Wednesday 31 August 2005

An address by Rt Hon Winston Peters to a public meeting in Blenheim on Wednesday 31 August 2005, at the Wesley Centre, 3 Henry Street, Blenheim, 3:30pm.

Protecting The Kiwi Way Of Life

This is an election about leadership and experience.

It is about who has the credentials and the credibility to lead.

It is about who has the policies and principles, and the vision to take New Zealand forward.

New Zealand First has five policy priorities for this election.

Law and order, seniors, immigration, Treaty and an economic plan for all New Zealanders.

This plan will mean lower petrol prices, higher wages and lower taxes.

It will mean New Zealanders will own more of our assets and land.

It means we will have the first world infrastructure and services we deserve.

The majority of New Zealanders have had enough of Labour’s social engineering agenda and its undermining of our traditional values.

You see we used to know what a family was and what family values meant.

Today Labour would have you believe that a family could be any group – including a clutch of gang members.

Labour has ensured that prostitution is now more rife than ever – and those entering this sad profession are getting younger than ever.

It is a shameful outcome from Labour’s turn at the helm.

Across the political divide, too many New Zealanders are again becoming afraid of National and talk of a hidden agenda.

And for very good reason.

It seems that rather than try and build its own party, Act bought its way into National.

Act’s agenda is insidious and would take us back to the 1980s and 90s and complete the sale of the country’s assets and interests to foreign control.

New Zealand First is the only party to put you first and to protect your rights.

Our five priorities are about protecting the New Zealand way of life.

It is about the right to be treated equally.

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

New Zealand First will remove all references to the nebulous Treaty ‘principles’ from legislation, continue to pursue policies that promote social cohesion, and put an end to the Treaty of Waitangi grievance industry.

You can’t trust either Labour or National to do this.

It is about the right to be safe in our homes and on our streets.

Neither Labour or National take law and order seriously.

We must mount a war against lawlessness by doubling our police frontline force and provide adequate powers. We must implement realistic sentencing, instill discipline in our young people, and aggressively target 'entry level' and youth and recidivist offending.

This election is about the right to decide the future shape of our country.

Immigration will no longer be used 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.

Immigrants will be accepted only from those who can contribute to a better way of life for all New Zealanders. New Zealand First will not let them continue to sell our citizenship.

It is about the right to earn first world wages and to be in charge of our own destinies. We pay too much for petrol and power – the basics of life. And we don’t have the wages to keep up.

That will change under New Zealand First.

It is time to end the rundown of our infrastructure and the transfer of its ownership to overseas interests. It is time to cease signing up to international agreements that are clearly not in New Zealand’s best interests.

We will protect the ownership of our land and our remaining assets.

National has raised the ugly spectre of further assets sales and this must be guarded against.

New Zealand First has a plan that will grow our exports and expand our economy, without selling out to the rest of the world, so that New Zealanders can enjoy first world wages and excellent social services.

We believe our seniors have a right to a dignified retirement.

New Zealand First’s Golden Age Card guarantees higher superannuation, improves affordable access to quality health, elder care, and other services, and provides a variety of concessions that allow our valued seniors to retain their community involvement, to maintain their independence, and to live in dignity.

That is our handful of promises and you can rest assured that it is these policies – not the blind pursuit of power which will be guiding us post election.

Let us take stock of the 2005 election campaign to date.

Labour has been more tightly disciplined – even if it is painfully politically correct.

They have even managed to keep Trevor Mallard under wraps.

And Labour has shown that it is shameless about spraying public money about in order to buy votes

But equally, there is real doubt in the mind of New Zealanders as to National’s fitness to govern.

They cannot get their team to sing from the same song sheet – as the case of multiple versions of their policy on logging native forest on the West Coast demonstrated.

And we now know that it was the Act party that had plotted Brash’s ascendancy to National’s leadership.

These bungles – although not hugely significant when treated in isolation – hardly inspire confidence that National, if left to themselves, could be an effective and competent government.

Clark has demonstrated a capacity to spar and joust that Brash cannot match.

If he was too scared to debate women, he should not have entered politics.

Women have been key players in New Zealand for more than a decade now and that is not about to change.

Rosemary McLeod, writing in the Dominion, made the pertinent point that Don Brash is used to being deferred to.

Hence the slightly imperious air that hangs around him.

Of course National’s equivocal stance on the whole nuclear issue is an albatross around his neck.

But the 9 different positions he has already taken on possible New Zealand involvement in Iraq give credence to the charge that he is indecisive – a windsock.

Brash is also not helped by his habit – when responding to questions – of splitting hairs to avoid taking a stand.

When the dust has settled, New Zealanders will not elect either Labour or National without a party to safeguard them from extremes.

We are that party. The Greens only offer an even more extreme agenda than Labour’s and no one else will be there in any numbers.

So despite that fact that this campaign has descended into an auction, with both sides laying down a barrage of tax claim and counter claim, eventually New Zealanders will turn to those who can bring balance.

They are flinging ever-larger dollops of the public’s money back at them in a bidding war

As in the First War, when the bombardment is over the result is likely to be a wasteland of broken promises and disappointment.

The current “election as auction” will not make for good government and the legacy will be serious damage to the New Zealand economy.

The damage from the bidding war could swamp any temporary and short-term benefits people derive from tax cuts or tax relief.

Of course there is a case for tax cuts or tax relief.

The government is swimming in a surplus that not even Labour’s cavalier attitude to spending public money can hide.

But the issue of tax will not fundamentally alter the path New Zealand is on.

We must act now to preserve the New Zealand way of life.

New Zealand First has the policies to do that.

You know, our younger generation must look on the Labour and National campaigns with despair.

What other country has to bribe its own young people to stay in their country?

Where is there any sense of a vision, of direction, of a sense of what is possible in New Zealand?

Neither Labour nor National are bringing any of that to the 2005 election.

And that is why on September 17 a strong New Zealand First parliamentary presence is imperative.

Because despite Labour and National’s attempts to hijack this election, it is actually about the future direction of New Zealand.

That is what distinguishes the NZ First campaign

Because all our policies have to pass three simple but clear tests:

Do they put the interests of New Zealand first?

Do they unite us as a nation?

Do they take New Zealand into a brighter and more prosperous future?

And no other party can match us on those tests.

Let me give you this assurance.

We are absolutely serious about meeting our commitments to seniors in relation to the Golden Aged Card.

We are serious in our commitment on increasing police numbers.

We are serious about dealing with the fundamental flaws in our immigration system.

We are serious about derailing the Treaty gravy train and ensuring race is never the driver in delivering government services.

We are serious about increasing real wages.

We are serious about alleviating the burden of petrol prices.

We are serious about fixing our transport infrastructure.

We are serious about growing export earnings.

We are serious about protecting our land and assets from foreign ownership.

We are serious about providing free healthcare for all primary aged children.

We come as a packaged deal.

So we won’t be selling out to others’ secret agendas – we will be fighting to defend the New Zealand way of life.

Your way of life.

That is why New Zealand First is your choice for change.

A party vote for New Zealand First will mean a change for the better.

ENDS

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