Rt Hon Winston Peters
Café on Broadway
Broadway MATAMATA
1.15pm Monday, 1 July 2002

Labour In Debit?
The Pledge Card They’re Keeping Secret
New Zealand First Party List

Why are we having an election in the middle of winter?

What constitutional crisis brought this on?

It is clear isn’t it?

Labour wants to govern alone….does that scare you? It should. Remember 1984-1990 when they didn’t need anyone else?

And remember what National did from 1990 to 1996 when they were alone?

Well National is facing its worst ever election result, a sad demise for a once great party.

The Greens want to be in coalition but they threaten to bring the government down if they don’t get their way.

Jim Anderton is really rejoining the Labour Party, the Alliance will wither and die and we are seeing the last ACT.

So, when you think about it, deep in your hearts, ……you really need Winston Peters and New Zealand First.

Why New Zealand First?

Let me first remind you about what the Party has achieved in its short political life and then let me remind you of what we stand for. Among a long list of achievements in our short time in Government we are proud to list:
 Free doctors visits and prescriptions for children under six
 Low inflation and lower interest and exchange rates
 500 additional frontline police

 pay parity for teachers
 removal of the superannuation surtax
 maintenance of retirement incomes
 nationwide targeted screening for hepatitis B
 an extra $252m for elective surgery, funding for 32,000 more operations
 increased minimum wage
 $1.5 b additional education spending over three years and $55m for early education
 $1.5b additional funding to strengthen public health over three years having removed the profit motive and replaced CHEs with hospitals
 free influenza vaccines for the elderly
 stopped the privatisation of strategic assets

We all have our experience of what New Zealand is, a notion of what it has been, and our hopes for its future.

These hopes are not necessarily what Helen wants. Yesterday we got a new pledge card from Helen. “Labour’s credit card”………….an unoriginal copy of Tony Blair and the British Labour Party.

Well today we have a new card………it is called Labour’s debit card ………and it has been charged to you and all New Zealanders. It could be called a stealth fear card, because these are the promises that Labour didn’t make but are delivering on just the same. It is the hidden agenda.

Let me read you Labour’s debit card:

1. They will legalise prostitution and soliciting
2. They will decriminalise marijuana
3. They will legislate for gay marriages and adoptions
4. They will further raise taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and petrol
5. They will provide further large payments for prisoners
6. They will continue to bring in 53,000 immigrants per year
7. They will promote a separate voting system for local government based on race

New Zealanders can be complacent, or they can use their party vote to stop the rot.

There is only one party that can, and will, stop that rot.

New Zealand First - we will continue to fight to protect our social fabric and traditional family values.

And what else will we do?

Ours is a simple message:

New Zealand First believes that New Zealanders are entitled to a political system they can feel confident about, and politicians they can rely on to represent them.

There should be an end to the aimless restructuring of government services, a removal of
unnecessary rules and regulations based on misguided political correctness, and a return to a public service ethic within the bureaucracy.
Spending will be directed to the provision of high quality education and health professionals and to improving free access to enhanced public education and health services.

New Zealand needs a clear strategy to boost export growth and employment. We will implement a plan to treble exports in real terms, by 2020.

Any person capable of work should be given the opportunity to do so and not relegated to welfare dependency.

Our citizens should be able to look forward to the certainty of a dignified retirement based on a fund that can be invested in our economy and infrastructure.

What political party could disagree with those things?

The Greens for one! They voted against any attempt to put in place a long-term savings strategy. And disastrously we have learnt in the last two days that Prime Minister Clark thinks that our long-term retirement security is based on bringing in 53,000 plus immigrants into New Zealand each year.

Well, we are currently paying the equivalent of a pension to school aged immigrants who are overcrowding our schools, especially in Auckland.

We are paying more than the equivalent of the pension to unemployed immigrants who have got here on family reunification tickets.

Sleras and Spoonley (1999) identified that up to 68% of the migrant population was not engaged in the economy.

We are paying to have our sick go to Australia for treatment while our health system comes under pressure from the migrant flow. We could be about to pay hundreds of thousands of pensions to refugees invited here by the Labour cabinet. We lose billions of dollars in lost productivity and extra fuel costs on Auckland’s gridlocked roads.

That is how we could pay a decent pension in the future, Ms Clark. By having a population policy that gives priority to immigrants who bring skills and talents that grow our economy, and by not being a soft touch for an uncontrolled number of migrants, many of whom are looking for a back door entry to Australia and have little interest in making a contribution to New Zealand.

