NZ FIRST
LEADER’S OFFICE
16TH FLOOR
BOWEN HOUSE
WELLINGTON

Winston Peters Speech

An address to Western Bay of Plenty Grey Power
Friday 12 October 2007 at 1pm
Otumoetai Baptist Church Hall
Cnr Otumoetai Road and Clearmont Terrace
Otumoetai

Building A Bridge To Your Future

For many years now there have been those who have sneered and mocked New Zealand First as we have addressed Grey Power audiences.

But they have always failed to understand why we take your plight seriously and why we are prepared to work on your behalf in Parliament, despite a few of you having gripes with us from time to time.

We know who it was whose hard work and enterprise laid the foundations of the country we enjoy today.

We know who raised this current generation and whose values underpin our societies – values which are currently under threat.

It was you and your generation who helped build this nation, who raised the current generation and whose values underpin our society and the difference between New Zealand First and other political parties is that we believe that you should be shown some gratitude for your efforts.

Such gratitude will not come from selling off what’s left of the family silver.

Given the announcements made in some political quarters recently, it is worth remembering that yours was also the generation that had to witness too much of what you had worked so hard for being sold off from under your noses.

Your generation knows exactly what asset sales mean and what privatisation means, and most importantly, who benefits and who does not when such policies are implemented.

You have rejected these policies once and sadly it looks like you will have to reject them again.

It beggars belief that some parties have not learned the lesson of the past and the reason why they have been in opposition for nearly nine years.

And yet they seem to rather arrogantly feel that after a few good polls they can trot out the same failed policies of the 1980s and 90s and nobody will notice.

Now this should be a huge cause for concern for our seniors because as history will demonstrate National has always attached benefit cuts to its asset sales programme.

One need only consider what occurred in the 1990s, where not once but twice National cut New Zealand Superannuation.

And in both instances there were no warnings, they simply broke their promises leaving the most vulnerable in our society to bare the brunt of their ideology.

You see for National asset sales and benefit cuts go hand in hand.

Contrast this with New Zealand First’s track record.

Every time New Zealand First has been part of the governing arrangements Superannuation has increased, health spending on seniors has increased and we have tried to make the lives of our seniors better.

The most recent example of this was the launch of the SuperGold Card.

Now we know there have been mixed reports about the Card and we will deal with these today.

When the SuperGold Card was officially launched on 29 August it was only the beginning.

Some of you may be familiar with a new bridge which is being built toll free just down the road from here.

It is an exciting development for the wider Bay of Plenty region and one New Zealand First promised.

But before the bridge is operational, the first sod was turned and the foundations had to be built.

Once the foundations are in place then the rest of bridge can be built. The Super Gold Card is the same.

There had been heightened expectations about what the Card might deliver – some of which have not yet been met.

We accept that and see it as a challenge to see the Card reach its full potential.

We are also aware that there is a so called “ginger group” within Grey Power that has run a fairly orchestrated campaign against the Card and me personally.

That is politics and as the old saying goes – you can’t win them all.

All we would ask those who oppose us is, what has any other political party ever done for seniors that compares with New Zealand First’s efforts?

If they answer honestly then we will have made our point.

And we would add this warning. The Super Gold Card will only reach its full potential with all seniors actively using it as much as possible.

Some of you may be familiar with an example we have used recently of a lady who approached me in Napier explaining how she had just received a $53 discount on her tyres. The irony was that the tyre company was not even an official business partner.

We have had a range of similar reports from those buying furniture, home improvement supplies and a host of other goods.

Many businesses are more than willing to get behind the card if you are prepared to ask.

And the number of business partners is literally growing by the day. We now have well over 330 business partners on board and nearly 3000 outlets.

There is a trend which is emerging. Those businesses contained in the initial booklet with the Card report they are actively being used.

Before buying anything check the website to see if you can use your Card. There are so many businesses on the website that people are just not aware of. If you cannot find a suitable business on the website then ask at the business you buy from. You may be pleasantly surprised.

And in return for you accepting this challenge we promise that we will be doing all we can to bolster the Government contributions to the Card.

We agree with Grey Power that the Government can and should do more and our challenge is to get them to do so.

The foundation has been laid and we can start adding the really valuable parts to the Card now.

Now let us consider another important building block of our democracy – transparency and the Electoral Finance Bill currently going before Parliament.

