EMBARGOED TILL 1.30PM

Speech by New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters
Public meeting,
Bev Ridges on York (Tamatea Hotel)
1 Durham Ave, Tamatea
Napier
1.30pm, 6th November, 2016

“Creating the wealth but getting little in return”

On the surface things appear to be going well in Hawke’s Bay.
The Infometrics' June 2016 Quarterly Economic Monitor said this region’s economic growth outpaced Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch for the year to June.
Given that Auckland’s growth is based on massive immigration driven consumption which cannot last, Wellington is the capital, and Christchurch is still rebuilding after a terrible disaster, the Hawke’s Bay economy may appear to be rolling along.
Yet there are underlying problems.

Young unemployed
The Government measures employment this way.
If you have only one hour’s work a week you’re then regarded as being employed.
This means that the criteria the Government is using is a lie.
On top of that there are over 100,000 New Zealanders whose hours of work are so short that they are seriously under employed and need taxpayer top ups to survive.
In the last two years the national unemployment figures, those without even one hour’s work a week, have risen to 128,000.
Despite this fictional criteria unemployment is not coming down – it’s staying more or less the same.
Both Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne have the second highest rate of unemployment in the country - 6.5 per cent.
Northland is the highest with 7.6 percent.
Perhaps the most worrying statistic concerns young people.
The rate of young people not in work, education or training is now growing again.
In the last two years the number of 15 to 24 year olds who are not in employment, education or training has risen by 3000 to 74,000.
Meanwhile, under National there has been net migration in excess of 470,000.
These are people allowed to come and reside here permanently.
You don’t have to be a genius to work out what this means.
If you are unemployed, then you are facing huge competition from the flood of new immigrants.
A lot of these immigrants are so desperate to work they will accept any pay and work conditions.
Let’s remember also that on top of this more than 100,000 foreign students are coming to New Zealand each year, most having work visas.
In the light of all this, is it any wonder then that unemployment is such a cancer in our society?
And it is a national scandal that 74,000 young Kiwis are left to do nothing.
New Zealand First has presented proposals for Youth Employment, Training and Education that would give at risk youth paid employment, education and training to prevent them from a lifetime of welfare dependency.
We can’t go on failing to engage these young people before they fall off the rails.

Police
In the last six years the Government has claimed “crime in NZ is falling”.
That claim as you all now know is false.
It’s a major concern here.
Our police are facing a crisis and we were reminded of this last week.
The newly appointed Police Association president Chris Cahill said crime was increasing at such a rate, police could not cope and they needed help.
He said police are struggling to deal with increased crime, the resurgence of gangs and the war against drugs.
New Zealand First has been pointing out for years the obvious, that crime has been increasing but the government and Police Minister Judith Collins have continued to deny it.
Since 2008 the total number of incidents that police have attended has increased over 20% - from 420,000 to 525,000 when last measured.
Up over 105,000 and yet arrests are down by 3000
That’s a drop in arrests, while incidents have gone up, but National keep saying crime is going down.
It isn’t.
To massage the figures the Police have been following a policy more appropriate to recreational fishing – “Tag and Release”.
In short they have caught the offenders but instead of charging them, they are giving them warnings.
Hence the arrest figures have gone down at the same time as the offence figures have gone up.
That’s a major exercise in political deception but it is not the fault of the Police who are acting under a Government direction.
New Zealand First knows the major challenges our police have.
We would introduce, as fast as training permits, 1800 new front line police officers.
When last in Government we gave police, in 3 years, 1000 more frontline police.
We understand New Zealanders should go to bed knowing their homes, streets and businesses are safe.
Under this government that is not happening.

Rural Police Support (RPs)
Also in our policy we will roll out support for police in regional NZ.
Rural areas of New Zealand have far too few police.
1800 extra police will have a major impact but will not of itself solve the crime issue in our provinces.
The Police Workplace Survey showed that police morale is lower in country areas than in the cities.
In many cases police stationed there work alone – or have countless Police Stations unstaffed or closed at weekends.
New Zealand First would create and trial Rural Police Support.
Our RPS would come from all walks of life, similar to the rural volunteer fire service.
They would meet the recruitment requirements as set by the NZ Police.
They would undergo training and receive an allowance.
They would volunteer for a minimum of 16 hours a month.
They would man police stations in the absence of fulltime officers.
They would go on patrols, take part in crime prevention initiatives and be involved helping police in major incidents, providing operational support to regular officers.
At no time will they replace fulltime police – but they will act in a supportive capacity.

Immigration
Many of our problems – infrastructure, housing and resources that are stretched to the limit - stem from surging immigration - the direct cause of our biggest ever annual increase in population.
This is at record levels.
Net immigration – that is the number of immigrants who settle here permanently is running at over 69,000 a year.
That means each year we are creating a city the size of New Plymouth through permanent immigrants.
It’s unsustainable.
Jobs, housing, hospitals, healthcare, and schools – they are all under massive pressure and there’s no let up.
Most immigrants are coming to Auckland
Now there is a connection between immigration and the provinces.
They may not be coming here but the tax payers costs most definitely are.
Who do you think is going to be paying for Auckland’s infrastructure mess borne of massive immigration?
You are.
And every dollar going there is a dollar not going to solve problems you have in the provinces.
Some of our political opponents have sensed the public mood and made noises about how immigration might be getting out of hand.
Treasury, MBIE, ANZ and others have said the same thing.
Economist Kerry McDonald described our current rate of immigration as “a national disaster.”
We’re cramming more and more people into Auckland and the infrastructure can’t handle it.
The tap must be turned down to 10,000 skilled immigrants a year.
We should only accept immigrants we need – not those who need us.

