Rt. Hon Winston Peters

Leader NZ First

Address: NZ First Campaign Launch Election 2011

Date: October 30, 2011

Time: 2 pm

Venue: Tasman Room

Alexandra Park

Greenlane, Auckland

“For a Fair Go”

Thank you for your welcome and for the work you have done over the last three years to bring us to this important meeting.

2011 is the most important election we have faced in our lifetimes.

NZ First believes that we can regain our former glory of being the world’s leader in economic and social performance for its people.

November 26 decides whether the future of New Zealand belongs to the few – the favoured and special interests?

Or will our next Parliament serve the collective interest of all New Zealanders?

NZ First’s stand is this - every citizen of this country is entitled to a fair go.

If you look back over the past three years it is crystal clear why our enemies spent such time and money to get us out of Parliament.

We have always opposed special treatment for special interests.

Let other political parties stand for special interests at the expense of the many but that has never been our position.

Let other parties resemble a rugby ball. You never know which way they will bounce next.

This party for 18 years has stood for people.

No ifs, buts or maybe’s.

We started out with fifteen founding principles - the same number that makes up a world champion rugby team.

The principles have not changed, for they are sound, and now other political parties all of a sudden claim them as theirs.

Who would have believed that Labour – which sold so many state assets – would grab our policy of keeping them!

Or National – keeping the pension age at 65 when all their background sentiment has been to attack it. They are saying that because they are scared of NZ First.

Or both the old parties who rejected compulsory savings 14 years ago now saying they are partially for it.

Or National who squeezed out after hours doctor visits for under sixes, in this eleventh hour, now saying they are for it.

NZ First believes that the welfare of all the people of New Zealand should come first. It’s in our name.

That means the young, the old, the workers, farmers, small businesses, professionals and everybody else should have a fair go – a fair share.

We know of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who are now forgotten

The people who don’t get a fair go.

Mr Key went to South Auckland before the last election and promised the people there a better life.

Did it happen? No!

What did they actually do?

Well, they increased the tax people pay on their food, their clothing, their petrol, their doctors’ bills. Increased the tax on everything people need to live.

And then at the same time

They gave the rich people big tax cuts.

For the National Party bosses and their mates it was worth thousands of dollars a week.

They threw a few dollars at the pensioners.

But price increases have gone through the roof, so the crumbs have all gone, and any savings are being swallowed up as well.

It is simply not fair!

The special interests have been grabbing more and more of the profits made from the efforts of the New Zealand people.

The fat cats are making a killing.

Most of the profits are going to foreign owners or tax dodgers here at home.

The rich list’s wealth last year went up by a massive 20%. CEO’s who used to get 30 times the average wage are now getting 100 times, or more, that wage.

Which CEO’s performance justifies that?

We stand for a fair tax system, where everyone pays a fair share.

So we are going to rewrite and simplify NZ’s mangle of tax laws so that they are understandable, unavoidable, and fair. Everyone will pay their fair taxes. That means:

• Less personal tax

• Less company tax

• Less GST at 12.5 not 15%

• Removing double tax on savings

• Removing GST on rates

• Removing secondary tax

Over 90% will be better off.

It is not fair for a young person, with two jobs, stacking supermarket shelves all night to pay secondary tax while a very rich person with millions pays no tax.

It’s not fair that you pay tax on savings interest less than the inflation rate and then get slammed with tax on top of that. So inflation above 4%, interest less than 4% on which you pay 33% tax. Are you going forward or back?

GST on rates is a tax on a tax, that’s intellectual fraud, and we’re going to abolish it.

The multi-millionaires must pay their share. Warren Buffet and Sam Morgan, (Trade Me), believe that and so do we.

And we will make sure they do!

There’s been a lot of unfair cost cutting over the past three years.

Like elderly getting home help hours slashed by district health boards - health boards doing the government’s dirty work.

But when it comes to the government’s mates in collapsed finance companies the sky’s the limit.

The bill for the taxpayer from the South Canterbury collapse fiasco will be $1 billion.

Some made a fortune, because they got very high interest rates backed by a government guarantee. The government guaranteed South Canterbury Finance, placed no cap on further fund raising activity, so they had a field day and raised a further $800 million, and on Friday Mr English said, you were going to pay for it.

