

Whatever happened to the vision, the goal of one people?

New Zealand First is committed to the idea that all New Zealanders are equal.

We say to migrants - bring your talents, your energy and yes, your own heritage - but become real New Zealanders.

Somehow under first National and now Labour we have got our wires crossed on the expectations we have of migrants.

Labour, with its infatuation with all things multi-cultural, seems to think that it is New Zealanders who have to do the adapting in the face of mass immigration.

This Government takes the line that it is New Zealanders who must change lest we give offence to those coming to New Zealand.

Excuse me – but no other country in the world takes that stance, and neither should we!

If you move to another country to better yourself – fair enough – but do not expect the hosts to adopt the culture of the migrants!

New Zealand’s identity, culture and traditions are of value and we say it is reasonable to expect those who settle here to accept them.

We say to any immigrant that if you come here to stay, legally, feel free to join us.

If you don’t like the way we are you are welcome to enjoy another one of our great freedoms – the freedom to go back home.

Our national, recognised language is English. If you come here to live we expect you to use it.

Last month a group calling itself the New Zealand Pan Asian Congress was launched.

This organisation - which claims to represent the Asian Community - is headed by Mai Chen – a partner in the Wellington law firm of a former Labour Prime Minister –Geoffrey Palmer.

Mai Chen is a highly successful lawyer and her firm has several large contracts from all manner of quasi local body entities.

Although the congress chose to inaugurate itself by recalling 150 years of alleged racial discrimination and victimisation in New Zealand, there is not a lot of evidence that Mai Chen’s progress has been thwarted by discrimination of any kind.

On the contrary, Mai Chen is a poster person for the land of opportunity that New Zealand has been for migrants of all races.

So it is not exactly clear what her issue really is?

It was not a coincidence that this organisation conveniently delayed its entrance on to the national stage until after the election?

Certainly, Labour would not have welcomed any group raising the spectre of sectarianism at a delicate moment like the election.

The media may have given the congress more critical scrutiny rather than just taking its stated aims at face value.

Because it would not be an exaggeration to describe the Pan Asian congress as the Asian Branch of the Labour Party.

Predictably the Pan Asian Congress has received a large tick of approval from the liberal establishment

Not only has the Prime Minister given it her backing - the Governor-General is the patron.

In this connection, New Zealand First takes the view that the Governor-General is contravening the convention that the Queen’s representative keep clear of political affiliations.

Not everyone within the Asian community applauds this new organisation.

Many Asians have contacted me pointing out that beneath the public facade there is a sinister undercurrent.

They are uneasy about the self-appointed bunch who have taken it upon themselves to speak for the Asian community.

Many migrants, as well as other New Zealanders, are wondering what is the real agenda of the Pan Asian Congress?

Is this organisation, in reality, a vehicle for controlling and manipulating the immigration debate?

Is it a none too subtle way of intimidating the other political parties into policies that favour the communities that the Pan Asian Congress claims to represents.

Mai Chen and her cronies are fully entitled to air their views and to challenge and criticise New Zealand First – the real target of the Pan Asian Congress.

That is made possible by another one of our great traditions - free speech.

But can we hear from the Pan Asian Congress what they really want?

For example, do they support the current levels of migration? Which one of the countries from whence they come allows anything like these liberal policies.

Do they advocate more migrants? Or fewer?

Because numbers are at the heart of the immigration issue.

And only New Zealand First is prepared to make a stand on it.

Our stand is that the current rate of migration is grossly excessive for a country of our population.

And for that perfectly obvious and sensible stand we are vilified.

We will take great interest in seeing just how the Pan Asian Congress represents the Asian community For example, around the time the Pan Asian Congress was making its entrance on to political stage, the Christchurch Press carried a front page story that victims and witnesses of Asian crime in Christchurch were being terrified into silence

(Weekend Press 28/29 September)

That story did not single out the Asian community as being crime ridden. The point of that Christchurch Press story is that there can be a dark side to the growth of ‘new communities.’

Swimming among the flood of migrants is a sophisticated criminal element that poses a serious threat.

Crime is now taking on a community character –and we hope that the Pan Asian Congress will devote some of its energies to looking at the less savoury aspects of its own “community” and the triads.

We say:

Be a member of the Scottish or Welsh community;

Be a member of the Croat or Cambodian community:

Be a member of the Indian or Chinese community:

But be a New Zealander first!

In conclusion

There is an ancient biblical saying:

“Where there is no vision the people perish”

This government has no more vision than what its political focus group is telling it in any given week over any given issue.

Through its silly – stupid – absurd - policies in regard to immigration and the Treaty it has sown the seeds of sectarianism – and - if allowed to germinate, future generations will reap a bitter harvest

Our message to all New Zealanders – whether they are migrants who have been here a month – Maori – fifth generation Kiwis – all those who call New Zealand home is this.

“New Zealand cannot go down two roads at the same time.”

As New Zealanders we are either working together for a shared future of economic and social prosperity, or we are on the road to sectarianism and the third world.

New Zealand has started down the road that leads to sectarianism.

New Zealand First will not stay silent before that threat because we are totally and implacably opposed to the sectarian agenda of the present Government.

We will fight at every point for the integrity of our country.

We have to make a stand for building a future together as one people, one New Zealand, one country!

Our future depends on it!

Can we do what a growing number of New Zealanders want us to do?

CAN WE FIX IT?

YES WE CAN!

ENDS

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