Speech: Peters - It’s not all roses, you’re being robbed
WINSTON PETERS TIMARU SPEECH: You have a right to be
proud, but it’s not all roses, you’re being
robbed
to
Rt Hon
Winston Peters
New Zealand First
Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
8 JULY 2017
Campaign for the Regions
Tour,
South Canterbury RSA
,
21 Wai-iti Rd,
Timaru.
10.30am, Saturday, July 8,
2017
Excerpts from
speech
You have a right to be proud, but
it’s not all roses, you’re being
robbed
We are on a
Campaign for the Regions Tour to meet and listen to the
people who, in many ways, in the corridors of power have
been simply forgotten.
We have gone to towns and cities
that from all appearances Parliament is not interested
in.
We have found towns and regions that feel neglected
and ignored by central government.
Their voices are not
being heard.
CARRYING THE HEAVY ECONOMIC LOAD
Now we have come to your city, Timaru and
its hinterland.
Driving into Timaru we stopped to view
the Phar Lap statue at Washdyke.
As you all know Phar
Lap was born at Seadown and went on to become the greatest
racehorse in Australasia.
Timaru and South Canterbury
have a great tradition of producing champions with names
like Fitzsimmons, Lovelock, right up the present day with
shot putter Tom Walsh, world champion cyclist Marc Ryan,
Olympic silver medallist shooter Natalie Rooney and rally
driver Hayden Paddon.
This remarkable record shows us yet
again the great talent that comes out of our
regions.
It’s not just “something” in the water as
the saying goes, it’s more than that.
You have a right
to be proud.
But look at the other great wealth that
comes out of your region through farming, fishing, tourism,
SMEs and industries.
This region is making a major
contribution to the national economy.
MINIMAL GROWTH DOWN HERE
Yet it is not all roses.
Infometrics’
provisional estimate of GDP percentage growth for Timaru
District for the year to March 2017 was only 0.9, a slight
increase from the previous figure of 0.6%.
This is
minimal growth.
On our trip we have learned regional New
Zealand has been remarkably adaptable.
They have been
forced to be.
But many of towns and cities still lack
the vibrancy they once had.
The disastrous right-wing
economic experiment New Zealand governments have been on has
gouged regional New Zealand.
Regions have struggled to
keep their heads above water without any serious help from
central government.
Auckland is where the population is
– Auckland is National’s fixation.
TOURISM
Tourism
is lifting your local economy.
Yet mayors here are
struggling to pay for infrastructure – roading and
toilets.
In the year to May 2016, international tourists
spent $202 million in the Timaru district; $210 million in
Mackenzie district.
As a result of this the government
pocketed a GST tax bonanza of tens of millions of
dollars.
This is from money spent here in your region but
it is going into the national coffers.
In today’s
Timaru Herald page one, there is information that
tells you just what is wrong with central government where
the regions are concerned.
You have comments from the
Land and Information Minister and Ministry for Business,
Information and Employment, and Tourism Minister Paula
Bennett.
First of all, Minister Mitchell said this:
“the real challenge for freedom camping and tourism is
district wide and so there has to be a combined approach if
the district wants to encourage people to
visit.”
“LINZ is paying to put additional money
towards The Pines area and will be discussing with the
council what its role and contribution will be.”
Then
MBIE’s spokesperson said “territorial authorities were
eligible to apply to the fund (regional mid-sized Tourism
Grant Fund).”
But central government agencies, like
LINZ, were not.
However, if a council wanted to put a
tourist related facility on land manged by a government
agency, “it could apply for the cost of constructing the
facility which it would then own.”
Tourism Minister
Bennett said they were “working with local councils to
meet the challenges of strong tourism growth. Along with
$8.5m in co-funding, from 42 projects, from the Mid Sized
Facilities Grant Fund, Budget 2017 has invested $178m over
four years to tourism infrastructure.
Including $100m in
the new Tourism Infrastructure Fund.
And there you have
it really, you’re being deluged with tourists and the
government wants a discussion about what it should
contribute.
If there’s no toilet on government owned
land, and you put one up, you can own the toilet.
And
then Minister Bennett is having trouble with her numbers. In
this year’s budget the funding she referred to was set at
$102m over four years, not $178m.