Boosting the regions
New Zealand First will breathe new life into regions like Hawke’s Bay by shifting government departments into provincial centres throughout the country.
Regions such as Hawke’s Bay need jobs to boost their economies.
Service industries and shops will flourish with more residents spending their money locally.
Currently we have a country with the majority of jobs concentrated in overloaded cities.
There is no reason in this age of advanced technology that government office jobs cannot be in smaller cities and towns.
For example, why is the Conservation Estate located in all the provinces, yet the Conservation Department is parked up in high real estate Wellington?
Many workers will welcome the opportunity to ditch long big city commutes for a drive of a few minutes and the outdoor recreational opportunities on their doorstep.
Others who have been forced to seek job opportunities in cities will be able to return home.
They will all benefit from much cheaper real estate - many Kiwi civil servants will be able to achieve the Kiwi dream of owning their own home.
New Zealand First has always argued for common sense policies like this to benefit all New Zealanders.
The onslaught of neo-liberal policies in the 1980s under Labour and its continuation by National governments drained provincial New Zealand of its jobs and services as government departments were moved, downsized or sold off to private enterprise.

NZ First will give equality with Auckland back to the provinces

We will give provincial New Zealand equality with the big cities, especially when it comes to transport spending.
Labour and National, the “Coke and Pepsi” of politics, are outdoing themselves with how many billions of dollars they can throw on Auckland.
While New Zealand First backs better transport it must be for all New Zealanders.
This is why New Zealand First will insist that for every dollar spent on major new transport projects in cities like Auckland, a comparative spend must be made on projects in provincial New Zealand.
Regional New Zealand is tired of being the Cinderella when it comes to broadband, mobile phone coverage, roads, rail and even access to banking services.
Take the $1 million a metre that Auckland’s Cross Rail Tunnel is now expected to cost, and they haven’t even begun to dig it. The taxpayer is footing $500,000 of the $1 million per metre.
That wouldn’t be an issue if Northland’s Victorian rail tracks and bridges were upgraded to take trucks off SH1 with a spur put into Northport. Nor would it be if the Gisborne-Wairoa rail line was reinstated because both would cost less than a few hundred metres of that tunnel.

Yet Labour is promising to fast track the Mt Roskill Light Rail at over $107,000 a metre. That means that taxpayers from Gore, Hawke’s Bay and all the way to Kaitaia will be expected to pay for half of it.
These big city free spending politicians forget where the wealth of this country comes from. Our top three primary exports are worth more than every ‘service export’ combined. Even that forgets that tourists come to experience provincial New Zealand and not the cities.
That is why NZ First will ensure transport in the regions gets the same priority with cities, and comparative spending on major new projects.

NZ First’s other policies for the regions
Some of us recall when Hawke’s Bay was the booming centre of huge export industries.
The main reason it is not doing as well as it should be is that New Zealand’s economy is being run for big city and international interests despite the great export wealth being created in the provinces.
You are about production and exports.
They are mainly about consumption and imports.
We want the Reserve Bank Act changed so that New Zealand’s currency settings reflect that New Zealand is an export, production and more wealth, not consumption and more debt, economy.
NZ First has a Royalties for the Regions Policy.
Under this policy, 25% of royalties collected by the government from extractive enterprises such as mining, petroleum and water stay in the region of origin.
As an example, the government collects over $400 million in royalties. Under our scheme over $100 million, year on year, would remain in the regions for investment.
That money would help to regenerate regional New Zealand.
We would stop the sale of our land to people who are not New Zealanders.
We would boost funding for regional roads and rail.
We would ensure key export industry sectors remain in New Zealand hands.
We would turn the tap of immigration way down and require many of them to live in the regions for a number of years before going to the big cities.
Our policy unveiled over the next few months would help provisional industry leaders and farmers to employ New Zealanders locally rather than bring in thousands of immigrants, for example, to work on farms.
When Hawke’s Bay was booming that’s exactly what we did and we’re going to do it again.
The Ministry of Primary Industries says we need over 8000 new farmers for dairying alone if we are to meet targets of doubling exports by 2025.
Government is doing nothing to address that.
And in future policies soon to be announced we will address the ‘twilight zone’ of a growing under class where mainly young people drop out of our economy with few choices to get back in.

Conclusion
New Zealand has a two-tier economy – Auckland, Christchurch and the rest.
We want a one-tier economy where, from Invercargill to Kaitaia, the provinces again become central, core, and critical to our recovery.
New Zealand has massive personal debt, Government debt up eight times in just on eight years, and it is New Zealand First’s intention that the provinces be restored to their rightful place as the drivers of economic wealth and security.
We hear you.
We did that once – when we were a world leader.
And we are going to do it again.
I’m asking you to help us do just that.

ENDS

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