Peters Winston: Budget Debate 
Peters Winston: Budget Debate 
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Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I want to thank the Labour Party for that applause. There are four words to describe the last two speeches: “He’s gone; she’s going.” She said: “If I were a Kiwi family”—[ 
Interruption 
] Well is she not part of a Kiwi family? I want to say this— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Are you? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes I am and if that member wants to talk about the babysitter I will right now. 
I want to take a moment to update the House on developments in Tauranga and in the Bay of Plenty region. Having just returned from Tauranga and having witnessed first-hand the devastation last night I can report that the people of Tauranga have demonstrated their resilience and fighting spirit. Those from civil defence the police and the fire service those health and Defence Force personnel and those mayors local authority officials and others who have come from outside the district have done an admirable job in assisting our region in its hour of need. I want to thank those people personally and to reassure the House that every necessary step is being taken to address this state of emergency and to put the region back on a stable footing. 
But now I return to the matter at hand. I move  
That the amendment be amended by omitting all the words after the word “House” and inserting the following words: “has no confidence in the Labour minority Government and those who for 21 years have blindly supported failed neo-Liberal policies and records with regret that the Government has failed to provide leadership and policy to enhance New Zealand’s export performance and per capita incomes has failed to address New Zealand’s burgeoning balance of payments deficit has failed to deal with escalating violent crime has failed to provide sufficient numbers of police has failed to deliver a first world health system has failed to curb the burgeoning Treaty of Waitangi industry has done nothing to stop excessive and unfocused immigration and does nothing to lay the foundations for building a better more prosperous nation for future generations. 
In all my years in Parliament I have never forgotten a speech or a face but after listening to the last three speeches I have decided that I am going to make an exception. 
We came here expecting to hear words of political wisdom a blueprint for a dynamic future and a fair deal for the elderly but we just got the latest version of the spin doctor’s manual. This Budget has been an innocuous policy prescription for an ailing economy that is falling into decline through a visionless regime of warped priorities a regime that will soon be leaving the Treasury benches. All the halls that are packed around New Zealand today tell me that. 
New Zealanders are crying out for leadership and for a clear direction. They are crying out for a plan. They are tired of being led by aimless focus-group polling the only intent of which is to keep Labour in power—power at all costs. So although today we are none the wiser as to what Dr Cullen actually wants to do we now know that Labour’s focus-group polling is telling him the following and that this is the problem with this short-sighted approach: it is all about token gestures but there is no vision. 
Where is the export plan that will underpin our long-term economic growth? Where are the incentives for innovation for our businesses other than the driving of our brightest and best offshore? Where are the equity and fairness in the treatment of our senior citizens? Where is the genuine commitment to addressing our infrastructural needs? Where are the policies that will reverse the trend of importing welfare recipients while exporting our educated young? Where are the policies to control the consumption-driven economy that has focused and forced real wages down and inflation and interest rates up? Where is the commitment to addressing the race relations issue and does the Government really think a treaty roadshow will do that? Where are the policies that will stem the tide of more than 1300 New Zealanders a year dying when on hospital waiting lists? 
Brent Catchpole 
: It’s a disgrace. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is a disgrace. What we have is an orchestrated litany of election-year largesse derived from focus-group polls aimed at only one thing: getting Labour re-elected. Well the halls that New Zealand First has been filling around New Zealand lately tell me that that will not work; New Zealanders will see it for what it is. I must say that it has been something short of the spectacle it was meant to be. 
We have growth projections of 2.5 percent—the lowest for more than half a decade. We have net debt spiralling out of control. We have a current account deficit reaching epidemic proportions with projections of a deficit of more than $11 billion in 2008. It is little wonder that the World Bank now ranks us at No. 40 for gross national income per head of population. There has been nothing in this or in the last five Budgets to reverse that. 
It seems clear that Dr Cullen’s dark secret agenda over tax was so dark that no one could find it. The dark secret agenda leaked all around the country in the last 3 days was so dark no one knew where it was. Who would offer working-class New Zealanders a tax incentive of 67c—half a packet of chewing gum—in 3 years’ time? That is all it is. It is little wonder that Dr Cullen did not want to have his photo taken with the Budget. 
