Peters WinstonRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Today our country has just changed gears—from reverse and backwards to forwards and progress. We wish in New Zealand First to begin by recognising the work of the Minister of Finance and her three Associate Ministers of Finance because preparing a Budget in an economic crisis is an extraordinarily difficult undertaking which most people don't understand in this House let alone in the country. A difficult undertaking when on forecast growth charts the International Monetary Fund last year had us—of the 159 countries they measured in terms of GDP growth they had us 158. Now that should have been a screaming disaster out there in the mainstream media. But no they seem to be totally oblivious to these facts. That's by comparison of course the lowest this country has ever been since there've been measurements. These Ministers faced a tsunami of debt and so does the Government. As a consequence an economy at serious risk confronting international protectionism with the tax take seriously down having to confront major structural failure. New Zealanders are voting with their feet leaving our shores in a mass Old Testament exodus of people. That's what we faced. The responsibility for that lies on that side of the House.Now look turning to one's own portfolio to Vote Foreign Affairs we can only advance the coalition Government's ambition to improve the security and prosperity of New Zealanders through an active well-resourced foreign policy. To that end Budget '24 will invest nearly $60 million in capital and operational funding for essential diplomatic infrastructure to support key international relationships most particularly in our Pacific neighbourhood. It is a start a first step Ministers of Finance.Over the next several months the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will be benchmarking its diplomatic reach against countries we compare ourselves with in size and ambition as New Zealand will more effectively advance its economic and security interests internationally. We will never get the outcomes in trade that we want unless we put a whole lot of firepower into the field. I'm certain that that's what we're going to do.Now having said that I observed the response from the leader of the Labour Party Chris Hipkins. At night if anybody's not able to get to bed replay that speech—because it was going to put Mogadon totally out of business. After five minutes he ran out of puff. It was noticeable. You know you have to look at that and say to yourself I am psychologically studying what's happening over there." Their heads were down. Suddenly they were dealing with a tsunami of correspondence that turned up this afternoon just before the Budget turned up. All of them looking downwards not exuding confidence at all. Dejected forlorn guilty inwardly repentant but outwardly mildly defiant. It doesn't look like a party's that's going to be back in three years does it? Or for that matter six years. Because—I'll tell you why—it hasn't got a leader.Hon Rachel Brooking: Two years.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No we haven't. Oh and by the way that member shouted out through the whole time and I thought to myself "Gee there's not many people that can eat a banana sideways but you could." Unbelievable.In 4½ minutes he ran out of puff. He wrote his no-confidence motion not when he saw the Budget today—he obviously wrote it yesterday. Because he got up and gave a stereotype speech and went straight downhill. He lamented further borrowing—that Labour caused. There were crocodile tears for the elderly having done nothing to advance the SuperGold card in the time they had it. He talked about—"As a former Minister of Education" he said "I can tell you". I thought "What a brilliant opening line." "As a former Minister of Education I can tell you"—what he could tell us about was how the education standards deteriorated so rapidly under that sort of thinking. And then he referenced the cost of climate change when on building climate change resilience they had done so so little.Then—it's an extraordinary thing here and I hope the mainstream media pick this up if they're still alive—he mentioned the failed trickle-down theory of economics. Now that was fascinating. And he mentioned "40 years ago" about this trickle-down theory of economics and the 40-year period but he forgot to say it was Labour who brought it in—after March 1984. Haven't these people got a memory or conscience? Then with seven minutes to go—he took all 30 minutes to say something else—he told New Zealanders that he was listening to them. You know it's reminiscent of the song by American rapper Shaggy "It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me." Just to be modern right? "It wasn't me. It wasn't me."Hon Member: That's not a country music reference.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No it's not a country reference—Hon Member: Country music.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No it's not country music; it's a rapper. You know—Hon Rachel Brooking: Six minutes with no mention of the Budget.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Pardon?Hon Rachel Brooking: Six minutes with no mention of the Budget.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No I mentioned the background of the Budget in my first sentence. I mentioned the foreign affairs part of that Budget in my second page. Now with respect if you want to learn something you've got to listen.Look we are sick and tired of failed university student union politicians. They couldn't run the university school tuck shop. They get up here they've never ever risked any money at all and they're spending billions of dollars and saying that they can do it. No they can't. Why the last person that ran it—he's heading off having run the country into massive debt; he's going to a university with massive debt.They mentioned tobacco taxes. Tobacco taxes went up in December last year. Pay attention.Ladies and gentlemen then the next speaker was Marama Davidson—speak a bit of French?