Speech: Peters - Taumarunui
WINSTON PETERS SPEECH; NZ FIRST
RESTORING FAIRNESS FOR TAUMARUNUI AND PROVINCIAL
NZ
EMBARGOED
UNTIL DELIVERY
Speech to Taumarunui Residents and
Ratepayers’ Association public
meeting
Taumarunui
Cosmopolitan Club,
10 Miriama
Street,
Taumarunui.
Wednesday, August 2,
2017
1.30pm-2.30pm
NZ FIRST RESTORING
FAIRNESS FOR TAUMARUNUI AND PROVINCIAL NZ
It
is pleasure to be here in Taumarunui.
Bounded by the
Whanganui National Park and the Tongariro, this is a
beautiful part of the country.
And it’s a proud rugby
playing part of New Zealand.
While here today I want to
wish the Taumarunui Rugby Club well for the 11th, 12th and
13th August when it celebrates 110 years.
You live in an
area with great natural resources.
And potential.
Yet
it is clear you are not being able to fulfil your true
potential.
ELECTRICITY
One major
headache for approximately 50,000 people here in the King
Country and Turangi is the excessive amount you must pay for
electricity.
There is something seriously wrong when you
pay more to the Lines Company carrying the electricity than
for the electricity itself.
There must be fairness in the
pricing regime and it is obvious your region is not getting
it.
As well as impacting harshly on domestic
electricity users, the unfair charges are restricting
business growth in this region.
The tourism and
agricultural industries are paying the price and valuable
export dollars are being lost.
New Zealand First
sees the electricity sector as basic infrastructure and as
such its primary purpose is to serve the public and underpin
the economy.
Because it is so important to New
Zealand’s prosperity we consider energy policy must be
shaped first and foremost by what is the national
interest.
And as part of this policy, electricity must be
made available to all New Zealanders at the lowest
reasonable price.
Before privatisation New Zealand had a
world class electricity system run by the state as a natural
monopoly.
Under this system, duplication of generation
and transmission was avoided.
Management overhead
was minimised and electricity costs were some of the
cheapest in the world.
It was a cutting edge advantage
for our businesses and our homes.
Today, in contrast, the
electricity sector is characterised by ever escalating
electricity prices and a fragmented and complex industry
structure.
What we have is a bewildering array of
quasi-monopolistic organisations.
And they are not
serving New Zealand’s interests.
Worse – the
electricity sector has been turned into a gravy train of
epic proportions at the public’s expense with management
being paid excessive remuneration packages.
The so-called
“electricity reforms” have not delivered what was
claimed would happen and what the public was led to expect
– lower prices and better services.
It is obvious the
electricity system here in the King Country and Turangi is
terribly inefficient.
You have been let down by National
MPs as well as the Commerce Commission which sits by and
does nothing.
It is hard to believe the Lines
Company has been in front of the Commerce Commission so many
times and nothing has happened.
The Commerce Commission
is a weak government department that needs to be given
strong direction and the power to act and enforce.
We
know that they have failed to do both here in
Taumarunui.
It is unacceptable.
Ruapehu Alpine
Lifts pays more than $1 million in lines fees than if the
mountain was moved to Queenstown.
Either these
distribution companies are brought more strongly into line
with local expectations or we will make them government
agencies.
New Zealand First’s long term strategy is to
buy back the shares of the state owned energy companies sold
by the National government.
This will require detailed
planning and a long-term approach but it is the only way to
ensure the energy sector services New Zealand’s national
interest.
It will ensure also that areas such as the King
Country and Turangi do not have to go on struggling for fair
electricity prices.
Lines companies must provide
infrastructure to customers to a level that ensures the
lines can cope with the peak loading of the lines.
We have started discussions with some of the lines
companies and despite their reticence we believe there is a
need for some form of amalgamation.
This will depend on
the outcome of the Electricity Authority and Commerce
Commission reforms.
We can assure you we are pursuing
this issue regarding the Lines Company vigorously.
