Peters Winston: Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 18 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5863. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): The National Government’s claim for some time has been that it is a wise economic manager.Alastair Scott: That’s right—that’s right.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh “That’s right.”? I know that is right. We do not get up and say things that are false. Those members have claimed that they are wise economic managers that they know what they are doing and above all that they can be trusted. Now all their windy rhetoric has blown away we have found out about this rock star economy they campaigned on in 2014. They went up and down the country talking about a rock star economy and others in the political hemisphere namely New Zealand First said: “This is no rock star economy. This economy is heading on to the rocks.”We had the courage of our convictions to go down and tell Federated Farmers before the last election precisely what was going to happen. Their leadership sat there and against the mass interests of their membership decided to ignore us. So may I ask my friends in the National Party: who was right then and who is right now? That party is New Zealand First. We are not late on to the scene and we know a darned sight more about the fundamentals of this economy than any of that bunch of newcomers over there being misled by their leadership.The member for Invercargill the centre of a farming electorate part of a province that is the biggest exporter per capita in the country smiles and laughs at the demise of so many people in that part of the world. All those farmers who have engaged in the dairy conversions are now in deep and big trouble. They were in big trouble in that electorate in the first place but now they are in deeper trouble. It is no laughing matter for those members around the country—Palmerston North Taranaki Whanganui and the Wairarapa—who all swore: “Put me in Parliament and I’ll be your voice.” Oh really—their voice? We have not heard a mutter nor a syllable nor a sound or a murmur from these people about provincial and rural New Zealand.When its windy rhetoric is blown away you will see a Government of spin and drift. Now more and more National Party people—and they are becoming legion—realise that John Key is no economic genius. Oh no! They realise that the best training to run an agrarian developed export-dependent economy is not the Wall Street Journal or Merrill Lynch and it is not speculating against your own country’s economy and calling yourself some sort of banking genius—no sirree. More and more people out on the farm because they are hard up against it are realising that a party with a name called New Zealand First has got it right.Look manufacturing the critical thing for employment is down against GDP from 33 to 26 percent and all they do over there is laugh and scoff. I mean these are jobs this is employment this is how local regions build up—how towns and cities in the countryside and the rural and provincial New Zealand areas have a chance of surviving.Take for example exports as a percentage of GDP. Is it up?Hon Members: No.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No sirree it is down. And then you have debt. Well is it down? No it is up eight times from what John Key and that fiscal genius from Dipton inherited. When he came here it was $10 billion; now it is heading towards $80 billion and if any other party in this Parliament ever tried that they would be jeered and scoffed at.So New Zealand First’s message to the so-called power elite of this country those who have got wealthier and wealthier while the mass majority have got poorer is that you are not going to get away with this con anymore. We are going to expose you for what you are.Is homelessness down or up?Ron Mark: It’s gone up.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It has gone up. Worse than that you have middle-class people who cannot buy a home. They have got the background the training and the employment they have worked for decades and they cannot buy a home.Unemployment—Mr Key in the House today got up and he said: “We employ more people now than we ever have.” What a genius—what a genius! Since 1938 every Government has been able to make that claim. Here is the worst thing: our population is massively growing not from natural growth of our population—no—but from mass immigration. Unemployment is going up and do not forget that the National Government has the most nakedly hypocritical measurement. One hour of work a week takes you off the unemployment register—just 1 hour a week. There is not one person over there who could survive on that.Those members are so heartless and they have so forgotten the principles of that once-great party National when the word was spelt with a capital “N” and not the small “n” as it is now that they think this is OK. They know that the day will come that New Zealanders discover in enough numbers the truth of the way they have mishandled the economy then they will all be gone—like lightning—in Whangarei and the Manawatū.Ron Mark: And the Wairarapa.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And the Wairarapa.They have already gone in Northland of course. They went down in a screaming heap in Northland and do you know why? We went up and told them the truth and people said: “Well I thought there was something wrong but now I know—we’ve got an authority. Now we’ve got an authority who’s saying it.”Tim Macindoe: The vanity the conceit—unbelievable.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No it is not vanity. Vanity is the member from Hamilton West sitting there and shouting out when he cannot point to one thing he has done since he has been in Parliament. Just name one thing.Tim Macindoe: Oh I can tell you plenty.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Look I will give you half a minute. I will come back in half a minute’s time. Please find in half a minute’s time just one thing that member has done—Tim Macindoe: Mr Deputy Speaker I am happy to take the call.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He clearly has not studied points of order either.Tim Macindoe: I’m happy to take the call. Am I being given the call?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No he has not been given the call.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have not been called for anything. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has got the call.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No sit down sunshine. Sit down—there is a good chap.Tim Macindoe: The member said he’d give me half a minute and I was happy to take longer.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Sit down.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Here is this former teacher. He is now a whip and he does not even know how the timing system works for parliamentary speeches. He gets up and asks Mr Deputy Speaker who seriously understands the law here this innocent question.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please do not bring me into this.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: But then again I suppose he got his job as the National Party’s whipin a raffle—1 hour a week.Ron Mark: 1 hour a week.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: 1 hour a week—exactly. Is unemployment down? No it is up and 1 hour a week gets you off the register. So our true unemployment if you look at the people who want more work who want more than 10 hours 15 hours or 20 hours a week to try to help their family to survive—that is all increasing.That does not stop the National Government. If it does not turn off the immigration tap it can carry on with this consumptive economy but we all know it is a bubble and it is going to blow and it is going to blow in the Auckland housing market. Why when you are confronted with such a housing crisis in Auckland would you not stop artificial demand? The reason is that National’s shallow venal egregious policy is all based on consumption. It is not based on exporting. It is not based on manufacturing.Ron Mark: Donations.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yeah and massive donations from foreigners.Ron Mark: Oravida.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah Oravida—massive donations from foreigners hundreds of thousands of dollars. National members go into a campaign dripping with money promising the ordinary people they will look after them and they do not give a damn. Rock star economy? No just a lousy one-night stand. A lousy one-night stand. More and more New Zealanders are coming to understand that.Let me just tell you this: a former US President George W Bush said this about this sort of economics. He called it voodoo economics—voodoo economics—and voodoo it is. What have those members done since they have come into power? They cannot talk about anything they have done other than bail out their mates in South Canterbury Finance and they were so duplicitous about that. They never capped the underwriting—it blew out by $800 million.The member for Hamilton West is shouting out there. He is typically making a fool of himself. You know what the English say of course. The English say: “The malady of the ignorant is to be ignorant without knowing it.” He is a prize example. No wonder after all this time on the backbench no one is going to promote him to the most junior job as a junior Minister. He should be in Cabinet. If he were any good he would have been in Cabinet a long time ago. I want to say to that member that if he is not making any progress he should not blame his colleagues. Look in the mirror. Walking incompetence does not cut it. Walking incompetence does not cut it and shouting out unrestrained unrefined without any class is not what the National Party used to do.Now I come back to my point. Which party said that our dollar was massively overvalued? Only one party said that. Which party said that we are not going to allow our land to be sold to foreigners? And we want a land register and a home register so we will know what we are talking about and not get up like Steven Joyce today. He gets up and he—[Interruption] What is the problem?Tim Macindoe: Your time has expired.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): About 3 seconds ago.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I did not get a bell.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I heard the bell Mr Peters because I was out there at the time.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well everybody is having so much fun we forgot. But I want to close by saying this: this Government should stop trying to pass the buck and for the first time for a long time own up to just how incompetent it is.