Q+A: Winston Peters
Q+A: Winston Peters interviewed by Jessica Mutch
‘Tinkering around the edges’ - Winston Peters on government changes to immigration
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters who has long campaigned for controls on immigration told Q+A that he doesn’t see the government’s changes to immigration this week as a victory.
‘No, I don’t really, because the consequences and cost for this country is massive, and they’ll be here for many many years. So it’s not a victory to see them do a bit of tinkering around the edges. They’ve been in absolute denial. They have misled the country grossly.
Well, if they did something sound and substantial, I would agree with them..’
When asked about the surplus, Mr Peters told Q+A, ‘the state of surplus is a massive fraud on the New Zealand people’
‘Well, nearly every district health board is in serious debt, is in trouble, so it’s all this underfunding. Educators are in trouble. Tertiary institutions are hard up against it. And the infrastructure of this country, the roading in Auckland and all the other plans that have to be put together, every one of them is massively underfunded..
So I’m saying it’s a mirage. The problem with our economy, and here’s the compelling proof which brings this question of the surplus into line with your question on immigration, our GDP per person is going down, not up.’
Please find
attached the full transcript and you can watch the
interview
here
Q
+ A
Episode
32
WINSTON
PETERS
Interviewed by JESSICA
MUTCH
JESSICA After years of
record migration levels, the government this week announced
changes that will reduce the number of people moving to New
Zealand. It will raise the number of points needed under the
skilled migrant category, and it will place a temporary ban
on applications under the parent category, which allows
parents to join children who have New Zealand residence. In
all, there'll be 5000 fewer migrants over two years
according to government estimates. New Zealand First leader
Winston Peters has long campaigned for controls on
immigration, so I asked him did he see this as a
win?
WINSTON No, I
don’t really, because the consequences and cost for this
country is massive, and they’ll be here for many many
years. So it’s not a victory to see them do a bit of
tinkering around the edges. They’ve been in absolute
denial. They have misled the country grossly. They have
given all sorts of assurances that what we are saying is not
true, and now they’re having to admit it. But the cost
that’s coming will be years in terms of housing,
infrastructure, hospital funding, the DHBs and every other
thing that you can look at where cost is concerned is now
for the future account of the New Zealand
taxpayer.
JESSICA Even
though you call this tinkering, do you feel somewhat
vindicated? This has been something that’s been close to
your heart for a long
time.
WINSTON Well,
if they did something sound and substantial, I would agree
with them, but take, for example, parental reunion.
They’ve said it’s suspended now until 2018. Well,
they’ve gotten almost 2500 applications. That’s why
it’s suspended, sitting parked up now. When it comes to
the issue of the skills category, nearly one in two are
coming in without skills. They’re here now. And then when
you come to, for example, the changes on the student visas,
well, you remember what happened. Students were coming in
for export education, then they said, ‘You can work in our
economy.’ It’s no longer export education when they say
that. And then they said because we weren’t competing with
the rest of the world’s best education institutions,
‘Oh, we’ll give you a pathway to residency.’ You see
how it’s perverted it? And then a lot of people in the
export education business are actually from abroad in this
country exploiting their own people, and the fraud is
massive. Now, when we produced all that information, this
government met us in Parliament and in the media day after
day, saying that this wasn’t
true.
JESSICA Do
you think it’s political, then? Do you think they’ve
seen this gap and seen how popular your policy is, I guess,
and they’re trying to steal your thunder? Is that how it
feels to
you?
WINSTON Well,
it may be that, but what really concerns my party is that
however frivolously they might act now, still the massive
cost to address this issue is to the New Zealand taxpayer,
and the demand is, as you know, in housing is massive. Look
at the gridlock in Auckland — two and a half, two and
three-quarter hours morning and night
now.
JESSICA Do you
think that’s purely because of immigration? Do you think
that’s to
blame?
WINSTON Well,
if you’re bringing in 70,000 net a year — that’s net
and the city of New Plymouth — to Auckland a year and
40,000 cars new on the roads of Auckland every year, I mean,
who here is dreaming that after the local government
election that they’re going to fix anything? You get my
point.
JESSICA Is
that scaremongering a little bit, though, to blame the
housing crisis, to blame Auckland’s transport situation on
migrants?
WINSTON No,
I’m not blaming them on migrants. I’m saying we’re
already got a crisis — a domestic one. But just to make
sure we can’t get on top of it, we’re loading up all
this artificial demand. Look, get one thing clear. We
don’t blame people for trying to make a new life in our
country, but we do blame central government for not having a
focused immigration policy and doing its best and what’s
best for the New Zealand taxpayer as their number one focus
and for the economy. When one out of two is unskilled and
you’ve been talking about a skills category, as a
government you’re just involved in, to put it bluntly,
lying.