My
colleague Fletcher Tabuteau has been talking to you and
trying to hold the Lines Company, the government and the
Commerce Commission to account.
We will keep
fighting.
It is New Zealand First’s view that too
much of New Zealand’s core infrastructure has ended up in
foreign ownership.
We believe investment in strategic
assets must be in New Zealand’s interests – and we
consider the electricity sector to be a strategic asset.
HOSPITAL
The government’s
made a lot of noise about their so-called surplus in this
year’s budget, which was nothing more than exercise in
creative accounting.
Any government can create a surplus
if for years it under spends on nearly every
sector.
Regions such as the King Country have borne the
brunt of government meanness.
Taumarunui once had a large
hospital with surgical, medical and children’s
wards.
Now you have a smaller hospital and face long
travel times to specialist medical services.
You are
being penalised for living in a provincial area.
Then you
have to endure the incompetency of the Ministry of Health
which under Health Minister Jonathan Coleman cannot do basic
accounting – it under allocates money to some DHBs and
gives others more than they bargained on.
Last week GPs
all over the country went public and said they were under so
much pressure it was putting the whole health system at
serious risk.
Hundreds of doctors wrote to Minister
Coleman warning of a looming crisis due to funding issues
and a GP shortage.
Did he listen?
No – because he
lives in a fantasy world.
Quite simply our health system
needs an adequate dose of funding from government.
And
fast.
Putting New Zealanders’ health first should be at
the top of the government’s agenda.
There are many
other issues and areas where the funding deficit is doing
serious damage, for example;
· Poverty
· Conservation
· Housing
· Roads
· Bridges
· Trains
· Infrastructure
To say nothing
of stopping contributions into the NZ Super Fund to assist
with the future costs of retirement.
If the government
was paying into the NZ Super Fund there would, on that
payment alone, be no surplus – and how come commentators
can’t get that simple fact?
HONEST GOVERNMENT
Record net immigration is now
at net over 73,000 per year.
The government love it
because it is the only way they can get growth in the
economy - by mass immigration.
But this government will
not come clean – and adjust its numbers to growth per
capita, that is, GDP growth per person.
If they did, and
it’s flat lining, you’d all know the truth.
And the
truth is this country is under-performing economically and
that affects millions of lives.
HOUSING
AFFORDABILITY
Until immigration is
drastically reduced any claims that politicians are serious
about the housing crisis is just hot air.
And reduce it
not from 73,000 to what Labour wants - 40,000 to 50,000 -
but to 10,000, the net number New Zealand First
wants.
The Auckland housing crisis is spilling into the
regions making housing increasingly
unaffordable.
National are failing horrendously in
Auckland.
Look at the statistics – a 40,000 house
shortage and only 10,364 consents issued in Auckland in the
year to June, well below the 14,000 still needed just to
keep up with population demand.
Only a pitiful 6827
houses were completed in Auckland in the year to May.
(Auckland City Council data on Code Certificate
Completions.).
SAVINGS
Four
Australian-owned banks dominate our banking sector.
These
banks remit billions of profits, dividends and other
payments each year creating an enormous drain on our economy
and the balance of payments.
But where is our government
on this?
As usual - missing in action.
They are
totally happy with 95% of the NZ banking system being owned
overseas. It fits perfectly with their “sell-sell”
agenda.
The proportion of foreign ownership in this
country is among the highest in the developed
world.
Given that NZ is already in net debt to the rest
of the world to the tune of $156 billion it is long since
time for action on this front.
New Zealand First will
start by putting every central and local government account
with KiwiBank.
We pay the money so our bank, not a
foreign one, will clip the ticket.
YOUNG
UNEMPLOYED
An appalling
blight on the National government is the way they have
allowed more than 92,000 young New Zealanders to drift
aimlessly with no job and no involvement in training or
education.
You’re doing a great job in Taumarunui but
what is government doing to upskill young New
Zealanders?
The answer – little or next to
nothing.
National would rather bring in cheap compliant
labour from overseas.