—sans Swarbrick. "Sans" means "without". Because usually that party has co-leaders so they get 10 minutes each. So something's going a little wrong over there. Something's happening over there. Sans Swarbrick—not 10 minutes each this time. No. Marama—Hon Member: Scott's starting a coup.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I beg your pardon?Scott Willis: Est-ce que tu parles français? Je savais pas.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh really? Oh really? Fantastic! Well I can see why you're over there on the other side of the House. Because we speak English in this country—a language that came from a small village in Germany all those centuries ago. It's the language of commerce worldwide.Now back to the Greens. Facing 54 years my friend of never ever having made a Cabinet—54 years of never being in Cabinet. How can you belong to a movement? You look like a nice guy. You join a movement and it's 54 years in the wilderness. That's what you're going to be by 2026. Then 2029 will be 57 years.Scott Willis: I'm not worried about a one-term Government.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no you're not worried about it no. But some of us came here to do a job not to say "Look I think I'll just change profession I'll land down in Parliament and maybe they've got a job for me there." No no—some of us here are on a mission. We're out to save our country. We're out to make it one of the greatest countries in the world again which we once were.Then—here's the point—from the Greens you heard the modern version of Das Kapital this utopian world when she said this straight out of the book itself "To each according to their need". That's communism. Why don't you say so sunshine? Why don't you tell the people that's what you stand for these days? Don't pose as Māori. Don't pose as being green. Don't pose as being anti - climate change. No—tell me what your economics is! And it's communist. Because when you can get in this House and own that up then nobody can protest for me saying it because that's straight from the book itself. Or do a bit of reading before you come here next time.Then he entered the race to the bottom with Te Pāti Māori. All complaints she did. No answers. No solutions. Descended straight from the absurd to the ridiculous.These Green MPs of course are the highest aviation taxpayer-paid cost takers of all of Parliament. These Green MPs spend more time on aeroplanes than all the rest of us in terms of cost—about four times my party's cost. Where are they flying to? What are they doing—because they never have a meeting. They never have a public meeting. No they just go to the nearest bush and find a frog and say "This is going be under grave endangerment" and media rush off and put them on night after night. They never ever do anything out there. They have no constituency offices. Hon Willow-Jean Prime: She's the MP for them.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh I see her there. What's her name—from up north? Willow-Jean Prime. She wishes to defend them. I know why Willow would say that—because that's what Willow doesn't do either. When was the time Willow ever hit the ground hard and went around the place and put in some spade work for her party?Hon Willow-Jean Prime: You heard wrong.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I'm sorry you feel that way because no matter what happens in the end if you're going to be on the side of the Greens in this contest then the Labour Party's finished—finished. The highest aviation costs of all MPs. You know something? Winston Churchill said there is nothing the Government can give that it hasn't taken from you in the first place. I'm sure this will go down big with the ACT Party—there is nothing the Government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place. He also said "I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." And that's all you heard from them today—unbelievable.Two-thirds of our new spending goes to health education and law and order. That's our decisive reply to the fearmongering and scaremongering led by that crowd over there. Two-thirds of our new spending goes to health education and law and order and to the front line not the bloated bureaucratic back line or the 17000 new ones they got when they're there with no productivity issues to argue for in their favour at all.Tax relief in Budget 2024 leaves $3.7 billion in taxpayers' pockets. Minister—it's not tax savings here; we're just not taking the money out of their pockets—money that they own—in the first place right? We're leaving the money with them. It's theirs and theirs to keep. You know something? Core Crown debt—what we New Zealanders owe—had gone under Labour and the Greens from 20 percent of GDP to 43 percent of GDP. I'm repeating what the Minister of Finance has said because this is the environment we're in—trying to get by with degraded economic circumstances born of economic naivety in the extreme and massive PR boastfulness paid for by the taxpayers of this country on their way through.Budget 2024 invests $1.2 billion over three years in what was once the Provincial Growth Fund but is now the Regional Infrastructure Fund. Oh the name was changed by the Labour Party because they didn't want to own up to the fact that the only thing they ever had success around was the Provincial Growth Fund. Now regional projects for economic growth flood protection climate mitigation—which they never did but which we will do—and resilience projects are what our priorities are.We all have our view on the previous Government's economic performance and many of these views rightly so in this House are not neutral. There is a view held recently by hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders and their view is neutral because recently hundreds of thousands over the last three years have left or fled this country under a Labour government. That's the most blistering commentary of how bad they were.Shanan Halbert: Oh tell us about the Budget.