Go for Gold – Not Match Fixing Political Pre Nuptials!

Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader

Hamilton Grey Power Public Meeting

Monday 16 June, 10.45am

Celebrating Age Centre, 30 Victoria Avenue, Hamilton

Right now there are only three words protecting the rights of senior citizens in this country.

Those words are NEW ZEALAND FIRST!

Every time you see your SuperGold card in your purse or wallet remember those three words.

We believe that the quality of a civilization is judged by how well older people are treated.

Sadly there are moves afoot that pose a serious threat to senior citizens and those New Zealanders who are about to become senior citizens.

You have read the newspapers, watched TV and listened to the radio.

All sorts of so-called retirement experts are telling you the country can’t afford its ageing population.

They want to lift the retirement age, reduce the pension, cut back health and home help services.

In fact the cutbacks have already started.

Who are these retirement experts?

They are members of the Financial Services Council and they want to privatise the retirement system.

Why?

Let’s look at an example. KiwiSaver.

Over the next 30 years the private companies handling KiwiSaver funds will siphon off more than $22 billion in fees.

That money will be taken off hard working Kiwis saving for their retirement.

But it’s not enough for the opportunists staring into their computer screens.

They want more and more.

So what better way to get more retirement investment than to scare every worker into pouring more money into their pockets – and mostly overseas pockets at that!

That’s why New Zealand First will set up KiwiFund – run by the state like the Cullen Fund – to provide some competition to the private KiwiSaver operators.

That $22 billion would be better in the hands of the savers than the profiteers.

And remember this. No one in the industry has disputed our figures.

They were calculated independently and they are conservative.

Unlike KiwiSaver providers – our fund would be government guaranteed and it will have a lot higher return for savers.

Remember, private providers in Wall Street destroyed the retirement plans of tens of millions of Americans through their ticket clipping and risky investments.

We are going to invest more in New Zealand.

Kiwis are going to buy back their land and their assets.

And KiwiFund will give financial backing to the winners who keep coming up with brilliant ideas and products.

Today we are giving you an assurance that New Zealand Superannuation is affordable to the nation.

And how New Zealand First will keep it so.

It costs just over four percent net of GDP – far less than many other countries.

But there are problems ahead. Let us explain.

Did you know that an immigrant can come here at 55 years of age under the parental reunion scheme and get the full pension at age 65?

This of course is on top of all other health and welfare benefits.

They get the same as you – who’ve spent your lifetime here contributing to your country and your communities.

Unfortunately we are called racist and xenophobic when we raise these issues.

Of course the people who use these epithets are usually the ones calling for all manner of changes to Super claiming it is unaffordable.

But they never have the fortitude to question why over 68,000 people are getting Super after residing just 10 years in New Zealand.

If affordability was a real issue why have they been so silent?

A couple can immigrate here from China and bring their four parents under the family reunion plan.

This is because China for many years had a policy of only one child per couple.

It means basically, the Government is setting up a tax paid retirement home for many immigrants here.

The situation is just going to get worse if we don’t act soon.

In their haste to drive up consumer spending immigration numbers are out of control.

More than forty thousand net over the next twelve months.

More drain on the taxpayers.

More pressure on the housing market.

More pressure on the health system, education and other social services.

More competition for Kiwis looking for jobs.

Clogged roads, collapsing infrastructure and of course, eventually simply more pressure on New Zealand superannuation.

New Zealand First has a policy to ease this pressure.

The policy involves paying the pension according to the years the immigrant has been in New Zealand.

For example, an immigrant who’s been here only ten years would get a quarter of that paid to someone who came here at age twenty.

We have a formula that’s fair and covers these cases.

New Zealanders cannot go to other countries at age 65 and receive a full pension so why is the converse encouraged to happen here?

We have to look after our own first.

That is only fair.

This is our commitment.

We will not reduce your superannuation.

We will not privatise superannuation.

We will give all SuperGold cardholders three free visits to their GP each year.

We will give all SuperGold cardholders a ten percent power discount through the winter months.

We will recognise the work of caregivers in eldercare with better wages and conditions.

New Zealand First is even more relevant today than when we set out nearly 21 years ago to help steer our country away from dangerous ideas.

You have probably noticed a stream of propaganda over the past few months about the formation of the next government.

The fact that no one has cast a vote yet has not dimmed the enthusiasm of the propagandists.

They want to decide the election now. In cricket that is called ‘match fixing’.

This ‘match fixing’ involves venal advantage. It’s about, as you well know, money. And it would be comical if it were not so serious.

There are political parties of all shades and sizes colluding to gerrymander the 2014 Election.

That, alas, is not novel but it has now reached a new level of obscenity.

On The Left, a political party with one seat has joined a new political party without a seat, in a $3 million political pre- nuptial that expires six weeks after the next election.

They seek to use the coat tailing provisions under MMP which the recent MMP review recommended being abolished.

On The Right, five political parties are scheming to use the same provision.

These two sides so despise each other that they are willing to abandon any principle to defeat their political enemy.

Under MMP, any party, if there is a political demand for their product, can win an electorate seat or gain 5% of the vote and win list seats.

However, their problem is that there is little democratic demand for what some of these ‘political players’ have to sell. Rather than face this reality they, therefore, seek to circumvent it with ‘match fixing’.

Very soon the Prime Minister, when his public relations team have settled on some soothing form of spin, will announce his Party’s support for United, ACT, Maori Party and Conservative electorate candidates and, to use an old boxing phrase ‘ the fix will be in’.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as you know, in its 21 years New Zealand First has been the only party never to engage in this sort of behaviour.

Let’s be clear about this election.

The next government should be, and must be, decided by you, the people.

Because this is an early election, for one moment in 34 months, you will hold all the power.

We trust you will use it wisely.

We trust you to have the interests of your country and your community at heart.

We urge you not to allow this match fixing to go on perverting our democracy.

Don’t be treated like puppets.

Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.

Use your democratic voice to bring a golden age back to New Zealand.

Remember, New Zealand First is the Party that repealed the Surtax, restored Super to 66% and brought in the SuperGold Card, and all its benefits. And we have much more to do.

At the beginning of this address we warned of the storm clouds gathering against Superannuation as you know it. And there are other very serious issues that are cause for real alarm.

This election is going to be about our Kiwi values, our Kiwi assets and our New Zealand way of life which all face serious threats, not from without, but from within.

Let’s together face these great threats and set our resolve together to defeat them.

ENDS

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