Unfortunately the Government has allowed the opposition to set the agenda and distort the debate.

Some of their points are valid, but many are not and it is frustrating that the real debate has been suffocated by sideshows.

You see right at the start of this process all sides agreed that we could not have a rerun of 2005.

Our democracy was not prepared for the onslaught of big money and secret agendas.

What we craved was transparency,

New Zealanders do not shy away from a fair fight, but they do not like to box at shadows they cannot see.

This subversive style of politics was anathema to ordinary New Zealanders.

The issue though was clouded further by the Auditor-General’s report, which blurred the lines between parliamentary spending and political party activity during election year.

But it is time that this issue was clarified once and for all and for the debate to return to its rightful footing.

As mentioned previously what the public ultimately want in relation to democracy is transparency.

They want to know who the players are and what it is they stand for.

At its most basic level they want to know what is in it for them, their families, their communities and their country – and so they should.

Sadly what we had in 2005 was not a contest of ideas but a big budget marketing exercise.

This needed fixing.

The Bill as it currently stands must be changed.

We need a law suitable for the MMP environment – in other words one which embraces a multi-party democracy.

Elections are not simply a contest between Labour and National, with new parties playing an incidental part.

As every election under MMP has demonstrated, new parties have determined the final shape of every government.

Our policies matter, our people matter and our place in the political system matters.

So the new law must be based on the principal of a fair and equitable election in an MMP or multi-party system.

And that is why transparency matters.

Let me give you one example.

We all know the account of the Brethren’s one million dollar campaign on behalf of National.

We all know the denials by Brash, Key and Co. over their involvement.

But let us consider it from another perspective.

If you ranked the involvement by all players in the last election by the amounts they spent on the campaign, then following Labour and National the Brethren would have come in third.

That’s right – ahead of every other political party or lobby group that was prepared to put their name to the campaign.

Now there are three fundamental problems with this.

First, until they were exposed, nobody knew who they were.

Second, they were not seeking votes for themselves, but for one particular party. In fact, they aren’t even allowed to vote.

Finally, their huge campaign was not registered or attributable to the party they were campaigning for. In other word there was no accountability.

But in some ways the fixation with the Brethren’s involvement in the 2005 campaign is unfortunate as it is a distraction to the wider principle at play here.

As was noted previously, the current Bill has to change.

We need to add greater transparency, but without limiting fair participation in the process.

Transparency operates at three levels during a campaign.

First, who are the primary players, the politicians and political parties, and who is funding them

Second, who are the secondary players (lobby groups and other third parties), who is funding them and how much are they spending.

And finally, who are trying to influence the outcome but who don’t want to be seen to be doing so – these are the secret arrangements.

We already have laws addressing transparency for parties and candidates.

The tightening in this area must be linked to large anonymous donations and secret funding, and the amount spent by lobby groups actively campaigning.

We simply can’t have a situation where well funded lobby groups are spending huge amounts, supporting already well funded political parties, with the lobby groups spending significantly more than actual political parties.

It simply undermines a multi-party democracy.

We do not want to see groups such as Grey Power constrained in their ability to participate, but equally we do not want to see undue influence by secret money and secret agendas.

That is not the New Zealand way.

And we would say to those who protest about the 1 January start date, do you remember what actually happened in 2005?

Do you remember when the blue and red billboards actually appeared? Let me give you a hint – it wasn’t in the final three months of election year.

National started campaigning in around February or March of 2005 with their billboard campaign.

Actually, if we are all being honest, we all start campaigning pretty early on in election year – that is why it is called “election year”.

Again it ceases to be a contest of ideas and becomes a marketing exercise when those involved start pouring huge amounts of money into the campaign, before the official race has even started.

National has proved once that they could spend huge amounts of anonymously donated money all year, and there is no doubt they would do it again.

This is not anti-National. This is anti anyone who would want to subvert our democracy.

For the health of our democracy we must get this right.

Now in conclusion we want you to consider these three things.

First – New Zealand First will never sell off what is left of what you worked so hard to build up.

Second – we will always work to ensure that you can confidently build your standard of living, even if some among you have a few gripes with us.

Finally, we will always work towards building a fair and transparent New Zealand democracy because that lies at the core of us being able to achieve the first two points.

We are builders dedicated to building a bridge to your future.

The foundations are laid, so join us as we add to the structures that are our society.

After all, many hands make light work.

ENDS

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