The government took in
total $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.
Ladies and
gentlemen, you are being robbed blind, they are taking
billions off the regions and giving peanuts back. Worse
still, these scrooges 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 the Timaru, Waitaki, McKenzie to these regions
– for tourism infrastructure and roads, and to stimulate
job training and opportunities.
Under NZ First policy –
under 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 you having to go cap in hand to Ministers
and bureaucrats to ask for your own money back.
SMALL BUSINESSES
• Small businesses are vitally
important to Timaru and South Canterbury.
• They
need incentives and assistance.
• New Zealand
First will provide a wage subsidy for small
businesses that take on job seekers and provide work
experience.
• We will provide immediate tax
deductions for every new business asset costing under
$20,000
• And a tax deduction for professional
expenses when starting a business.
We will get
National’s nanny state off your back.
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
New Zealand First will also shift government departments out of Wellington and Auckland and spread them into regional centres like Timaru.
BANKS
Too
often the government has just sat by and let our regions
wither.
The most recent example is the closure of bank
branches.
When Westpac shut down Fairlie’s only bank at
the end of last year that was a big blow for the
locals.
Westpac shut down 18 other branches in rural
areas around New Zealand.
ANZ shut their Waimate branch
last year also.
These are foreign owned banks taking
taxpayers’ money and shipping millions of dollars of
profits overseas.
They don’t care about ordinary New
Zealanders.
National has let it happen.
EXPORTERS
New Zealand First policy –
we will fix the Reserve Bank Act so the dollar helps
exporters and not the paper shufflers, currency speculators
and overseas banks.
POLYTECHNIC
Just as they let your
local Aoraki polytechnic amalgamate with CPIT in
Christchurch.
Your polytech has faded away to a shadow of
its former self.
DAIRY – ADDED
VALUE
Dairy is our second
biggest export earner behind tourism and is a major player
in the South Canterbury economy.
The Fonterra factory at
Clandeboye has been a boon for you processing millions of
litres of milk from more than 895 local farmers making
enough product to fill 70 containers a day.
But we need
to be careful.
You would think we would have total
control of this vitally important industry.
We
don’t.
We are steadily losing the added-value of our
dairy produce,
Chinese companies Evergrand, Synlait,
Yashili, Yili/Oceania Dairy which you have in South
Canterbury down near Glenavy, and the Chinese controlled
Mautaura Valley Milk have tied up Infant Formula production
here.
China own, operate and control the supply chain
from New Zealand to the baby’s mouth in China.
NZ First
believes we must make a stand and stop foreign control of
our greatest assets.
FOREIGN LAND
SALES
Some of our most
iconic high country stations, some of them in the McKenzie
Country, are also being flogged off to foreign
buyers.
These are stations which have been in New
Zealanders’ hands for 100 years and more.
Foreign
buyers snapped up 465,863 hectares in 2016, compared to
79,897 hectares sold to foreigners in 2015
Where is the
gain for New Zealand?
Our preference is for New
Zealanders to farm and look after the land for generations
to come.
ROADS, RAIL,
SHIPPING
NZ First is
committed to a massive campaign to seal local roads, improve
overall road quality and double-lane bridges where
sensible.
We want this country to have a fully
co-ordinated transportation strategy with road, rail and
coastal shipping.
We can’t have just trucks.
You
have an excellent port here in Timaru.
New Zealand First
wants it to reach its full potential.
We support the
proposal to revive the Christchurch-Invercargill passenger
train service.
But there must also be more freight
directed back to rail also.
CONCLUSION
Your region, like others
we have seen, have been neglected and ignored by central
government.
They take you for granted.
They are remote
from the people and have sat by and watched the drift north,
to Auckland.
They don’t care that the South Island
never had a Lions rugby test match this year.
The first
time it has ever happened.
You can sit back and take all
this if you want.
But NZ First says it is time to stand
up and make a change.
Don’t be ignored; don’t be
forgotten; don’t be taken for granted.
The regions of
New Zealand must stand up and make their voices hears.
We
will make sure you are heard.
New Zealand First will
change the direction this country is going in and revive
regional New Zealand.
Everyone here can contribute.
We
can do it together.
ENDS