New Zealand First 23rd birthday celebration

Omanu Bowls Club
Mt Maunganui
12.30pm, Saturday, 23rd July

Blind ideology

It is 23 years since New Zealand First was launched.

In that time we have made a critical contribution to this country.

We are sure our political opponents would like to have seen us buried long ago.

But we have withstood the constant onslaught of our political opponents.

We have endured the capricious whims of some in the media who too often act not as watchdogs for our society, but as lap dogs for the government of the day.

We are proud of our policies, our principles, and our unique record. We take heart that on so many issues we, and we alone, got it right.

And during those 23 years we have worked hard to keep our political system honest.

We have spoken up when others would not. We have shown real courage when others did not.

Other political parties have tip toed around critically important issues such as immigration and foreign ownership.

New Zealand First has not and never will.

We are as important to New Zealand now as we were 23 years ago - even more so.

Ideology building on clay

Other political parties supported opening our borders to a wave of immigration and foreign control that has become a flood.

It started with an ideology that works only for a small elite.

We heard all the theories long ago, like trickle down.

That depressing theory said if things worked at the top, they would work their way down eventually.

The lesson we learned from that is –things get blocked, call it economic constipation, and nothing trickles down; the money stays at the top for an ever smaller elite.

The problem continues with a government building our country’s future on clay while still misguidedly believing trickle down works.

Auckland

Under the National government Auckland has become a monster they can’t handle or control.

The prime minister claims the immigration settings are about right and the Auckland housing market would take care of itself.

Even by his low standards he’s stretching the bounds of credibility.

There are 34,000 new migrants settling in Auckland each year adding more pressure on already over-burdened housing, education, health and transport services.

House prices have gone through the roof while salaries and wages have stagnated.

Thousands are living in sub-standard accommodation, in garages, or cars and Mr Key and his government keep denying there’s a housing crisis. These problems are spilling over into the provinces. And a whole generation of young people face never owning their own homes until much later in life if ever.

They would make the Guinness Book of Records for naysaying.

Auckland has the farcical but sad situation of skilled workers and professionals finding it too expensive to live there, so we have acute shortages for teachers, builders and nurses in Auckland.

What is the government’s solution?

Bring in workers from overseas.

Dairy

Our major export earner, the dairy industry, has taken a king hit that will take years to recover from.

Under National, dairy became a fattened cash cow that blew up fit to burst– and it did

The government did all it could to speed up the dairy expansion.

Nothing was allowed to stop the dairy juggernaut, even if it did require ditching democracy on the Canterbury regional council.

Now as dairy payout prices are at 13 year lows and any hint of a recovery is being made more difficult by a rising New Zealand dollar, Finance Minister Bill English is denying his government has any responsibility for the dairy sector crisis.

Forestry

Our third biggest export earner, forestry, is being run into the ground.

National have allowed raw logs to be exported at unprecedented levels while not replanting, or looking after local industry to ensure they have the logs they require.

We are handing over millions of dollars in added value to overseas countries while our sawmillers and wood processors are crying out for grades of timber they cannot get from the mainly foreign owned or managed forestry companies.

The forestry industry has warned of an economic crunch unless we control the flow of raw logs going over our wharves and start serious replanting.

International education

The Minister for Tertiary Education Steven Joyce has trumpeted how wonderful our international education sector is.

But both Mr Joyce and the National government allow foreign student fraud to go on right under their noses.

We have been told Immigration New Zealand and Education NZ are aware of document fraud going on in India but let it pass.

We found that the main incentive for Indian students to come here is not to get an education but to get a job and residency.

Nearly all the courses they attend at private training establishments or international training providers are not even recognised in India.

Many of the courses in New Zealand are low standard but Mr Joyce and the National government push this industry for all it’s worth.

9800 Indian students arrived from India on student visas in just the year to March 2016.

And when they work here, as well as making it hard for New Zealanders to get jobs, they are ripped off by employers who pay as little as $4 an hour.

Foreign corporates

We have foreign corporates bottling our water and making millions while paying a pittance in tax.

Twenty multinationals like Google with revenue of nearly $10 billion paid less than half of a percent of tax in New Zealand last year.

We have New Zealand being used as a tax haven.

The government is letting our rail infrastructure run down to alarming levels.

They are failing to fund infrastructure and this has serious consequences.

The jobless rate in New Zealand reached 5.2 percent in the first three months of 2016, higher than 5 percent in the last quarter of 2015.

