Rt Hon Winston Peters
Public Meetings
Devon Hotel
390 Devon Street East, New Plymouth
1pm, Sunday, 27 August 2023

Good afternoon and thank you for the chance to speak with you today.

This province is famous for its energy resources, but long before that and yet now, for being an agricultural powerhouse, and the province of newer industries.

During the Covid years we were reminded of just how important the Primary sector is to our economy and social health. The Primary sector earns 82% of our country’s foreign exchange.

Political Update

Shortly before coming to this meeting, I was notified by a journalist that the Prime Minister has just held a press conference and ruled out working with New Zealand First. It seems that Mr Hipkins is in some sort of time warp. He has taken over a year and a half to finally read my speeches back to me – via a press conference with the media.

He’s announcing something that everybody already knows, which is that New Zealand First has already ruled out going into any form of government with Labour – because of their racist separatist policies.

The fact is the moment we knew Labour had lied to me and hidden their race-based reports and policies form their coalition partner, we ruled out ever working with them.

This faux announcement from Hipkins today is all about the latest polls, including Labour’s own internal poll yesterday, that shows their vote is nose diving.

And one of the reasons is not only because of their abysmal incompetent performance on their own since 2020, but because they have abandoned the workers of New Zealand, they have preferred pandering to the woke, and they have pursued policies of preference based on race.

In a long career, and in a Party now thirty years old, we have always stood for common sense. We have always stood for one country, one flag, one rule of law, one standard of citizenship, and one vote – where every vote is equal.

In this campaign other parties are claiming to agree with New Zealand First, now they say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery - but look at their track record.

Labour’s present race-based policies have their origins of other political parties in parliament, and only one party can be believed on this matter and that Party is New Zealand First.

Economy

Those of you who have been observing circumstances internationally and in particular the Chinese economy, will be alarmed at what that means for New Zealand and Taranaki.

The Chinese economy after years of spectacular growth is now in serious trouble. Which means for dairy production in this province not just a reduction of the $7 a kilo, but possibly, and very soon, $6.

This accentuates the short-sighted policy of proverbially putting all of our eggs in one basket, one product milk powder, one company Fonterra, one market China. When diversification of our export markets was critical, New Zealand didn’t take the steps necessary to do that. There is no doubt that the Chinese economy is in serious difficulty. Clearly evidenced by the collapse in the housing and property market there, and the collapse of Chinas GDP growth – possibly into recession.

All this does not bode well for New Zealand, New Plymouth, and Taranaki.

These are seriously stormy economic waters which we have to cross.

We face price volatility, fluctuating international supply and demand, plus any future weather issues.

When the National party signed up to the Paris Accord in 2015, which is the background to our current climate legislation, it was understood by all the participants to that Paris Accord that carbon emissions were to be reduced in a manner that would not threaten food production.

So why, emerging out of Wellington, is this anti-primary sector positioning by so many politicians and the Climate Change Commission? The target was net zero emissions. And that’s what our climate legislation says. The global agreement’s focus is on net zero emissions. But there is a continued push for no emissions at all from an inner political cabal – which is seeing our primary food producers very existence being threatened.

The state of our primary sector economy is such that we have to make a stand to defend it, as in the original climate legislation. And reset our bearings because this sector faces too many regulations without any robust cost benefit analysis.

Have a look at the unworkable RMA National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity. It is a lawyer’s paradise, prospecting up to ten-year delays, in applicants appearing before the court. And more impractical than Labour’s Freshwater National Policy Statement.

These last two measures, the RMA, and Labour’s Three Waters, now Ten Waters policy, have no electoral mandate, but are an attempt to secure a political virus called co-government over the resources you desperately need here.

Remember the original commitment was that the Primary Sector would not enter the emissions trading scheme without corresponding trading partner action.

That is why it is New Zealand First policy to incentivise the uptake of the emissions reduction mitigations – such as low methane genetics, funded by repurposing money funded by the emissions trading scheme revenue and funds earmarked for the purchase of overseas carbon credits.

That with developing science, is commonsense as opposed to consigning from our economy billions of dollars to foreign economies as our response to climate change action.

And one thing is of grave concern, the international circumstances of emission trading settings, is now one of grave uncertainty. With massive fluctuations in the value of investments within the global emissions trading scheme.

And for those who want to argue otherwise against the interests of New Zealand and the likes of Taranaki, New Zealand First response is this.

• We are responsible for 0.17% of the world’s carbon emissions, and politicians in New Zealand should explain to you why they are imposing such demands on New Zealand businesses and agriculture, without explaining the lack of response from China, India, Russia and the United States – being some of the world’s largest carbon emitters.

