Peters Winston: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Peters Winston: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
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Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (NZ First—Tauranga) 
: 
 It just shows us how one can change one’s tune when one has the baubles of office as Mr Anderton does these days. The amazing thing is that we have in this country a current account deficit that is worsening every month; a balance of payments crisis as well; a massively overvalued dollar—it is about 20 percent overvalued—the highest interest rates in the OECD; banking now to be controlled by Australia; and a GDP per capita ranked at No. 25 in the world but when it comes to income per capita it is ranked at No. 37. Right there we see that New Zealand is a country that has so much overseas ownership that we do not even earn as people in terms of profit that which the stats say we as a country should enjoy. That is why we look at Australia. It is doing so much better than New Zealand. 
For Dr Brash to rise in this House and give Australian Canadian and First World comparisons is to engage in a very serious exercise in deception. It was Dr Brash and his ilk who in the 1980s and 1990s went down the path that no other First World country would go down. Hence New Zealand’s demise in 2005. With all our pain and effort we are still on a slide and no one can deny it. 
The last speaker talked about crime. If one does not intend to investigate crime and will not answer a 111 call one will never know how serious the situation is in New Zealand. We in Tauranga have a P crisis. That is known to the police. One shady individual in the Bay of Plenty is supplying P to teenage girls in return for sex. It gets them all duped up and hooked up and away it goes. I want to know whether we in New Zealand First have to name this man in Parliament before the police will do their job. For name him we will. The resources are not going there. The Minister of Police today proved categorically that he has no idea about what resources are going to Turangi up to the Coromandel to Whakatane across to Rotorua and to Tauranga. We know that there are none. We know for example that Port Nelson has just had its resources closed down. In short the Minister got up and gave assurances when in fact the situation on the ground is so much more serious. 
What a week we are having. We have the Hui Taumata where no young person is invited. Young people are out. It is a repeat of the failed “hui nomata” of October 1984. I remember the “hui nomata”. This Government has spent all that money; it has spent $1 million—and more—on the Hui Taumata this weekend. Can members imagine the audacity of spending that on a public relations stunt? The invites were all personal—one could not get in if one tried unless one had an invite and was from the Labour Party. What a week we have had. There has been the Hui Taumata and Don Brash’s pyjamas. We have to realise that this is election year. The mandatory book about that great new leader has been released and we found out that the meal of the day is corned beef and peas.Because his mum gave him a pair of pyjamas despite the fact that they were pretty emaciated and holey he decided to keep on wearing them regardless. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I am speaking on the Budget Policy Statement—make no bones about it Mr Speaker. I have to deal with this. We have a Minister— [ 
Interruption 
] Yes the Budget Policy Statement covers things like the police. We have a Minister of Police who for example in one breath says he gives the police all the resources they want and in the next breath says he never gives them all they ask for—and that was on the same day in the same question time! 
Rodney Hide 
: He sees no problem with that. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He sees no problem with that. Anyone who believes the Minister of Police must be as thick as a whale omelette—and that is saying something. 
I want to deal with other serious matters and touch quickly on Hui Taumata 2005 because a million dollars was dedicated to it. Members will recall that that funding was assigned last year. Why was it that the only way one could get involved in the Hui Taumata was to be a Labour Party candidate or supporter? What sort of conference is this? Over a million dollars is being spent on trying to placate the Labour Party membership at that hui. How can they claim to be representing Maoridom when they are so selective? What will be achieved from this week’s conference? Nothing will be achieved actually exactly as nothing was achieved at the Hui Taumata in 1984—and within 9 years of that the Labour Party was losing Maori seats right left and centre. 
Rodney Hide 
: Whom to? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: They were losing to the very insightful brilliant party called New Zealand First. Everybody knows which party it was. Every day as Maoridom looks around the political scene at what is available we see New Zealand First members coming back to the enlightenment of knowing that only one party represents all New Zealanders. Whether they be European or Maori whether they be blue-collar workers or hard-working mothers only one party stands up for them. That party is New Zealand First. It is not the ACT party. The ACT party’s latest line is to attack its coalition partner. 
What did Rodney Hide say when he was first elected as leader of the ACT party? He said that his job was to make Don Brash Prime Minister. He is doing a fine job is he not? I tell the New Zealand media that the polls prove that one cannot breathe life into a corpse. They tried it last year in 2004 at Orewa. They could not move the polls on days 1 2 and 3 but they kept on going day in and day out month in and month out until they drove up the polls—but by the end of the year they were down again. It was the same story this year with Orewa II with almost 200 news items on Don Brash’sOrewa speech before he had even opened his mouth. How shabby is that? They are trying to breathe life into a corpse but it will not work and the polls are starting to reel in double-quick time in 2005. 
I say to the ACT party that it is sad that it is trying to copy the strategy of New Zealand First. That is what it is trying to do. Even John Armstrong mentioned that in today’s  
New Zealand Herald 
. ACT members went out there and sold themselves sold their souls and said that Don Brash was the ninth ACT MP— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No the 10th. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No he was the ninth because ACT did not have Donna Awatere Huata. Sorry—Donna Awatere Huata was out of the fold and ACT washed her down the drain as well. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh yes it did. Then ACT decided just last week that it had better get out of the cancerous-like arrangement with National—it would cut loose and be independent. But it is too late. Everybody out there who wants a change of Government and has been a financial backer of the ACT party knows full well that only one party can do that now and that is New Zealand First. They are ringing us asking for New Zealand First’s bank account number so that they can send us some money. They spent millions on ACT—and what happened? ACT blew the whole lot. 
Ron Mark 
: Bad return on investment! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh it was a bad return on investment. They got a lot of pre-sales talk no after-sales service and no delivery at all in terms of policy. Time and time again ACT would say: “Back us finance us vote for us and we will be in Government.”—and it never will. In contrast it is a certainty—as no other political party leader can state in the way I can on behalf of my party—that when the dust settles in 2005 New Zealand First unlike any other party will be in Government.