Mr Key, English, Joyce, these economic geniuses were all “asleep at the wheel”

At the same time other finance companies went to the wall and thousands of senior citizens lost billions of life savings.

It was simply not fair. It’s not a Fair Go

New Zealand First has always stood for equal treatment of all citizens.

In 2004 NZ First concerned with the threat to public ownership of the foreshore and seabed, came up with a solution, after consulting Coastal Maori, confirming Crown ownership for all of us.

That meant that the people of New Zealand, all the people, were the rightful owners.

At the same time we made sure the traditional customary rights of Maori were guaranteed. Coastal Maori supported our solution publicly.

Mr Key and National changed that in an act of political stupidity.

Much of the foreshore and seabed can now be privatised, in the interest of a select few who will make money out of it.

We’ve been betrayed – all of us – whatever our race.

At no stage did Maori ever believe they owned the foreshore and seabed.

Land and sea were never the same for Maori

It was and is a source of food, a way of transport and a place of recreation.

We all should have right of access and freedom to enjoy our coastline.

It is also rich in resources that should be shared.

Ordinary Maori want Housing, Health, Education and a job with First World wages. Come to think of it, that is what we all want. What European, Polynesian, Indian, Chinese, Asian people all want.

NZ First understands that.

With Crown ownership of the Foreshore and Seabed you were guaranteed a fair deal.

Now, you are guaranteed nothing.

And worst of all – all sorts of deals can be done over the foreshore and seabed behind closed doors in Parliament.

Under John Key and National you now have two flags. The old one and Hone’s one.

Under John Key and National you now have a UN declaration that says that some New Zealander’s rights override the rest of New Zealander’s rights.

Under John Key and National you have a behind the scenes Constitutional Committee drafting a new Constitution with the Treaty of Waitangi as it’s cornerstone. The greatest Maori politician Ngata would think this an absurdity.

And yet no one, not Mr Key, not National, has ever asked you

Secret deals can, and are being done, between people whose only thought is for their own special interests – and their pockets.

You have no say. It’s not a fair go.

Let’s ask a few basic questions:

• How will New Zealanders own their own country given the rate at which our prime assets and land is falling into foreign ownership?
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• How will we have a manufacturing sector left if we conclude any more so called free trade agreements that undermine our industry?
•
• How will we be more prosperous when our export base struggles with a grossly overvalued exchange rate?
•
• And how will our young people have work and prosperous futures if we do not deal with these issues?
•
Because in all these areas New Zealand First has specific policies to address the fundamental problems we face.

And unless we do address them the long decline of New Zealand’s standard of living relative to other comparable countries will continue.

We say New Zealanders deserve better.

Policies should pass three simple but clear tests:

• Do they put the interests of New Zealand first?

• Do they unite us as a nation?

• Do they make us a stronger society and economy?

Right now another secret deal that is being done behind closed doors is the Trans Pacific Partnership.

This is a free trade arrangement around the Pacific involving New Zealand and the United States.

Some of the leaked reports of the concessions we are making are alarming.

If Mr Key did not take pharmaceuticals off the table, so they are part of the negotiations

New Zealand First has no argument with the United States.

We have no quarrel with the American people.

In fact because of us we are closer than in a quarter of a century

But we will not accept that American drug companies and other American commercial interests can rip us off and tell us what to do.

It’s not a Fair Go and we won’t let it happen.

Trade deals should benefit all parties. Not just the wide boys of Wall St.

Every day, we are swamped in bad news about an economic crisis somewhere around the globe.

Countries are going broke.

Capitalism has been turned upside down.

People are coming to realize that some bankers, finance traders, currency speculators, futures traders, derivative marketers are a bunch of crooks.

The rot started in America where the financial wheeler dealers lent mortgage money to people who could not possibly afford to repay it.

They knew that.

But they bundled up these shonky mortgages and traded them as gilt edged securities with Triple A ratings.

The criminals who dreamed up these schemes made a fortune.

Then these deals collapsed like a deck of cards.

All around the world – except in a few countries – they got caught up in a bubble of speculation.

The bubble burst and governments have been bailing out the banks.

Whole economies are being kept afloat by governments printing money and pouring it into the system.

And the crooks who started it all are back creaming it!

They live like leeches on ordinary people. Is this a Fair Go? Is this want you want?