Ministry Of Energy

Earlier in this speech mention was made of the state of China’s economy today. Sixty percent of the worlds trade goes through the South China Seas, and New Zealand at the very end of the supply line, is not, because of government inaction and a lack of foresight, prepared to deal with the consequences of interruption to our vital supply lines.

Our fuel now wholly comes by sea. We have no undersea pipeline and the tragedy with the closure of Marsden Point, unopposed by the Labour government since 2020, means that New Zealand is totally exposed.

Had Marsden Point not been allowed to close, crude oil from here in Taranaki and refined at Marsden Point, with existing recyclable additives, could keep all our front-line critical industries going in an offshore fuel supply crisis.

• New Zealand needs a Fuel Security Plan. A way of joining together all the actions required to ensure the country is appropriately protected. It needs a plan to deliver the transport services NZ must maintain through any fuel supply disruption.

The plan will be developed by assessing the options, how quickly each could be made available, their reliability, and their cost. This includes looking at how New Zealand can diversify its fuel mix for greater security. How for example electric trucks can be introduced to the fleet.

A particular focus would be emergency services and also the lifeline services that maintain our critical infrastructure - such as power and water. As well as getting priority fuel allocation during any short-term disruption, they need to be able to handle any form of crisis and over a prolonged period.

There also needs to be a focus on other essential services – from food production and distribution to those that keep the nation’s key exporters moving. And the plan would look at what needs to be done immediately and what capabilities it makes sense to develop over time.

Different mixes of fuels and the infrastructure to support these will be appropriate at different times so it is important to plan and update for this.

• We require a Fuel Security Plan to be developed to ensure essential transport services are maintained through any fuel supply disruption,
• Legislate for the plan to define a Fuel Security Standard and require this to be met, and
• Ensure the plan considers all fuel options for meeting the standard and assesses their ability to deliver reliable and least cost solutions in the time required.

That’s why New Zealand First is announcing today our policy to create a Ministry for Energy – it being one of our most critical concerns now.

Crime

Recently there was a criminal case in New Plymouth in yesterday’s news. A man was stabbed, brutally beaten with a claw hammer, and murdered. One offender was given a life sentence but could be out of prison in ten years. The claw hammer offender received just 12 months home detention.

How is a victim’s family meant to believe in our justice system when that is the punishment?

Ladies and gentlemen this accentuates the alarming development in this country’s justice system, which has so little concern for the victims, but instead gives priority to the offender. Most New Zealanders are alarmed by that.

In the same report, your local Labour Member of Parliament, said Labour had already delivered on beefing up police numbers on the front line. That statement is not true. It was New Zealand First that secured the 1800 net frontline police numbers – not Labour. But we did that expecting that those police would be better used to secure safety on our streets, and not see serious offenders, given such soft sentences.

Everything else he said to assure local people that he was concerned with law and order, begs the question, seeing as they were in charge of this matter, so why hasn’t it been done already?

The National candidate was not much better. He sought to defend nationals record, which was about catch and warn, freezing police budgets, cutting police numbers, and closing police stations all around provincial New Zealand.

IN this campaign law and order must not be a slogan but a commitment. But as you know, both the old parity’s record on law and order has been abysmal over the past ten years.

New Zealand First policy is to go on strengthening police numbers, putting more frontline police on the streets, ensure that the courts do enforce the law – not dilute it, and designate gangs as terrorist organisations. On the Eastern Seaboard of the North Island there are more gang members than there are police.

Like Queensland and Western Australia, we are going to outlaw their gang operations and require them to work – before they access any benefits.

New Zealand’s Economy Against 2023 Political Promises

Ladies and gentlemen, this country is in a recession and just 16 days away from the PREFU (Pre-Election Economic Fiscal Update). On the 12th of September New Zealanders are going to find out that there is a $20 billion fiscal whole already, and perhaps even higher than that, given the latest milk price update.

So, the question is, how can political parties be making so many multi-billion dollar promises in this election when they must surely know, if they understood the economy, that they have no hope of delivering on most of them.

We need realism and commonsense – not political platitudes.

2023 Key Issues

New Zealand has not paid its way since 1972.

So, we must dramatically improve our national income and social performance. And again, become world leaders, as we once were.

To do that we must modernise our economy and again become wealth creators, maximising added value before exporting. Look at our ports and see logs in their most raw state being sent overseas where their added value will go to other economies and their workers, and not our economy and our workers. New Zealand First is going to change that by incentivising added value here in New Zealand, before the export of developed products.

We must maximise IT to assist in this wealth creation and in doing so, restore our health system and our education system.

And we must bear in mind we cannot make the economic recovery we need without having a high wage economy – as we once did.

