EMBARGOED AGAINST DELIVERY

Rt. Hon Winston Peters
Leader NZ First

Address to: Grey Power North Shore Association Meeting
AMI Netball Centre
44 Northcote Road East, Takapuna

Date: Friday 19th November 2010 at 1pm

“Political Insanity - And The Treatment”

There is an old definition of insanity:

Albert Einstein apparently once said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

That has been proved time and time again in this country.

We are talking about the way New Zealand politicians have followed the same half baked economic policies over and over again since 1984, and then wondered why things don’t get better.

They keep getting the same result – a country going backwards instead of making progress.

And all the time they have claimed they would get a different result, that we would be living in some kind of economic Utopia. Tell that to Einstein!

Just to refresh your memory let's go back to the 1984 Labour government and then the 1990 National government.

Both governments were besotted with economic theories that originated in an American economics classroom.

In brief, these theories involved taking the government out of the economy and relying on so-called market forces to sort things out.

The state – according to these economic purists – should take a back seat and be extremely limited in its ability to shape any sort of economic progress.

We all remember – without much affection – the heady days of Rogernomics and then the chilly winds of Ruthanasia.

With its new found economic purity New Zealand led the world in free market theory and practice.

All the big boys – the movers and shakers – praised the brave governments who adopted these theories.

The same big boys made their fortunes under the guise of economic freedom.

Billions of dollars worth of state assets were sold for a pittance.

Taxpayer assets built up over generations were flogged off for next to nothing. PETROCORP went for as low as 8 months profits of that former SOE.

Government Print sold for $8 million.

It was worth $42 million.

It was the day of the corporate rip-off.

You all remember the Winebox Affair when New Zealand's tax system was abused by people who made hundreds of millions of dollars pretending to pay tax in an overseas jurisdiction.

You will all remember when our currency was floated in March 1985 – it soon became the most volatile in the Western world.

It floats up and it floats down while currency speculators bet on it.

They make money when it goes up and by an amazing sleight of hand (or screen and keyboard as the case may be) they make money when it comes down.

And what happens to New Zealand while all this currency speculation goes on?

Well – it means that exporters – the people keeping us afloat - constantly have their backs to the wall trying to sell their goods overseas.

It's the hardest part of their operation.

And the high value of the New Zealand dollar has another, serious impact.

It is cheaper to import goods than make them here in New Zealand.

Thousands of jobs get lost when our manufacturing industries go to the wall because they cannot compete with cheap imports from countries like China.

You see workers have no rights in China – they get paid wages one step above the starvation rate, and our manufacturers have to compete against this.

It is simply not possible and it represents a gross abuse of power by those political leaders who allow this to happen.

Let's look at banking and finance.

New Zealand's financial industry has been a total shambles dragging on year after year.

Thousands of elderly New Zealanders have lost their life savings to groups of cowboys in the finance industry.

Don’t hold your breath over getting any of this money back.

To add to our financial plight, most of the banks in New Zealand are overseas owned and they are back making huge profits –some as high as 40% p.a.

Early in the last century the New Zealand government set up a locally owned bank.

Those farsighted, practical politicians knew that the economic destiny of this country should be controlled at home – not in some British boardroom.

They knew that we could not exist successfully as an economic colony of the “old country”.

And what has happened since then?

Well a group of dumb politicians decided to turn the clock back a hundred years and hand our economic sovereignty to foreign bankers.

Look at the numbers.

The four main Australian owned banks; ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac have total assets of $300 billion.

That represents 80 percent of bank assets in this country.

The three New Zealand-owned banks Kiwibank, Southland Building Society and TSB bank have only $19 billion – or FIVE percent of the country's banking assets.

And just the other day it was revealed that the Westpac boss in New Zealand receives annually $5.6 million.

We are not trying to blind you with numbers here – just show you how most banks are beholden to foreign shareholders who would not give a brass razoo to help New Zealand.

They just want to suck out the profits.

The same applies to the hordes of currency speculators who distort our currency values and create nightmares for the exporters trying to keep themselves and our parlous economy afloat.

The countries that are doing well do not let these leeches suck the lifeblood out of their financial and business systems.

There is no reason to let this situation continue!

Let us repeat that slowly...there is no reason to let this situation continue.

And just when you thought for one nanosecond that there was no further ways to stuff up New Zealand's economy, another doozy bounces out from the Department of Dumb Ideas in Wellington.

Yes – you've guessed it – Free Trade Agreements.

Free Trade Agreements are another area where economic theorists have done New Zealand no favours.

