EMBARGOED AGAINST DELIVERY

Rt. Hon Winston Peters

Leader NZ First

Address: Address In Reply

Date: December 21 2011

Time: 3.45 pm

Venue: Parliament Debating Chamber

“Concoctions and Contradictions”

Mr Speaker,

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, New Zealand is in economic and social trouble because of its blind adherence to policies that will not work.

First we want to thank the thousands of people who brought New Zealand First back to Parliament.

We didn’t enjoy the massive taxpayer resources or the financial resources of other parties, or indeed the soft media idolatry that was generously conferred on some parties.

However, we were on the receiving end of a seeming blackout, boycott, media embargo that was designed to discredit and diminish us.

We packed hall after hall, which is surely a demonstration of consumer demand, or indeed that there is such a thing as a political market only to find again and again that our message was being spiked.

In short we were blacked out.

That is why I and my colleagues are deeply indebted to the New Zealand people and their sense of fair play.

They knew there was something rotten going on and they were not going to be part of it.

Over the past three years we went the length and breadth of the country.

We spoke to New Zealanders from the deep South to the far North.

We learned their fears, their hopes and their dreams of what they want as the future of their country.

New Zealand First did not rely on focus groups, opinion polls, surveys and profiling to find out what the people were thinking.

We simply went and visited them and listened to them.

That’s why New Zealand First is back here to provide a voice for New Zealanders who believe in the concept of a fair go for everyone.

Our society was built on this ideal.

What we have heard from the National Party again today puts us in mind of a substance that dairy farmers wash off a cowshed floor with a strong hose!

That substance smells like a scented rose compared to the stench of the deals done by the National Party and its hangers-on.

For example.

What happened to one law for all from the Act party?

What happened to no privatisation of water from the United Future party.

What happened to no sale of strategic assets from the Maori Party.

Without these three parties selling out their principles this government has no majority.

But there is some good news -we are back in the nick of time.

And although we are but eight lined up against the faces of irresponsible capitalism remember that in the bold old days a Roman soldier Horatius held the bridge with only two.

On November 6th at Kelston we warned New Zealanders what to expect.

And it’s exactly what has happened.

We set out in a speech the crucial issues that would bring us back to Parliament.

Not one media told the public why we had decided to go into Opposition.

And today from the government you heard all the evidence that New Zealand First had made the right decision.

Whanau Ora

Let’s start with the giant leap into a state of apartheid called whanau ora.

This is National’s billion dollar bribe to the Maori party.

Talk about koha!

The National Party has promised the Maori Party at least one billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to feed the Treaty travellers, corporate Maori and so-called “providers” of Maori services.

Let me tell you exactly what Maori need.

It’s exactly the same as all New Zealanders.

They need jobs with first world wages so they can provide for their families.

They need jobs so they can regain and retain their dignity.

They need warm housing.

They need good healthcare and they need a sound education and training.

This will not be achieved by siphoning a billion dollars to set up separate agencies to deal with these matters separately.

Past governments of all colours worked hard to include Maori and to provide better housing, education, healthcare and employment.

The coalition deal between National and the Maori Party is a document that brings great shame to everyone involved in it.

Listen to this and I quote “ National and the Maori Party agree to support the evolving focus and ongoing implementation of Whanau Ora”.

Evolving focus?

That means making things up as you go along – or another translation thinking up better ideas to get more trotters in the trough.

Then there’s a “stand alone commissioning agency” within twelve months.

This of course is the new Ministry of Apartheid.

But wait, as they say, there’s more.

“Whanau Ora will increasingly bring a greater focus to address the issues of employment, housing, educational achievement and the wellbeing of the most vulnerable ….that is psychobabble.

Let’s repeat it.

Employment?

We thought the Finance Minister announced 171,000 new jobs in the last budget.

Or was that just a fraudulent document?

Now you don’t create more jobs by setting up a separate system – except for the selected Treaty travellers heading for the trough.

In case National and the Maori Party haven’t noticed there are already state agencies that deal with the same matters.

TPK or the Ministry of Maori Development already has an oversight responsibility to ensure various ministries deliver to Maori.

If these ministries are not working to capacity we suggest that Maori should look at the ministers in charge of them.

There’s an old fashioned way of motivating ministers – it’s two words.

One starts with K and the other with A and it usually comes in inverted commas!

We are uniquely qualified in New Zealand First to reveal the expensive separatism hidden in Whanau Ora.

Great New Zealand leaders of the past – both Maori and non- Maori - knew their people.

They built this country.