If tax was meant to be the subject of a battle though in the last two or three speeches in this House between New Zealand’s economic heavyweights then the public should be entitled to a refund. In National’s corner was someone more at home in a TaiBo class than in a heavyweight clash. He mimicked the motions of the instruction but where was the menace? In the other corner was the Minister of Finance whose Government carries so much baggage it was terribly difficult for him to get in a blow with any force at all. Most of the time today Dr Cullen was here with his defences up. 
However I am pleased to tell New Zealanders that the real contender is here and New Zealanders can be grateful that at least one political party is willing to stand up and fight for them. That knowledge is what is now filling halls in Wanganui Palmerston North Napier New Plymouth and all over this country. 
This Budget is really about finding out who is the Government’s weakest link—and boy is that a tough task! The ploy has failed because it is a very tough ask to find the Government’s weakest link. One thing is clear: the Prime Minister probably wishes that the Associate Minister of Education had put tennis balls in the mouths of all the tossers and tuggers in her caucus. 
Where do we start to find this weakest link? We cannot go past the Minister of Education Trevor Mallard. New Zealand must be the only developed nation in the world that tolerates such incompetence from its Minister of Education and it is our children who are paying the price for that. Although we have had two resignations so far over the National Certificate of Educational Achievement debacles there really must be one more person who should go. That person despite having had numerous warnings that there were problems with the process he had overseen tried to blame everybody—everywhere else—except himself. When he was warned that the system was failing what did he do? 
Hon Members 
: Nothing. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Precisely—nothing! He tried to dodge that bullet by appointing an associate Minister to take the flack. That ploy failed because it seems that Mr Benson-Pope was otherwise engaged. The mind boggles and so I imagine do the eyes. That Minister of Education has put the futures of thousands of New Zealand children at risk. Is he the weakest link? 
Hon Members 
: Yes. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Should he go? 
Hon Members 
: Yes. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Everybody has said yes and he should go. But wait there is more. 
We have a Mark II Minister of Immigration who has the same problem as the Mark I version—the giggler from Christchurch. The Minister of Immigration does not know who came here why they came or what they are doing here. His incompetence seems to know no bounds. For years now we have been warning him about immigration fraud and what has he done? 
Hon Members 
: Nothing. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Precisely he never does. The result is that now we have hordes of undesirables living in this country a number of whom—mark my words—will no doubt become Iraqi versions of Zaoui. We have warned the Minister numerous times about fraudulent activities in the gaining of visas and permanent residency. That is the same Minister who was too frightened to front up to the media over the Iraqi issue; instead he sent a public servant to do his dirty work. Such dishonourable meekness alone should warrant his removal. That Minister just does not know which Tom Dick Yusef Ahmed Sum or Ying-Tong is actually here. We have passed on many of those cases but—as the Prime Minister told the House—what did he do? 
Hon Members 
: Nothing. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Nothing. New Zealand First members copped all the abuse when we highlighted the dangers of this Government’s soft touch on open-door immigration policies. We were told that this Minister was going to review the immigration laws but now we know what he was really up to. 
Hon Members 
: Nothing. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Precisely. The terms of this review which he promised a year ago have not even gone to Cabinet yet—after a year. Is he a weak link? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Should he go? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Precisely. But wait there is more. 
There is a Minister of Police who although it is hard to believe is probably more incompetent than the Minister of Immigration. Talk about trying to pass the buck! When for months New Zealand First’s Ron Mark raised the debacle of the 111 system that Minister said that all was well. Last week we found out what we already knew—that all was not well. In fact that system has totally failed. 
When New Zealand First says that there needs to be many more police that Minister says that the commissioner has all the police he needs. We know that that is not true and it has not been true for years. New and more staff are needed urgently. 
When we claimed that the police were sitting on the side of the road with their radios turned off that Minister denied it. We now know that it was an all too-common practice yet that Minister had the audacity to claim that morale was low in the police force because of Opposition attacks. That is what he said. 
There have been precedents in this House for a Minister to resign in the light of such sustained poor performance. The threshold is normally set so that a resignation results from numerous and cumulative mistakes from people dying as a result of ministerial incompetence and from ministerial inaction leading to a crisis of public confidence. That Minister is guilty on all three counts. Is he a weak link? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Should he go? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: But wait there is more. 