Let us first acknowledge that New Zealand has always been a trading nation and our prosperity is based on international trade. So, NZ First is not advocating some sort of isolation or self-sufficiency.

But it is time to start asking serious questions about the real value and benefit of Free Trade Agreements.

Just what are these deals doing for NZ?

There is now an array of F.T.A’s since the original CER agreement with Australia in 1983.

More recently, NZ signed up to a free trade agreement with China in 2008 – and now the Government is looking to start talks on an FTA with Russia early next year.

We need to be very clear what we are signing up to.

Because, unlike the other parties, New Zealand First does not subscribe to the assumption that all FTAs are a self evident ‘good thing.’

Excuse our scepticism.

But FTAs can cause major damage to New Zealand jobs, businesses and our sovereignty.

There is too much at stake to go ahead on the basis of blind faith in abstract economic theory.

In theory, free trade agreements mean a free flow of goods and services between consenting countries with some sort of balance in the value of the goods and services.

In theory, other countries act in transparent good faith.

That way it is what is known as a win/win situation.

In reality, it means that these other countries pour their goods and services into New Zealand while we struggle to sell to them!

New Zealand First asks – in contrast to the uncritical, gung ho champions of FTAs - what is the real evidence that there are real and tangible benefits flowing to NZ?

Remember when the former government signed the FTA with China the forecast benefits were between $180 million and $320 million. Figures seemingly plucked out of thin air.

But here is reality in 2010.

China now has a 3 to 2, or $2 billion, surplus in its trade with us.

They manage their currency. We let our currency blow around in the wind.

They, using their exchange rate, effectively tax their imports and subsidise their exports as does Singapore.

We do the reverse.

Certainly, from any FTA there will be winners, and naturally they are the most vocal advocates.

The winners are usually large corporates, such as Fonterra. They see FTAs as providing improved access to markets.

Obviously, Fonterra is very important to the NZ economy but it is a mistake to put its interests ahead of NZ as a whole.

Most of what we read about FTAs in the media is self-serving propaganda.

It is largely spin put out by the communications departments of government agencies – advocacy sprinkled with a few ball park figures of future benefits.

The NZ Institute of Economic Research estimates an FTA with Russia would benefit NZ by as little as $27 million a year.

An overpriced dollar is losing much more than that now.

New Zealand First’s policy on FTAs has two parts – covering before and after the deal is signed.

Before the Deal is Signed

We say all FTA’s must be subject to proper cost-benefit analysis.

New Zealanders are entitled to have a rigorous and objective assessment of what is at stake before the deal is signed.

At present the so called evidence of benefits is wholly unsatisfactory.

Again, Australia’s increase in trade with China has been far more beneficial than ours – and they don’t have a free trade agreement with China.

There is no doubt that there is an FTA ‘agenda’ being pursued by the free market zealots in Government aided by officials enthralled by the prestige that attaches to deal making with large and important states.

This covert agenda has nothing to do with actual benefits to New Zealand – and everything to do with parading free market pro-globalisation credentials.

Proponents of FTAs are very prone to talk up the benefits in areas such as agriculture and play down the losses in important areas such as manufacturing.

But the facts are clear – more Kiwis are employed in manufacturing than agriculture and forestry.

We have an innovative, enterprising and hard working manufacturing sector that is a large scale employer.

Yet FTAs, by intensifying competition from countries paying a fraction of the wage rates that apply in New Zealand, often with no social welfare or ACC system, further threaten to decimate our manufacturing base.

Everyone knows that China has very different labour conditions and laws to us – and we don’t want to have that here (well, everyone except the Business Round Table, who would no doubt view that as progress!).

There is also the risk of unintended consequences from FTAs.

For example, do we want to have Chinese firms and Chinese workers building our motorways and other infrastructure?

After the Deal is Signed

After FTA deals are concluded, we say New Zealand should take nothing for granted.

As a nation we must be vigilant.

There needs to be a much more rigorous follow up after the deal to make sure that the terms are not being breached.

In theory, FTAs are meant to create the famous ‘level playing field. But in practice and experience it is plain idiocy to think that everyone will play by the rules.

There are many areas such as intellectual property and dumping where cheating can and does occur.

As an example, China's reputation for upholding or enforcing intellectual property rights for products from other countries is poor. Make no mistake it will take courage to call countries like China and Russia to account if they don’t play the game after a deal is signed.

Do you think we can rely on that nice Mr Key to call China or Russia to account if they do not play by the rules?