In New Zealand we are seriously affected by the speculators and the traders that make up this mythical thing called “the market”.

Their wheeling and dealing has the Kiwi dollar bouncing up and down, higher and higher.

That is a nightmare for our exporters in the engine room of our economy.

The exporters create our real wealth.

We have a plan to help them.

New Zealand First will keep our currency pegged to that of our main trading partners.

That way the exporters will be able to expand, increase exports and create new jobs, new wealth for the Family New Zealand

We will stop the sale of state owned assets, and the control of our power stations and the lakes and rivers that feed them.

Will stop the sale of our prime farmland to foreign interests.

It is obscene that a former National prime minister fronts a communist owned company that’s gobbling up New Zealand companies and assets.

Compare that to this statement of principle:

“I believe in New Zealanders owning their own industry, all industry, wherever practicable… This country is growing up, and I want it to see it owned and controlled by New Zealanders in every possible sphere. There is, of course, also an economic reason – the bleeding away of overseas funds and the paying of tribute to people overseas…. I, for one, want to see New Zealand mature, to grow up in its own sense, have its own soul, develop its own character, and have control of its own destiny in all spheres of the economy…….This is my simple faith”.

Who said that? “Kiwi Keith Holyoake said that.

What would he think of his party now?

And it’s just as obscene to see Don Brash, another failed National leader, take over the rotting carcass of ACT in a desperate attempt to twist and distort the democratic process.

New Zealand First upholds democracy.

The right to choose a government belongs to the people – not the politicians.

And it doesn’t belong to the special interests behind political parties.

Here are just some of our policies:

1) More trade training for our young people

2) We will help pay the wages for apprentices using dole money and an employer top up

3) We will help students pay their loans as long as they qualify and stay here

4) And we’ll throw out fictitious national standards in early education opposed by 90% of the teachers

We will crank up KiwiSaver and use the money to buy back assets

We will seriously shake up the Overseas Investment Office so they learn the difference between genuine overseas investment and a foreign corporate raid that creates no wealth and no new employment.

We’ll have ONE LAW FOR ALL. Which means:

• We all own our foreshore and seabed

• We fly one flag

• We have one court system

• We follow one set of laws

• We have one social welfare system

• A NZ health system

• A NZ education system

We will rebuild our failing economy with

• Export plans to treble returns

• Savings plans for economic freedom

• NZ currency for NZ not Wall ST

• Tax breaks for real wealth creators

• Real research and development incentives

• Rewards for the nation’s builders

And remember the SuperGold Card?

With discounts and free transport? And super back to 66%

That card will become even more valuable

With your doctor’s bills and your power bills.

With some government charges like motor re-licensing.

And we’re not falling for Super at 67 starting four elections from now.

When last we had the power we brought in 1000 extra front line police, and 235 in the office to back them up.

We funded the Maori Wardens so they could play a real role in law and order.

These two changes made a dramatic difference to crime. Yet National is trying to take all the credit.

Over the last three years there’s been a voice missing in our democracy.

It is the voice of the people.

People are waking up.

Do not be discouraged by tricky opinion polls and media experts.

The opinion polls have never shown our true level of support.

They are all over the place and anyone who believes them needs their head examined.

Over 95,000 people voted for NZ First in 2008, more than three parliamentary parties got all together. Over 95,000, despite the most vicious character assassination and lies seen in any campaign this country has ever witnessed.

And the people who fed and led these lies didn’t even believe it themselves. They were paid to say it.

A group even agreed on TV “Well if he is not guilty he’s still a hypocrite”

Over 95,000 stayed loyal. And you know that with your help we can more than double that on November 26.

And when the people have spoken, and only then, and when we have consulted you we’ll talk about coalitions and cross benches.

It’s called democracy, people power. It’s not about pre-election back room deals.

So get out and share your support with others and get out and Party Vote for New Zealand First on Election Day.

The hope of our country waits on you.
Years from now when young people ask you ‘what did you do about our country when the economy hit the wall?’

You won’t have to splutter and change the subject.

NO. You will proudly say ‘when the call came I answered it. I rejected failure and I made a stand for success.

We stand for the welfare of all the people, and not just the few.

We believe NZ can be great again. We always have

Put New Zealand First and vote New Zealand First

For a Fair Go

ENDS

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