In December 2015 there were 71,000 young people aged between 15 and 24 who were not in education, employment or training.

Tourism

On a brighter note, tourism is booming in New Zealand but it can be a fickle industry that can dry up overnight and the rise of the New Zealand dollar is not helping.

In spite of its recent success, all the government can provide to councils throughout New Zealand to get their infrastructure up to standard to cope with the tourism numbers is $12 million for between seven and 15 toilets.

The government creams off $630 million net from GST on international visitor spending each year.

Why has that money not gone back into tourism infrastructure in provincial areas?

Immigration

People are becoming heartily sick of Mr Key’s spin and outright deceit.

He says the record immigration of 125,000 is mostly planeloads of Kiwis returning from Australia.

He keeps saying this while Statistics New Zealand has reported thousands more Kiwis have still gone to Australia than have returned.

Most of those returning are doing so because they have had enough of being treated like second class citizens in Australia where they cannot access ACC, health, welfare and other benefits.

Two days ago Statistics New Zealand came out with their latest immigration numbers.

It was again another record.

New Zealand has had an annual net gain of 69,100 new immigrants in the year to June 2016.

That’s the population of New Plymouth arriving every year – and most are ending up in Auckland.

Mr Key refuses to accept open door immigration has placed enormous pressure not just on Auckland, but on the entire country.

All over New Zealand hospital emergency departments are overloaded; schools are struggling, housing is in crisis, wages are depressed and migrants are being used as cheap labour.

Consumerism from mass immigration is the biggest driver of our economy now.

Excluding mass immigration New Zealand’s GDP growth rate was 0.1 per cent for the first three months of the year, or less than half a per cent for the year.

New Zealand First has been lashed as being racist and xenophobic when we have raised this issue of immigration.

But consider what is happening now.

Two days ago the ANZ chief executive David Hisco said immigration needed to be reviewed.

“Auckland’s housing, roads, public transport and schools are struggling. Let’s have an honest, sensible debate about immigration using facts rather than prejudice to see if we should push the pause button.’’

New Zealand First has been giving the facts for a long time; and it has never been prejudice on our part.

Prejudice against us maybe.

It has always been plain common sense.

But we have a media who are susceptible to emotionalism – when we say curb immigration, we’re called racist.

We haven’t read or heard Mr Hisco, or all the rest now “having an 11th hour epiphany”, being called racist.

Besides Mr Hisco, the Reserve Bank deputy governor Grant Spencer has said immigration needed looking at.

You can keep on saying 125,000 immigrants coming to New Zealand every year, is not having a negative impact on New Zealand as Mr Key does, but the public of New Zealand now know better to their great future cost.

It will take well over a decade to fix this mess up.

And the fact is, people are getting fed up.

They are tired of being disenfranchised, cut off, ignored, and made to feel as though they do not count.

They are not invisible Kiwis to be treated disdainfully as the National government does.

They are tired of seeing the qualities and value of the country they once knew so quickly eroded.

The unique qualities which made New Zealand different and special are disappearing.

New Zealand has always needed to take a long range view.

We must have a government which works for the overall good of this country.

Entry to this country must be carefully scrutinised and made to be considered a privilege, not a right.

The priceless values New Zealand once possessed must not be lost to elitist greed.

Others around the world think as New Zealand First does.

The people of Britain decided they had put up with enough of being ignored or talked down to from Brussels.

They were tired of being fobbed off about issues like immigration. Australian politics is now paralysed for the same reason.

Putting aside the personalities, the rise of Donald Trump in the United States against all predictions and the chord Bernie Sanders struck with many Americans can be attributed to ordinary citizens stepping up to the mark and saying – we’ve had enough.

New Zealand First is saying the people have had enough – of elitist economic policies and race based legislation.

On this 23rd birthday celebration of New Zealand First take pride and confidence in what we stand for. All manner of parties and personalities, having been part of the mess this country has become economically and socially, are all now screaming “me too”.

But look at their record. They have all been part of the growing problem. They have all haughtily and arrogantly dismissed New Zealand First.

But a growing army of New Zealanders are now coming to see who, and which party it was that has acted as a sentinel against unfocussed catastrophic change.

They are looking to one party, New Zealand First, to make the change so desperately needed in our economy and social life.

That’s what our mission is on which we intend to succeed.

It’s time for New Zealanders to vote for change.

ENDS

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