Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
22 NOVEMBER 2016

PAYING THE PRICE FOR SALE OF STATE INSURANCE

New Zealanders are again paying the price for the sale of state assets, says New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“Thousands of people may lose their jobs as giant Australian insurer IAG plans to sack thousands of Kiwis and send work overseas.

“This includes the employees of State, now owned by IAG, its current owner after State was privatised by the 1984-1990 Labour government.

“New Zealand should once again have our own state insurance company – which New Zealand First has already pledged to deliver. It would be called ‘KiwiSure’.

“State-owned insurance had been set up as a fair competitor to foreign insurance companies in New Zealand. That privatisation sale, like so many of the state asset sales, did not result from an act of stupidity but from business elites gaining control of the Labour Party policy machine.

“The chickens are all coming home to roost and New Zealand should again have its own state insurance company which New Zealand First has already pledged to deliver.

“A New Zealand owned and state run insurance company always made sense and it makes sense now.

“KiwiSure will ensure that there is a reliable insurer. It will be government controlled and guaranteed, and will deal with disaster claims promptly and fairly.

“New Zealanders learned from the Christchurch earthquake experience just how fragile some of the overseas insurance companies really are.

“After 81 years of being virtually free of major earthquakes, when the Christchurch earthquake happened not one of the foreign insurance companies was ready for it.

“No doubt New Zealanders are being fed the same old flim flam that private interests do it better.

“They don’t, which the New Zealand people have learned to their bitter cost.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/86725204/Giant-insurer-IAG-could-cull-jobs-in-New-Zealand

ENDS

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