Our taxation policies are designed to assist businesses and workers and they will be announced soon in this campaign.

New Zealand First knows that for us to succeed economically and socially we must restore discipline to our nation – and that can only happen if, as a culture, we all accept that.

New Zealand First understands that our people are our “human capital” where expenditure is a necessary investment, not a wasteful cost.

No longer must the kiwi worker go on being the most forgotten citizen.

Fix Our Failing Education System

Where New Zealand was once a world leader in education, the latest Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study ranks Kiwi students last amongst all English-speaking countries, and 24th of the OECD nations. It’s a similar story in Maths and Science.

No doubt you have hundreds of explanations of what other parties are going to do on education, but New Zealand First’s priority is to:

• Enforce compulsory education and end the appalling truancy record, which if unchecked will bring about a tsunami of education al failure at a personal level, and a national level billions of wasted taxpayers dollars set aside for students who are not in the classroom,
• We are going to stop the social engineering sexual and gender indoctrination in schools – and get back to teaching the basics,
• Return to education and stop indoctrination.

Co-Government

The first New Zealand election was in 1854, Māori voting was added in 1867, and women voting came in 1893.

“Democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people”. That means one person, one vote, and every vote of equal value.

Secretly before 2020 and after, the Labour, Greens, and Māori Party have launched a full-scale attack on the essence of democracy.

Ordinary Māori want safe affordable homes, ready access to health care, educational escalators for their young, and first world wages. That is what all ordinary New Zealanders want, and it’s those four policies that New Zealand First is committed to delivering on – no matter what race you are, what church you are, what gender you are.

To get to where these politicians are taking us, they deal in lies, including these four claims:

• That European arrival ruined the peaceful paradise of Māori,
• That the Treaty saw Māori begin a partnership with Queen Victoria,
• That the Treaty was not about Māori ceding sovereignty,
• That the Treaty meant Māori ‘self-government’

Stop for a moment and ask yourself, whether you’re Māori or non-Māori, can any of those four statements be remotely true?

• Every Iwi history of the inter-tribal wars makes the ‘Māori Garden of Eden’ a complete myth. Look at the local Māori history here.
• If no one in Britain or the UK or the whole British Empire was in partnership with the Crown on the 5th of February 1840, then how could it be constitutionally true that Māori were, two days later?
• The fact is Māori ceded sovereignty to the Crown when they signed the Treaty. The Chiefs back then said so, as did many leading Māori later, including Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir Maui Pomare, and Sir Peter Buck. Yet today’s elite power-hungry Māori and their cultural fellow travelers deny history and fact (see Sir Apirana Ngata’s ‘Te Tiriti O Waitangi’ explanation 101 years ago in 1922).
• All Māori Iwi pre-1840 and well after, were under the control of their ‘Tino Rangatiratanga’. That means their Chief’s word was gospel. If there was back then co-government, which Chief’s word, if different, was gospel?

The elite’s argument does not stand the slightest scrutiny. And every ordinary Māori knows it.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most critical election in our lifetime.

Under MMP you have two votes. One for a local electorate political Party candidate, the other for the political Party of your choice; the Party Vote. New Zealand First is asking for your Party Vote.

But any change must be for a much better government and not just ‘it’s our turn now’. You’re entitled to ask them “your turn to do exactly what?”

And one thing that the last three years has proven is that certainty, common sense, and experience, is critical to good government. On their own the Labour Party has proven an utter mess.

And looking at the others ask yourself this question, “Is this their first rodeo?” Because for many it is. They have never been a Minister inside of Cabinet. They will need our certainty, our common sense, and our experience.

New Zealand First is the insurance voters need to avoid an ideological lurch in either direction.

We are a Party that has since our formation, put New Zealanders First.

It’s with that in mind that we ask you to get ready, to make a commitment today, right here right now, to save our country.

If you do, the future is certain.

Democracy will prevail.

But it is ‘Now or Never’.

We oppose racist co-government.

We oppose their Three Waters take over.

We oppose our country’s name being changed.

We oppose separatism in policy and in law.

We oppose this insidious woke agenda being driven by an elite cabal of social and ideological engineers.

We support policies based on need, not race.

We support the rule of law where everyone is equal before it.

We support the right of free speech - and that means we support the right of New Zealanders to say, ‘I disagree’ and not be mandated out of existence.

We support the right of New Zealanders to disagree with government policy and not be punished for it.

We have watched over the last three years Labour and its cohorts taking your country away from you.

We’ve got the polices, the grit, the experience, and the courage to stop them.

We are asking you to join us, Party Vote New Zealand First, and,

“Let’s Take Back Our Country”.

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