Peters Winston: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Peters Winston: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:11523] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 If there was ever a time for leadership and vision to unite this country it is now. Common cause is sought now. This is a budget policy debate about the forgotten people of New Zealand—the ordinary New Zealanders and I will describe who they are. They are people trying to raise and educate their families in a hostile environment; they are people trying to survive in a low-wage economy as against the First World; they are people trying to survive old age on a low pension in a rising tide of prices particularly in the urban sector. People in this country are trying to get cancer operations cataract or hip operations and they cannot. People are trying to grow exports that are desperately needed in this country’s economy in a hostile environment of indifference neglect and misunderstanding. 
Unfortunately this too is a case of a Government of sectional interests. It is not a Government for real New Zealanders or all New Zealand. This is a Government made up of people who believe that fiscal drag is a fashion statement and that fiscal updates were legalised along with prostitution. 
Today members heard nothing whatsoever from the National Party. Mr Key made it very clear that National would do nothing whatsoever and repeat the huge mistakes of Ruth Richardson between 1990 and 1993 when she took a party with the biggest majority in this country’s history to a hung Parliament on election night 3 years later. Mr Key has outlined the fact that National has learnt nothing knows nothing and will do nothing in an environment where every other First World economy would have Ministers of Finance and Opposition spokespeople who would understand the need for action. 
We are concerned that there is nothing in the statement before the House today and that fiscal updates have nothing in respect of an economic vision or any plan for this country’s future. We are on a slide to the Third World and every member of this Parliament knows that. Any economist who knows anything about the international stage knows it as well. There is nothing here to arrest our slide into the Third World because we are spending more overseas than we earn. The answer is not to be found in a mixture of massive immigration—that is National’s policy as well—it is not to be found in social engineering and it is not to be found in political correctness. Through those disastrous policies the Government has created a consumer-driven economy and a consumptive economy not a productive one based on rising house prices and a retail shopping frenzy. 
The real economy is being strangled by a high dollar. I want to show members a graph of how things have been since 1986 until 2004. The graph shows the figures under National all the way until New Zealand First got control of the Treasury benches back in 1996. There is the huge drop. That is why New Zealand had a massive economic recovery. It is all in the graphs. Labour gets back in power in 2001 and the graph is going through the roof again. The absolute tragedy— 
John Key 
: What did you do? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I shall tell Mr Key what I did. We changed the Budget Policy Statement in October 1996 and the dramatic turn-round began shortly after. The graph shows members what happened. However there is Labour supported by National on an indifferent apathetic policy that sees our dollar now going through the roof. The charts are all there. There are the alarm bells. It is 2003 and even then we could see the dollar going past 54c and Labour did and will do nothing. For 14 long years when Don Brash was in charge of that sort of policy at the Reserve Bank he did absolutely nothing. 
Of course Don Brash is famous. All the problems of this country are based on Maori indulgence and demand upon the public purse! I shall ask members a question. Do they remember when the Bank of New Zealand was in a terrible mess and we bailed it out twice with billions of dollars? Don Brash was in charge of prudential supervision of the Reserve Bank in respect of the Bank of New Zealand. What did he do against those cheats and fraudsters? He did not even raise a finger and he was in charge. 
It is easy to blame Maori but what about those friends of his and financial backers of the National Party? That is his track record and by his record members will know him. Exporters are in meltdown. They are going to the wall. The floods of this country— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I apologise to the member for interrupting. However I have noted that the senior Opposition whip was on the phone and other experienced members are not present. I think there is a clear implication in the member’s speech that there were financial reasons for the National Party not intervening in the Reserve Bank. That is a very serious accusation for the member to make—that effectively the National Party was taking money not to intervene as appropriate. I think that that should not be allowed to continue. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I think the point of order being raised by Mr Mallard ranks as about the worst a member could do. Mr Peters had made no such statements—a National Party person would have raised it if he had. Instead we have a bogus point of order. The statements made by Mr Mallard are completely out of order. He has stood up pretending to be supporting the National Party then accusing the National Party of financial impropriety over the collapse of the BNZ. That is ludicrous because the BNZ collapsed under the Labour Government when Mr Mallard was in charge. I will certainly not reply by suggesting innuendos against that Labour Government because I was a member of it too. [ 
Interruption 
] No. I am saying this very seriously. I am raising a very serious point of order. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No I will not be seated. I have not finished my point of order and I am entitled to do so. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I have heard Mr Prebble’s point of order. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No you have not heard my point of order Madam Speaker. I wish to be heard upon it. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No. This is outrageous. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. I have heard your point of order. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: You have not heard my point of order. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I tell Mr Prebble that I will warn him once only. I am on my feet and the member does not interrupt while I am speaking. I have heard the member’s point of order. I accept his point of order. I am ruling in that way. I believe that there was not a point of order and I agree with the member. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I have ruled on this point of order. That is the finish of the point of order. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I am raising a new point of order. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: If the member is raising a new point of order he may raise the new point of order. 