During the next three years we will focus on these three things:

1. FIXING OUR IMMIGRATION POLICY:

New Zealand First will end the flood of immigration and continue to oppose the use of
immigration as an excuse for our failure to train, skill, and employ our own people.

We will not tolerate New Zealand being a haven for queue-jumping asylum seekers. Only immigrants who can contribute to rapid export growth, our research and development, and/ or our educational capacity will be accepted.

Immigrants will be required to accept New Zealand culture and values.

The best deal for all New Zealanders, Kiwi-born or foreign-bred, is for there to be just one class of citizen. Wherever we were born, if we have been granted the right to live here, then we are New Zealanders first.

2. FIXING THE TREATY INDUSTRY:

While we are many peoples with different customs, languages, religions and cultures, we are all New Zealanders first.

During the next parliamentary term, New Zealand First will focus on pursuing policies that promote social cohesion and economic advancement.

We will put an end to the Treaty of Waitangi grievance industry and cease its senseless calls to insert Treaty ‘principles’ into legislation.

The best deal for all New Zealanders, Maori and non–Maori, is for there to be just one class of citizen. For too long too many New Zealanders have been told that they are second-class citizens.

If we are to have one class of citizens then New Zealand must have one franchise.

The many of us who voted for MMP back in 1993 did so because of the betrayal of New Zealand’s birthright and assets by both Labour and National in the nine years before that.

And many of us took the view of the Electoral Commission that if MMP could demonstrate an ability to better guarantee Maori representation in Parliament then one day soon there will be ONE ELECTORAL ROLL for all New Zealanders.

In just two elections MMP has dramatically illustrated that. Those with Maori heritage in Parliament have gone from six in number to 19.

That is why New Zealand First is saying: WE WILL NOT STAND CANDIDATES IN THE MAORI SEATS.

We have plenty of New Zealanders on our list with an understanding of the needs and aspirations of Maori, who, like the Maori who make our All Blacks or Silver Ferns, are out to compete against the best in the world AS EQUALS and who don’t want special treatment which is a byword for marginalisation and cinderellaisation.

On Thursday on the North Shore I will demonstrate just how ineffective the Maori electorate MPs have become in delivering on policies to help Maori and in scutinising the political processes where Maori are concerned.

I will be releasing the New Zealand First Party list at the end of this meeting. Our list is rock solid, filled with people of experience, intelligence, integrity and compassion.

They are New Zealanders who see their mutual similarities as being far more important than their mutual differences.

IN SHORT, WE ALL SEE OURSELVES AS NEW ZEALANDERS FIRST AND FOREMOST, PUTTING ALL NEW ZEALANDERS FIRST AND FOREMOST.

3. FIXING THE LAWLESSNESS AND VIOLENCE IN OUR SOCIETY:

It is time to mount a war against lawlessness by providing adequate police resources and powers.

By implementing realistic sentencing.

By instilling discipline in our young people through appropriate training.

By taking a very tough line on youth and repeat offenders.

And by aggressively targeting ‘entry level’ crime.

Can we fix it?

Yes we can!

These are matters that cut to the heart of what it is to be a New Zealander.

In fixing these things we defend the rights of all New Zealanders irrespective of whether they come from the Waikato or Wairoa, from Auckland or Akaroa, or originally from Hawaiiki, Hanoi, Holland, Hampshire, or Hamilton.

This election is about the rights of ordinary Kiwis:

 The right to walk down the streets of this country in safety

 The right of all New Zealanders to stand together as equals

 The right to stop being swamped by a flood of immigrants

And it is about the right of all New Zealanders to be first class citizens of a first world country, and not consigning many to second class citizenship in a country sleep-walking to the third world.

So before New Zealanders answer Helen Clark’s call for a clear mandate consider these things:

When were you asked whether you wanted to pay higher petrol taxes?
When were you asked how many immigrants you wanted to flood into New Zealand?
When were you asked if you wanted to have cannabis use decriminalised?
When were you asked about lowering the drinking age?
When were you asked about which Treaty ‘principles’ you want included in what legislation?

You know you weren’t asked - somebody knows better!

So before we are all taken in by Labour’s new credit card………….remember the DEBIT CARD.

If you want someone to keep an eye on them, then give your Party vote to New Zealand First. Your country needs you!

ENDS

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