JESSICA Because
let’s talk about the parents that have been very much a
focus this week. People who have immigrated here, as you
say, want to create a better life for themselves. They want
their parents to come in. On a personal level, can you see
how that would make them feel more settled here in New
Zealand?
WINSTON Well, of
course I can. I mean, we’ve got a greater sense of
humanity than many other political party has, and we speak
that way. But if I go to America to get a green card,
that’s just me. If I go to the UK, that’s just me. I go
to France, it’s just me. I can’t bring Uncle Tom Cobley
and all, and we can’t afford it. But here’s the point
— 31% who got into the parental reunion category, that is
sponsored their parents, have shot through,
and—
JESSICA So
do we need to work on that aspect, then? Do we need to have
more structures in
place?
WINSTON Well,
in 2012, 2013, we said to this government, ‘Look, you’re
being cheated too. You’re being lied to.’ They just
denied it. Then they said, ‘Well, we’ll now bring in a
new asset— money category with these older people.’ Did
they police it? No. So what they engaged themselves in was a
complicated exercise of denial and deception, and it’s all
exposed now. Do we feel good about it? No, I don’t. I
despair as to what’s happened to this country, because in
so many areas, it makes the job of recovery so much harder
now.
JESSICA You’ve
talked about that 70,000 net migration. You’ve come on the
show before and said you’d like to cap it at around that
15,000
mark.
WINSTON 10,000.
JESSICA 10,000
to 15,000 was the figure. How would you go about doing
that?
WINSTON Well,
you bring in people — you have the number one principle,
which we’ve always had and which every smart economy has
— bring in people that your economy needs, not who needs
your
economy.
JESSICA So
would you have a points system that was higher, or how would
you tweak
it?
WINSTON It
would be a skills points system. It would be English
language-based as well. You’ve got so many people here
after 15 years can’t speak a word of English. They’re
getting driver’s licences. I don’t know how they’re
doing it, but I suspect what’s going on there. But you do
that, and then you make sure that there is a job for them.
You know, I’ll give you a good example. We have tremendous
animal husbandry in this country, and we should have a
leather industry. Have we ever targeted to bring in leather
industry specialists to make ourselves one of the fashion
industry capitals of the world? We’ve never even
tried.
JESSICA Do
we need migrants in this country, do you
think?
WINSTON It’s
one of our founding principles that this country will always
need to fill the skills and gaps in science, education,
universities and what have
you.
JESSICA And do
we need those foreign
workers?
WINSTON Well,
whilst we’ll always need a certain degree to fill those
gaps, immigration should never be used as an excuse for
failing to train, educate and employ your own New Zealanders
first.
JESSICA Is
15,000 going to be enough, though, to fill those gaps? I
mean, you yourself have been talking a lot about rural areas
over the last few months, and one of the areas, in
horticulture, they’re crying out for workers. How would
you target areas so immigrants went to places like that
where they’re
needed?
WINSTON Look,
I was the MP in the Bay of Plenty for a long time and the
kiwifruit industry was burgeoning back then. Guess who
picked all the kiwifruit back then? Young and older people
in the Bay of
Plenty.
JESSICA Do
you think that could happen
now?
WINSTON But,
no, they were doing it back then. Why are they not doing it
now? And I tell you why, because you see massive fraud
coming in by way work gangs from offshore, companies set up,
they hire under the table and not
paying—
JESSICA But,
see, it’s
interesting—
WINSTON No,
no, let me tell you what happens. Not paying first-world
wages, at the end of the season, they liquidate the company,
don’t pay any tax, and then the guy shoots through. Second
year, back, same group, same guy, same operation, new
company, over and over
again.
JESSICA A
few weeks ago, though, I had on the show as well some
workers who employed foreign workers and New Zealand
workers, and they said the New Zealand workers didn’t turn
up to work and often weren’t in a fit state to work. What
do you think about that? Don’t we need these migrant
workers who are hungry for the
work?
WINSTON No,
isn’t it astonishing? That’s the Bill English argument,
that’s the John Key argument, saying that New Zealanders
are useless. How come the highest income people in Australia
bar all immigration in Australia are New Zealanders? How
come we’re so valued in London, by so many economies and
so many businesses there? Why? Because we muck in and we
know how to get along with people. And so on the one hand
we’ve got a tremendous New Zealand workforce that used to
be able to, Mum and Dad and the kids, be four or five adult
workers in New
Zealand.
JESSICA What’s
changed, then, do you
think?
WINSTON What’s
changing is they’re not getting paid any more
properly.
JESSICA Do
you think that’s the
problem?
WINSTON That’s
the problem. Instead of giving farmers a decent tax break
and employers a decent tax break to export and to pay their
workers first-world wages, we’re getting by with this new
ideology — mass immigration, drive down wages, and we’ll
somehow advantage New Zealand. Now, Lee Kuan knew
specifically when he began the economic experiment in
Singapore, said, ‘High wages is what’s going to take me
there, not low
wages.’
