Rt Honourable Winston Peters address NZ First, Dunedin 31st October 2009

6pm, Coronation Hall, 97 Gordon St, Mosgiel

“What result from the economic experiment?”

A voice has been lost from the Parliamentary process, and every week that loss is felt more keenly.

Can you hear the silence?

Since New Zealand First left parliament, too many policies have not been rigorously questioned and too few warnings are being given about the consequences of legislation which has not been properly researched.

The return of New Zealand First to Parliament in 2011 will restore an essential element of democracy to New Zealand.

Those of us who grew up in New Zealand after the war, lived in a country that cared about ordinary people and who wanted to continue a tradition of looking after our own.

When we were young everyone received good healthcare, shelter, good food and a free education. We were proud of our country and ourselves knowing that we were world leaders.

We knew that governments tried to do the right thing by us. We trusted those in power.

We knew about physical and financial security – even though we might have struggled to make ends meet on the home front.

There was a community spirit and we believed in the concept of a fair go for everyone. It was safe to walk down the street at night and few people locked their homes.

Nothing was perfect but this was a very good country for generations of New Zealanders to grow up in.

The system looked after us, and we looked after the system.

Like a lot of other young people of my time, we made our way through university by working during the holidays.

We worked as freezing workers, laboured on bridge building projects and even worked miles underground on tunnelling schemes abroad.

Those jobs outside the lecture rooms were also an essential part of our education because we worked alongside good people willing to share their lives and experiences with us.

It is a real concern that these people have since been disenfranchised.

Along with other vulnerable groups in the community, they have lost their voices in Parliament,

That is why New Zealand First must keep keeping on.

Our party is made up of people who know what life was like here before we were betrayed by politicians who sold us out in the name of progress.

These politicians were not satisfied with New Zealand's egalitarian way of life.

They wanted a few winners and a lot of losers.

They sold our assets, fleeced the elderly and threw open the doors to our country.

Do not think for one moment that the fight between the overseas owned banks and the Inland Revenue Department is something new.

New Zealanders have been taken to the cleaners many times since the disastrous financial and social revolutions of the eighties and nineties.

The sell out programme was only halted when New Zealand First had the numbers in Parliament.

We are going to be needed again because we believe that this country belongs to us.

We must never allow some foreign boardroom to rule us.

Make no mistake.

The “For Sale” signs are all being dusted off and they will soon be hanging on the doors of the remaining assets owned by New Zealand taxpayers.

And to make matters even worse – the signs will also be going up on our conservation estates.

This government is changing the rules on exploration and mining in our national parks because it has promised the rights to plunder them to some overseas based corporates.

It's obvious, because at the same time it has been relaxing the rules for foreign investors to buy up chunks of New Zealand.

It is hard to understand how any member of parliament, of any political persuasion, could act in a way that is so clearly against the interests of New Zealanders.

It amounts to a form of economic treason.

Nothing is safe in the hands of these people and that is why it is so important for New Zealand First to be back in Parliament.

We need people there who are not afraid to fight for the rights and values of ordinary New Zealanders.

Some in the Opposition seem to have forgotten their job description. OPPOSITION!!!

Somebody in the Opposition needs to feed them some raw meat and poke them with a sharp stick now and then.

Too many spend more time being reasonable about National's scorched earth policies when they should be ripping into them.

You would think the Maori Party would have some concern about their country and their people but they act like National Party stooges and all they do is follow the taxpayer dollars.

The Maori Party, should in fact, be renamed the “Koha” party.

To be fair though, they do share their spoils with social outcasts - like gang members.

They also believe in throwing millions of dollars of other peoples' money at the Rugby World Cup.

This will not help one Maori family and is solely aimed at enhancing the mana of the prvileged brown few.

Ordinary Maori are still battling away, trying to bring up their families while being squeezed from the top and the bottom.

We in New Zealand First are not trying to turn back the clock but we do believe that we are in danger of throwing away those things of value that former generations left us.

We forget that those people before us went through two World wars and a terrible depression.

They made great sacrifices and it would be a sad day if we forgot those men and women.

They did not know about globalisation, free trade deals, sub-prime mortgages and fly by night financiers who promised plenty but delivered only misery – especially to the elderly.

At this stage we see our future as restoring faith in the democratic system and taking a long hard look at the way wealth is created in this country – and then sent overseas in the form of dividends, interest payments and other forms of so-called invisible payments.

We want that money spent and reinvested in New Zealand.

Our terms of trade with our trading partners are stacked heavily against us.

Countries like Australia pour billions of dollars of goods into New Zealand and we export a fraction of that amount across the Tasman.

They are walking all over us and in some cases refusing to take our goods. Trade is a two way street and our friends in the land of Oz need to wake up.

Against this background, the government in its perverse wisdom has put Don Brash in charge of a group of people who are studying why New Zealand wages are lagging behind those in Australia.

Dr Don is in an ideal position for this task. As Reserve Bank governor he choked the lifeblood out of the New Zealand economy with usurious interest rates.

He will also be able to study the tactics of the Australian firms who are casualising or contracting out thousands of jobs in the companies that they own in New Zealand

They would not dare to use these methods to drive down wages in Australia.

They would have riots on their hands.

There will be nothing of value in Dr Brash’s study.

He is hardly likely to point out that the real reason for growing chasm in Australia and New Zealand economic performance is the economic policies pursued by New Zealand under Douglas et al which people like him so foolishly supported.

We are also in a no win situation with our free trade agreement with China.

If you want to see an example of how this can happen go down to the local supermarket and buy some terakihi fillets.

They are in the frozen fish section at Countdown.

The fillets are marked as New Zealand terakihi but they have been processed in China.

Think about it.

We catch a fish in New Zealand waters, send it to China to be filleted, packaged and frozen – and then bring it back here to sell in a local supermarket.

Surely New Zealanders could have processed the fish.

Australia does not have a Free Trade Agreement with China.

New Zealand does.

Yet the most recent China Australia trade figures are $85.9 Billion dollars per annum.

These figures are massively in excess of New Zealand’s performance in real terms and demonstrate how illusory all the hype around this issue really is.

Why is there a deafening silence over these issues?

They are of grave concern to every New Zealander.

There is silence because New Zealand First has been sidelined.

But take heart. This is a temporary state of affairs.

Soon we will be back making more impact than ever.

ENDS

© Scoop Media