I think not.

Which brings to mind yet another outbreak of insanity.

The Foreshore and Seabed.

The foreshore and seabed belongs to everybody.

It's still in Crown ownership and that means you and me – and all of our people.

Plans are afoot to take it off us, so nobody owns it, and to put in place something called customary title.

This all stems from political reaction to a Court of Appeal decision in June 2003.

It stated that the Maori Land Court has the jurisdiction to hear claims and to investigate the status of “land” in the foreshore and seabed.

First came a case in which a certain Judge Ken Hingston of the Maori land Court ruled that his court could be involved.

Since then Judge Hingston of course has become one of the Maori Party's top advisors.

It is important to explain that the Court of Appeal DID NOT, repeat DID NOT, say that Maori customary rights gave them title to the foreshore and seabed.

It simply said the possibility was there and noted that there were significant barriers for Maori trying to demonstrate that their customary rights amounted to title.

What the court expected was more discussion about the rights of use and association.

But the Ngati Apa case is being elevated by the Maori Party to mythical status – where the Court of Appeal decision, is misused to justify the view that the foreshore and seabed was confiscated from Maori.

The argument is an absolute legal nonsense.

It is fraud and deceit at the highest political level.

Why is John Key and Treaty Negotiator Finlayson going along with it while soft soaping the rest of New Zealand with untruths such as “no body owns it”.

New Zealand First became involved in drafting the existing law.

We have always agreed that there is a special relationship between Maori and the sea.

We have always believed that some Maori have certain customary rights around our coastline.

What we did not in accept 2004, and cannot accept now, is that some Maori should have freehold title to the foreshore and seabed out to the two hundred mile economic zone.

197 of those miles came to us all by International Treaty.

What is proposed now is a giant “con” job manufactured by the Maori Party and the National Party, with ACT supporting repeal of the current law whilst running around the country criticising it’s coalition partners proposal.

That is the biggest con job of them all. But what else would you expect form Rodney Hide.

It is totally unacceptable for publicly owned property to be handed over to individual groups in secret backroom deals without anybody else having any rights or any say in the arrangements.

The foreshore and seabed in the hands of the Crown now – is worth billions and billions of dollars.

It is rich in minerals and marine life.

Its value to tourism, marine farming, fishing and simply as real estate is hard to estimate it is so large.

It is insane to place any sort of title on this vast resource unless the title is in the name of the Crown on behalf of all New Zealanders.

New Zealand First sorted out this mess once before, in 2004, and we will do it again.

Back in 2004 the coastal tribes led by Api Mahuika of Ngati Porou supported NZ First’s solution and they said so publicly on countless occasions.

Let one thing be clear. We will not stand by and watch while New Zealanders of all races get stripped of their birthright.

And do not believe that the great majority of Maori stand to benefit from the shonky backroom dealings between National and the Maori Party.

We are not fooled for a moment by the cacophony of claims made by certain Maori Party MP’s whose personal family connection with the coast in pre European times resembles nothing so much as a fifth cousin removed.

That is, their right to claim back then, as now, is zero.

Which begs the question, what is the media, European and Maori, doing listening to them on this issue.

The party I lead has a powerful history of responding to the legitimate issues of Maori both economic and social and we’re not going to jeopardise that record for the blustering, bullying or fellow traveller positions of others.

If there is to be a showdown in the arena of truth and fact then let’s have it now.

Ordinary Maori will get nothing under the present proposals – it will all go to the unelected suits and their fellow Treaty travellers.

Conclusion

Ordinary New Zealanders are bewildered by the chain of events that have been happening in their country over recent years.

Most people simply want to get on with their lives, have a job with reasonable pay, get their children good educations and careers in NZ, and own a house that they can afford to pay for.

They want to be able to see a doctor when they are sick and they want the senior citizens in their communities to receive the respect and care due to them.

They don’t want their country systematically looted and pillaged by big business interests in foreign boardrooms.

They have had enough of the insanity prevailing in the political sector since the mid eighties.

It's time for this insanity to receive some treatment and we believe that we have a cure. Our guiding principle is that whatever we do – we must put the interests of New Zealand and its people first.

We believe it's time to use some good old fashioned patriotism in our dealings.

What is the use of having the most free and open market in the world if other countries simply use this to take advantage of us?

If everyone else benefits but not the mass majority if New Zealanders.

This sort of freedom amounts to freedom to starve.

New Zealand First will be seeking to restore some sanity after the 2011 election.

The madness has gone on for too long.

ENDS

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