JESSICA In
terms of the ageing population in New Zealand, we do have an
ageing population. Don’t we need those immigrants to come
in to fill in the workforce to be able to support this
ageing
population?
WINSTON I’m
so glad you raised
that.
JESSICA I’m
sure you
are.
WINSTON I’m
so glad you raised that, because you’d think that,
wouldn’t you? You would think a targeted immigration
programme would be bringing the average age down. Uh-uh. The
two high categories are the very young — preschool, I mean
pre working in the workforce — and guess what, those that
are 55, 60 and older — are the two highest categories
coming in. And 87,000 have come here in the last 15 years,
got immediately medical benefits and within 10 years —
just 10 years — whether they paid any tax or not, full
super. What economy in the world does that, and how can we
afford it? Now, if you had a targeted immigration policy,
and that’s the absolute evidence you’ve given in your
question, that it’s not targeted, instead of driving the
average age down, it’s driving it
up.
JESSICA One of
the things I also wanted to talk to you about was an
interesting idea I was reading about of taking government
departments and putting them into the
regions.
WINSTON Mm.
JESSICA Why
do you think that’s a good idea, and what departments do
you think that could work
for?
WINSTON Well,
you know, why has the Department of Conservation got massive
investment in
Wellington?
JESSICA Where
do you think it could go to? Give me an
example
WINSTON Out
in the provinces where conservation’s
required.
JESSICA So
what’s an
example?
WINSTON There’s
one. Forestry is another one. For example, the education
department has computerised sort of skills which could be in
any provincial city in this country. You’ve got IRD, which
used to be— it should be split far more widely, in this
computerised age, right around the country. And you go to
Norway, one of the world’s great economies, Oslo has
barely driven because when it comes to the thing that
we’re talking about, they are saying, ‘No, you’re not
coming to Oslo. Put it somewhere around
Norway.’
JESSICA Because
one of the interesting examples, I guess, is the BBC.
They’ve moved it from London to Manchester. Do you think
that might work for TVNZ as
well?
WINSTON Well,
where’s Fox News in America? Is it in New York? No. Is it
in Washington?
No.
JESSICA Do you
think that would be a good example of where that could
happen?
WINSTON Well,
the way this government and former governments have behaved
in recent years, it’s as though they’d never heard of
computerisation. When the very utility that arrived in our
economy to help us do that happened, no, they kept on
centralising. Now we want the provinces who pay most of the
taxes anyway, who create the great export wealth of New
Zealand to get a fair
go.
JESSICA Another
topic that’s been dominating this week has been the
surplus, which National have been very keen to talk about.
How do you think that that money should be spent? Is it time
for a tax cut?
WINSTON Well, the
state of surplus is a massive fraud on the New Zealand
people, and I cannot believe the number of journalists who
are repeating it. I’ll tell you, for
example—
JESSICA You
don’t believe that number or that
figure?
WINSTON Of
course I don’t believe that number, because the police
force numbers were capped in 2010 and we’ve gone down in
police numbers per capita, not
up.
JESSICA But you
don’t believe in the surplus
numbers?
WINSTON No,
I
don’t.
JESSICA That’s
the
question.
WINSTON No,
I don’t, because what Mr Key and others have promised
they’ve not delivered on. Take, for example, health
funding. They keep on using these billion-dollar figures,
but—
JESSICA So
is that where you’d want to spend
it?
WINSTON Well,
nearly every district health board is in serious debt, is in
trouble, so it’s all this underfunding. Educators are in
trouble. Tertiary institutions are hard up against it. And
the infrastructure of this country, the roading in Auckland
and all the other plans that have to be put together, every
one of them is massively underfunded and you’ve got a guy
here that he reminds me of the Minister of Finance way back
— I wasn’t alive at that time — in the Great
Depression. He was balancing the books, yes, certainly, but
the country was going to hell in a handbasket, and there he
is boasting, ‘I’ve got a $1.8 billion surplus.’ And I
say to him, ‘How many police are you short? How many
doctors are you short? How many DHBs are all in debt?’ and
he’s not interested in
answering.
JESSICA So
you’d divvy those up, and that’s how you’d spend it if
you were in charge and had influence in the
decision?
WINSTON So
I’m saying it’s a mirage. The problem with our economy,
and here’s the compelling proof which brings this question
of the surplus into line with your question on immigration,
our GDP per person is going down, not up. We’ve taken on
an extra 470,000 people, and whilst the GDP has grown some,
it hasn’t grown commensurate with that increase. Now,
here’s the nub. If we but double our GDP by 2050, 34
years’ time, we will have the same cost structure as
we’ve got now if we don’t change the population mix. But
if you mass immigrate into this country, we’re just going
to be on a slide to a great and growing
disaster.