Rt Hon Winston Peters

New Zealand First Leader

Member of Parliament for Northland

25 MAY 2017

Winston Peters - Budget Speech

Speech by New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters

A wilful, wanton, weak, wobbly, woeful minister with a wilful, wanton, weak, wobbly, woeful Budget

After eight Budgets these people portray themselves as sound economic managers.

The pose as people to be trusted with the nation’s purse strings – and they have claimed to ‘magiced’ a surplus.

Any fool can magic a surplus by not spending on critically essential items of public need.

But that’s the thing.

Budgets are meant to be springboards for a philosophy but this National Party has none aside from staying in power for as long as it can hang on.

This Budget is a desperate attempt from a tired old, visionless, heartless party to stay in power as long as they can – as long as they can hang on.

Meanwhile the headlines scream out for the government to act on so many issues, in so many cities, and so many regions.

And the need of these cities and regions is billions and billions of social and infrastructural deficit.

This government has made countless promises and has failed to perform on every one.

It is obsessed with globalization, and mass immigration because mass immigration is the only thing propping this government’s finances up.

Our land and business assets are getting stripped out and sold to foreigners.

We are increasingly a branch economy of China.

One belt, one road but so many unanswered questions.

What ought to be up is down and what ought to be down is up.

They’ve got their priorities upside down.

So interpreting National’s budgets means you have to look for what’s not there.

Mr Joyce uses billion dollar amounts all tagged with the fine print over four years, over 10 years, and some 30 years.

So here’s simple advice:

Divide everything you’ve heard by four.

Then compare it in real terms to what was being spent when National came to power and then divide it by the population that this country has and then you will know whether what this minister says has merit or not.

New Zealand remains massively indebted to the rest of world – with a net international liability of $156 billion as of last year.

When National took office this country had a surplus of $5.6bn and net Crown debt of $10.3bn.

Today it claims to predict a surplus of $1.7 billion and net Crown debt of $61.8b but here is the interesting thing.

Net Core Crown Debt starts growing and by 2021 will be just under a $1b more than what it was in 2016. There’s no plan to reduce debt aside from time and inflation.

What have they got to show for it?

§ Family poverty
§ Mental health services in disarray
§ Conservation estate and services in dismay
§ Social housing in motels
§ Science, research and technology in disarray
§ Rampant house price inflation
§ Runaway immigration
§ Infrastructure deficits everywhere in city, town and country and Mr Joyce what happened to the Northland bridges?
§ Crime on the rise and law and order out of control from under-resourcing.
§ And a NZ Super fund of government contributions of $2 billion and to add insult to injury that fund built by taxation is being taxed as well.

If the government had been contributing to the NZ Super fund, as it should, the so-called surplus would be a mirage.

This is a wilful, wanton, weak, wobbly, woeful minister with a wilful, wanton weak, wobbly, woeful Budget full of posturing, half-truths and misinformation.

National Party supporters must be seriously worried today because there is no plan; there is no vision; there is no philosophy but ‘steady as we don’t go.’

Worse, from it being management by crisis, private debt is now past $412 billion with housing debt alone up $34 billion in just the past 24-months.

And just where are the real comparisons with Scandinavia or Australia, Canada and Singapore on:

§ Wages
§ Housing costs
§ Power
§ Health
§ Education
§ Infrastructure
The government today is boasting its hand up for a Budget that they say will deliver for New Zealanders.

They say they’ve given tax cuts and entitlement boosts to give an average $26 per week more to 1.3 million families.

$26 will go nowhere.

To use that famous movie Shawshank Redemption line

“The colossal ********* even managed to sound magnanimous.”

Look, if we were to increase the minimum wage by $3 an hour with policies to enable businesses to pay it, on a given week everyone would be $120 or more better off – freed from the state and not like under National, beholden to it as a beneficiary.

This government’s priorities are all cock-eyed.

We believe in the dignity of work and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, regardless of gender.

What has happened in New Zealand in the last nine years is a massive rise in inequality of incomes, wealth and opportunity.

Budget 2017 does nothing to address these disquieting developments.

This budget should be careful to inform the country of potential instability and volatility so people can act accordingly.

It should have addressed the stupid comment by a writer in the NZ Herald today that the government is “swimming in money.”

The budget has no measures to turn around the decline in manufacturing and exports as a percentage of GDP, and set out clear tax policy to revive commerce and attack our national indebtedness.

Only yesterday the Overseas Merchandise Trade statistics reveal the stunning success of National’s much-vaunted, tiringly boastful export agenda.

In the 12-months to April 2017, New Zealand’s merchandise exports grew by a staggering 0.2%.

Multiply that by 10 years, what do you get?

You get 2 percent.

Two percent for a decade under National.

Underneath the hype and the misinformation is a fake Budget that delivers nothing meaning for ordinary New Zealanders and nothing to make our economy go faster.

Where does this Budget spell what our GDP per person growth rate is compared to say 10 first world economics or 20 first world economies or for that matter, Australia.

It doesn’t because if it did every New Zealander would know that under National we are going nowhere.

CONCLUSION

In the 45 minutes after 2 o’clock this afternoon viewers and listeners have heard some really bad news.

But I’ve got some good news for you.

This will be Mr Joyce’s first and last budget.

“The Struggle Is Real.”

ENDS

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