They worked hard to provide jobs, healthcare, education and housing for everyone.

New Zealanders will never accept the separatism in Whanau Ora.

National was strangely silent about this during the election campaign.

Constitutional Review

And while we are on this coalition agreement let’s look at another outrage – the review of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.

We warned about this too – and everyone was silent.

National and the Maori Party are going to progress the review of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements with the Treaty of Waitangi as its cornerstone.

What about the four million plus other New Zealanders who live here?

The democratic rights and the governance of New Zealanders are being traded between National and the Maori Party like junk bonds on Wall Street.

People have died for the cause of democracy.

This country has a history of fighting the forces of fascism, Nazism and communism.

Nobody gave National and the Maori Party the right to meddle with our constitutional arrangements.

We will do everything in our power to stop this.

And now, let’s look at the detail or rather the lack of it.

Where’s the money coming from for these deals?

We know it’s being siphoned off other government spending.

Who is missing out? Where is the billion dollars coming from?

Don’t tell us you’re going to sell power stations and lakes and rivers to fund Whanau Ora!

Or is this what the government is doing?

State Assets

The prime minister this year has so far given three separate reasons for privatising state assets.

First - he was going to repay debt. Then someone reminded him that private debt is the problem, so second - he said he was going to sell state assets to buy other state assets.

Next – third - he said he was going to spend the power stations’ sales monies on schools and hospitals – apparently these were the new state assets.

But they don’t make a return.

When that went down like a lead balloon he’s back reinvesting the money in new investments.

There is going to be a ten percent cap on share ownership.

So pray tell us how does this work?

We’re just trying to think of a New Zealand Mum and Dad who can afford ten percent of Mighty River.

This is simply more deception.

Mighty River Power is a jewel in the Crown of state assets.

Why sell it? We all know it will end up in the hands of a foreign company.

This is what happens when a cabinet of wheeler dealers take over.

They are fully applying the principles of irresponsible capitalism taught by the Wall Street traders.

Except that principles of course have nothing to do with it.

This is what they firmly believe in.

You capitalise your profits and you socialise your losses.

Just look at the dog of an insurance company called AMI.

The boss got paid a million dollars last year.

But when the time came to pay insurance claims he went bleating to the government.

Now the good part of AMI – the customer base – is being sold to a foreign insurance company.

The bad part – hundreds of millions of debt is being met by the New Zealand taxpayers.

And South Canterbury Finance – which is now a state funded benefit for lawyers, consultants and managers.

At last count it was about a billion and a half – and still climbing.

Mr Speaker the government’s plans outlined in the speech from the throne today are a concoction of backroom deals and contradictions.

It doesn’t make sense.

The government has an extraordinary plan to cut jobs by reducing spending while at the same time demanding that unemployed people go back to work.

Someone should have told the National Party and its hangers-on that it is physically and financially impossible to cut jobs and create them at the same time.

Charter Schools

Now - on the subject of charter schools, the government is simply privatising under-achievement and failure.

The state is obliged to educate New Zealand children.

The government must look within the Education Ministry ranks for solutions to its educational failures.

Charter schools are for private organisations to make money. It’s as simple as that.

Free Trade

And once again trade deals!

When will they ever learn?

These “high quality” trade agreements are simply licences for job losses.

How many times must we get into free trade agreements that massively benefit the other parties before we finally wake up?”

The government’s plan as outlined today will not improve New Zealand socially or economically.

We will eventually lose our valuable power stations and other state assets and most people will be much the poorer.

Mr Speaker we’re back in the nick of time.

This government did not get a mandate either on election day or after it to sell valuable state assets to their mates.

We intend to remind New Zealanders every day for the next three years what three of the four parties who make up this government actually campaigned on.

We intend to tell people who conspire against New Zealand’s interests that there’s will be a short term investment and that after 2014 – or earlier – we’ll have a mandate to take these assets back.

We want to make it very clear to some people in this country that since 1854 we’ve held elections every three years – in peace or war.

That’s because New Zealand is one of the world’s great democracies.

We in New Zealand First know that Parliament has real power and so does Opposition.

We are here to propose good policies and oppose bad policies and that is exactly what we are going to do.

That is what New Zealanders are paying us to do.

Let us finish with a brief quote that explains exactly what is wrong with concepts of freedom and democracy in New Zealand.

Listen to this quote from a newspaper “The new government has a job to do. It is in no ones’ interests for it to be diverted by politics.”

Ladies and gentlemen this is not North Korea. This is not a one party state.

Be warned.

ENDS

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