There is a Minister in this Government whose heart drips icicles. He is of course the heartless Minister of Finance who is keeping our seniors on the breadline. He is the same Minister who told this House why he set the superannuation rate at or near 68 percent of the average wage for the first 3 years he was in office. He said it was because prior changes to calculating superannuation meant that superannuitants were being ripped off. The same Minister then told the House that he had always intended to rip off the elderly by lowering the rate to 65 percent which means that all those previous gains boasted about by people like Jim Anderton and Labour Party members are now all lost. But the Minister of Finance has made it much worse by allowing the rate to go below 65 percent for most of the year: last year for three out of four quarters the rate for our superannuitants was below 65 percent. 
Such a callous attitude is why seniors are leaving Labour in hordes and coming to New Zealand First. We know it. There is a procession which is turning into a parade. Is he a weak link? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Should he go? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: But wait there is more. 
Deciding who is the weakest link as I said is a tough task. There is meant to be one individual in Parliament who should keep that type of incompetence in check. He is meant to stand up in Parliament and give the people of New Zealand a credible alternative. That is the man who now wants constantly to compare New Zealand’s performance with that of Australia. Yet when he had the chance to support the Australian model in the 1980s and the 1990s he instead elected to follow the model of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson. He says now that Australia got it right—but he supported the neo-liberal experiment and he has done so for these last 21 years. That is another story of a man now crying wolf. Sadly he is failing on all counts so in the case of the National Party leader one must ask: is he a weak link? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Should he go? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: And so say all National Party members. 
But who is the real weak link? She is the one person who could single-handedly fix all of the aforementioned if she had the slightest concern for this country rather than for her own career. She is the same person who has made gay marriage and legalised prostitution higher priorities than the protection of jobs for New Zealanders. She is the same person who has allowed more than 1300 people per year to die when on hospital waiting lists while she gallivants the globe for photo opportunities. This Prime Minister has countenanced and approved $170000 per year to be spent on sex change operations while all the time she has allowed hospital waiting lists to grow and grow and has allowed over 1300 people in New Zealand to die when on those lists. 
She told the media that George Hawkins needed protecting because the Opposition were bullies. How is that for leadership? She spread all sorts of rumours about Dover Samuels to get him sacked and now she claims everything is OK because he has a token job outside Cabinet. She signs every free-trade agreement on offer from every large Asian nation with absolutely no regard for New Zealand workers. The Labour Party once used to believe in the New Zealand worker. 
This is the queen of PC who has consigned Maori to grievance mode and dependency and who now complains when Maori turn on her. I could go on but the voters know what we all know in this House. Is she the weakest link? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Should she go? 
Hon Members 
: Yes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: And after the next election she will. 
There is a party in Parliament that cares about New Zealand workers that cares about our senior citizens and that cares about our families. We would never talk about a Kiwi family as the Prime Minister just did. What a Freudian slip! There is a party in this House that believes our porous borders need tightening—and we do not need to engage in name-calling as others do to do it. There is a party that will derail the treaty grievance gravy train and promote harmony rather than promote division through race-based policies. There is a party that believes that New Zealanders both young and old hope for and desire a better future. When the election is over this party will begin the process of putting in place its policy programme for the future. 
In the last few weeks New Zealand First members have been around this country. We saw almost 700 people in Wanganui and about 600 in New Plymouth; we know what is going on out there in heartland New Zealand. It has been a matter of some interest to find that at those meetings the National Party had been putting all sorts of stickers on people’s cars—its stickers at our meetings. I know it has stolen our policies but now it is trying to steal our audiences. I ask Dr Brash what kind of leadership that is. 
There is a party in this House that has stayed consistent to its principles and policies. It understands ordinary New Zealanders and it knows they want direction and hope. It knows that New Zealand can be a great country again. We in New Zealand First say to those people out there in heartland New Zealand—who are stifled by rising interest rates rising taxation on the roads and rising currency rates that are damaging exporters and ruining forestry fishing farming and provincial New Zealand—to hang on because help is on its way. 
In but a few weeks there will be an election and we all know the tide has changed. If anyone believes that the election will be a two-horse race then they know nothing about politics. This election will be a three-horse race when it comes to parties and a two-horse race when it comes to leadership. We all know that and the polls are saying it. 
We in New Zealand First say to people out there—who are stifled by the costs that impact on their families and children who are stifled by the lack of care and attention to the human needs of people in this country who look abroad and know that one in four of our tertiary students goes overseas never to come back because overseas there is real opportunity and who are anxious and concerned that so many young people have to go abroad to find meaningful work and First World salaries—to hang on because help is on its way. Halls are filling up all over the country because people have come to understand that.