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: "Oh tell us about the Budget." he says. That's the part that we're redressing right now right? Today the Māori Party organised a protest on Parliament's forecourt and then didn't even turn up in this House to find out what was in the Budget. Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Here they are; they're here.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No they didn't turn up to find out what was in this Budget—unprecedented—and if you're their defender they're stuffed. If you're their protector if you're their advocate if you're their defender they haven't got a hope in Hades. The highest cost of all MPs in terms of taxpayer-paid costs for MPs but they couldn't even bother to turn up. They couldn't even bother to turn up—never been seen in this Parliament since 1854. Since 1854 never been seen. [Interruption] And you are not the youngest member of Parliament—you never were. Dobbie Paikea was. Let me inform you Māori people that Dobbie Paikea was here when he was 90 years of age so stop showing off. Stop showing off and wearing a huia feather. Absolute dereliction of duty.Rawiri Waititi: Talking about the oldest not the youngest.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah well I'm pleased you're here because you make me look young. Take your hat off. Take your cowboy hat off. You make me look young.Now this is a quote from someone back when that is quite poignant and reflective. This person said this "It is Kiwi-centred because significant decisions have been made and implemented that we are driving right in right now as a baseline to a nationhood concept that gives them regardless of race and creed a sense of belonging as Kiwis in this great country. Our challenge is in moving forward." That is a quote from John Tamihere—now president of the Māori Party—in 2005.Here's another quote from someone back when that is insightful and honest: "The rise of the Māori Party is unfortunate and frustrating. It is not Māori; Māori is a generic term. The group of people who have supported the rise of the Māori Party are actually tribal fundamentalists." That is a quote from John Tamihere the current president of the Māori Party. And another quote from someone back when that is based in fact and quite applicable to what is happening outside there today on Budget day is: "The problem with the Māori Party is that it is led by a bunch of people who have done extraordinarily well out of protest activism so they can tell their children why they should vote against things why they should march against things and why they should dislike others." That is a quote from John Tamihere—the current president of Te Pati Māori—in 2005 and screaming out like you don't do back on the marae in Taranaki won't help you now. Nor that hat.Another very factual quote "It is quite clear. The Māori Party is built around new-age educationalists reconstructionists in terms of history and the academics and the new elite around the Treaty of Waitangi chequebooks. There is no case and no space in this country for separatists. I am very proud of my Ngāti Porou tānga—very proud of that tribal background. We do not ram it down other people's throats but we are very proud of it."Hon Member: Oh here we go.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes here we go. Yes we are going and with the same quote "Our being proud of it does not mean to say that we can coerce others into our way of thinking." I will say it again for the lady from up north: "Our being proud of it does not mean to say that we can coerce others into our way of thinking. We have to acknowledge that this is a great land of diversity difference and opportunity." Who's it from? Take a wild guess. It's from John Tamihere—the current president of Te Pāti Māori—in 2005.But the last quote is the most insightful of all. Here we go—Rawiri Waititi: He's lost it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: You've only been here five seconds and where I come from and where you come from you listen to your elders OK? So just hush up show some manners show that you might understand where you might go in the future before they turf you out in five seconds' time. Here we go again—it's the last insightful quote: "The days when people could stand up and scream "treaty" and believe that they would get special rights have gone." John Tamihere—current president of Te Pāti Māori.Ladies and gentlemen we suffered an indignity today because the mass majority of Māori went to jobs sometimes two or three jobs today. They went out to work for their family and their children alongside all other New Zealanders. All keeping our economy going—our hospitals our education system everything. They went to work today. But a few people decided to go outside this Parliament and not go to work. What I've just quoted to you today in both respects to the president of the Māori Party what he said then and what they're doing now is an example of hypocrisy that is palpable profound precise predictable preferential punitive and pathetic."