Dail Jones 
: Who is getting the call? It should be my turn. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The Hon Richard Prebble. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: My new point of order is that a member who breaks up a speech of this sort in that way not only should be asked to withdraw and apologise but I believe should be again sent from the House. 
Dail Jones 
: That is exactly what I was going to say. As a member for New Zealand First listening very carefully to what Mr Peters has to say I believe there was nothing in the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ speech that came close to the comment being made by Mr Mallard. He has already been ejected from the House once today. I suggest that you eject him again and for the rest of the day after he has withdrawn and apologised. He is a disgrace to this Parliament. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Notwithstanding the lack of orders to that effect I withdraw and apologise. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: We have dealt with this point of order. 
John Carter 
: This is a new point of order. The fact is that other than you saying that you would rule in that way a request has been made now by Mr Prebble and stated more specifically by Mr Jones that this is one of the most disgraceful points of order particularly coming from a senior Cabinet Minister that this House can have. All that has happened now is having made the statement and denigrated the National Party put it on record the member now has just had a quiet “I withdraw and apologise.” That is not good enough. This needs to be dealt with quite severely and the request and suggestion has been made to you that he be asked to leave the Chamber for the rest of the day and I urge you to do so; otherwise this whole thing will lead to disorder. It is not appropriate and not acceptable in this Chamber. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member has withdrawn and apologised. The matter is dealt with. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted the future of this country and its people cannot be left to international currency speculators—those people worshipped and adored by the National Party and its bankers. Mr Key said he would do nothing. Mr Brash said he would do nothing. We thoroughly exposed to currency fluctuations have a Reserve Bank obsessed with Auckland house prices and inflation; and all of the rest of the economy in provincial New Zealand is paying for it. 
John Key 
: Name me one— 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I tell Mr Key that the official cash rate in America is today 1 percent. What is ours? Why it is 5 percent. Let me tell the Government that New Zealand First would support any move to shelter the Kiwi dollar at a lower level and still leave room for serious investment here. Most economies act against the highs and the lows of currency fluctuations. Look at this investigation by the Finance and Expenditure Committee of the Minister of Finance. Read the questions there from other members and see how inert and hopeless it is in the face of an exporters’ crisis. 
John Key 
: Name one country. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Every country except one—New Zealand. New Zealand is the unique one. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell Mr Keys to get it right. Mr Keys said to name one country; I said every country does—but New Zealand. 
John Key 
: Name one that works. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Now he changes the subject. Now he says to name one that works. Ireland Taiwan Singapore Malaysia—there is a recovery if ever I saw one. Mr Soros was shut out. I tell Mr Keys not to come back to New Zealand from the halcyon markets of other people’s money and tell us who have run an economy how to run an economy. I tell members this: one half of the B team sneaked into Tauranga today. 
Hon Member 
: Who was that? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I cannot say. He had a telephone-booth meeting and tried to emulate the incumbent’s meeting in the Tauranga Red Square. The head economic puritan is not even speaking in this debate today. The B-team has swung back to the mad monetarism that nearly destroyed us in the 1980s and early 1990s. One half of the B team sneaked into Tauranga today and had a telephone-booth meeting so the B team is minus a B. I guess that makes them B-. They will be minus a whole lot of Bs before the next election is over. After listening to Labour and National today it is obvious that there is only one party that is prepared to take a stand on behalf of all New Zealanders and not just its narrow group of supporters. 
I tell Mr Key that Mr Brash can go to the Rotary Club he can bore New Zealanders witless he can go around stirring up apathy—but make no bones we know all about politics in this party and within 6 months their charts and polls will be humbug. We all know that. This man cannot sustain that sort of inertia and boredom. The people of Tauranga deserve better—not someone who is an example— 
John Key 
: That’s a very true statement. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: All right. Here is my challenge to Mr Key and his colleagues. Mr Brash says National will put up a high-profile candidate in Tauranga. I tell them to go ahead and put Don Brash up. We will have a showdown. Come on—bring on Don Brash and we will see what the people of Tauranga think of Don Brash and his policies on age care on 70 years for the retirement age on reducing retirement funding payments on privatising hospitals on privatising schools on user-pays in roading and every mad monetarist ACT policy. The president of the ACT party described him—not my words—as the ninth ACT party member. The ACT party call him the ninth ACT party member. Great news! My challenge to the National Party is to send Don Brash along to Tauranga and see what happens. I tell members this: if I cannot beat a man whom Gary Knapp beat twice I will resign. If I cannot beat a man whom Gary Knapp beat twice I will give up—and rightly so. 
Let me ask the question of National: is Don Brash coming to contest Tauranga? No. I say to stop bluffing the National supporters. As for the press gallery people I tell them to stop wasting everybody’s time because in 6 months’ time those of us who see politics like an instamatic picture know that as the picture emerges National will be in the doldrums again.