They would rather approve a record
226,000 work visas to people from overseas as they did in
the 2016/17 year.
This was up by 17,000.
It is
expected to reach 243,000 next year.
All these people can
work in New Zealand and yet we have those more than 92,000
young New Zealanders doing nothing.
As well as this we
have 139,000 unemployed.
These unemployed and drifting
young New Zealanders won’t go away.
Our society will
pay the price – with more crime and dysfunctional families
going from one generation to the next.
This vicious cycle
won’t be broken under National.
This country needs to
regain its social conscience – or the social problems we
have now –- will only deepen and
worsen.
EXPORTS – FORESTRY
Farming
and forestry play a vital role in your local
economy.
However, NZ First is deeply concerned the supply
lines of these main export earners have increasingly fallen
into overseas control.
In the dairy industry, with Infant
Formula, the Chinese now have a stranglehold on the supply
line from New Zealand to the baby’s mouth in China.
In
the red meat industry, the controlling interest in our
largest exporter Silver Fern Farms is held by the
Chinese.
Forestry is dominated by foreign
owners.
Foreign-controlled companies represent just over
46 percent of the total exotic forestry estate but control
eight of the top 10 forest companies in New
Zealand.
Presently excessive exporting of raw logs is
going on.
With massive volumes of raw logs being shipped
out, billions of dollars in add-on value are being lost to
other economies.
In 2000 there were 507 sawmills in New
Zealand; in 2015 the number had dropped to 327.
Dairy,
red meat, forestry, next to tourism, are our biggest export
earners and we are losing control of them.
That is not in
the best interests of this country.
We are handling over
our wealth, our assets, and our resources to foreigners.
RAIL
KiwiRail is scrapping its
electric locomotives on the North Island Main Trunk Line and
replacing them with diesels.
These are staggeringly
retrograde steps but they typify this government’s total
failure in the area of climate change.
Trains used to
stop regularly in Taumarunui and the town is well known for
the song about the station refreshment room.
Why can’t
trains stop here more often?
New Zealand First has a
policy which does not run down and close rail as National
has done.
We believe in a co-ordinated transport strategy
built on road, rail and shipping.
Your roads are taking a
heavy pounding from heavy trucks – especially logging
trucks.
It makes sense to use rail as other leading
economies do.
STIMULATING LOCAL
ECONOMY
New Zealand First
has policies which will reverse the serious neglect you have
suffered under National.
Tourism is lifting your local
economy.
Yet you are struggling to pay for infrastructure
– roading and toilets.
The government took in nearly
$1.5b in GST from international visitors to New Zealand in
the year to March 2016, and $950m the year before, yet
little has gone to councils that desperately need money for
toilets, sewerage schemes and local road improvements to
cope with tourist numbers.
You are being robbed
blind.
They are taking billions off the regions and
giving peanuts back.
Worse still, they are trying to make
themselves look magnanimous whilst giving you a pittance
back.
Under NZ First policy we will return the GST paid
by international tourists in this region for tourism
infrastructure and roads, and to stimulate job training and
opportunities.
Under NZ First policy – with our
Royalties for the Regions policy no less than 25 per cent of
the royalties will go back to the regions.
Under NZ First
policy – any water rights for exports will pay serious
royalties which will go back to the region where the water
came from.
Under NZ First there will be no more of you
having to go cap in hand to ministers and bureaucrats to ask
for your own money back.
EXPORTERS
Under New Zealand First we will help your
exporters, farmers, and others by fixing the Reserve Bank
Act so the dollar helps them and not the paper shufflers,
currency speculators and overseas banks.
And of course we
will sort out the electricity mess which is holding your
region back.
CONCLUSION
This ridiculous situation you face with
electricity typifies politics today.
We have seen it
wherever we have gone in New Zealand on our recent Campaign
for the Regions bus tour.
Regions are feeling left out,
forgotten, neglected – and even betrayed.
There is no
fairness or balance.
Ladies and gentlemen, New Zealand
First will restore that fairness and balance to provincial
New Zealand.
ENDS