Peters Winston: Urgent Debates — State-owned Energy Companies Sales—Delay of Mighty River Power Sale 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Urgent Debates — State-owned Energy Companies Sales—Delay of Mighty River Power Sale 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5059. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The National Party has again been found out. It has been found out to be inept incompetent incapable and politically impoverished. This is a very very difficult time for the National Party which got itself back into power promising of all things a brighter future. What it forgot to mention of course was that the brighter future was for its mates whether they be domestic or foreign. But for the rest of us this debate today is about National members being found out to be the very thing that they claimed not to be—that is incompetent. To be not what they claimed to be—that is they claimed to be great managers of business and of assets. Why they would make that claim given their track record I would not know but that is what they said they were going to do and it is the reason why so many who should be part of this debate today have decided that they would be—ah I cannot say this can I? They decided to be where they could ignore the subject of the debate. I can say that. They decided to make sure that they could ignore the subject of this debate in the House today. 
The sale of State assets has been a fiasco from beginning to end. On every dimension possible the process has been totally flawed and each time surely around this country there are more and more voices saying: “But why would they do that?”. When all the fiscals all the economics and all the timing—everything—suggested “Don’t do this.” those members kept on saying they were going to do it which begs the question: who is pulling the strings behind the National Party? Forget the backbench over there. We all know that the backbench over there is cannon fodder and it demonstrates that every day. 
Paul Goldsmith 
: Top-quality cannon fodder. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: But who is pulling the strings and calling the policy behind the National Party? These assets are valuable and making good returns to all New Zealanders. Forget the man from Epsom who was so proud of his campaign that he was seen pulling down his hoardings. It is the first time in the history of Western democracy that a candidate has been seen not putting his hoardings up but pulling them down weeks before the vote. So let us not hear any more from the man from Epsom because he categorises just what is wrong with a once-proud party which is that so many men and women whose mothers—who I think probably still love them—taught them to have character and decency and integrity have been so beguiled by the chance of one day maybe being a Minister are behaving in this obsequious toady way. 
Paul Goldsmith 
: Ah! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The man from Epsom knows that—he said “Ah!”. He recognised that instantly. Already groups of New Zealanders are being set against each other on the basis of racial entitlement. They are being set against each other. Around this country the National Party is setting New Zealander against New Zealander all over New Zealand. You have got Maori versus Maori on this issue because—make no bones about it—the next lot of claims will be: “Well if we own the water then which of us owns the water?”. There comes the next volume of claims before the Maori Land Court all the way on to higher courts. Then you have got Maori versus the rest of New Zealand. Most of the rest of New Zealand is utterly confused as to what is going on here because those members’ great Prime Minister the man who has a bit of trouble with his diction and the Americans cannot understand him said that the water was owned by nobody—that no one owned the water. In the very next breath of course he purported to sell it. 
Then you have got the wealthy versus the rest of New Zealand and you have got the foreigner who will get it according to Treasury within 10 years against the rest of New Zealand as well. Do you remember the foreshore and seabed which happily was resolved by the Government of 2004— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: No it wasn’t. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: —which did not have one Maori tribe on the coast Mr Finlayson. Not one coastal tribe from 2005 to 2008 would go public and oppose that legislation. With the greatest of respect Mr Finlayson you know nothing about the coastal tribes. You are flashing along as the great new white hope of the radical Maori but it does not entitle you to understand the subject and as someone whose family has lived on the coast for a thousand years I might know a little bit more about it than you. That is for certain. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: The China Sea! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Pardon? Unbelievable! There he was of course acting for Maori before he got the job and then all of a sudden he is the new Maori friend. Look I have seen a procession of men like you Mr Finlayson. One was Doug Graham. He used to weep here and cry every night upon all these settlements. The very man who came from a party that promised to have a meaning to the word “national” that meant all of us. 
And who was it that campaigned on “Kiwi not iwi”? Which party did that? Which party predicated its whole recovery on the basis of “Kiwi not iwi”? And what was the issue that it campaigned on? It said the foreshore and seabed was divisive in terms of the legislation. Mr Finlayson surely remembers that given his claims to high jurisprudential memory. Surely he can remember? It was just a few years ago. Just a few years ago—he can remember that. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh yes it was—“Kiwi not iwi” all around the country. Did you hear a man from the Wellington legal fraternity Mr Finlayson saying that this was wrong and we cannot possibly say that because the coastal tribes are against it? Uh-uh not a word then—not a mutter not a murmur not a syllable not a sound. Yet hardly was the election over in 2008 round to the back room went the National Party and it did a secret deal with the Maori Party and now they have got a new foreshore and seabed set of legislative rules and already 27 claims. 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: Great! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Already 27 claims and Mr Finlayson for the National Party said “Great!”. What happened to national unity? What happened to New Zealand against the world? What happened to racial fairness? What happened to us striving to be what we are regardless of our background regardless of our race? Well under the National Party that is just a plethora of promises because today division and separatism is what its policies stand for and at the next election— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: Oh rubbish! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no he can shake his head because you see it is one thing to go and skulk around the coffee bars of Wellington; it is something else to get out there amongst the real people. The mass majority of— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: The member’s never done that! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes that is all he has done. But out there the mass majority of Maori and the overwhelming majority of the rest of the population are going to find out just how bad that legislation is. Of course this is Mr Finlayson on this issue of separatism who thinks that a new constitution by a specially hand-picked group of people with the Treaty of Waitangi as its cornerstone is a good thing for our country even though the greatest Maori there ever was in this Parliament Sir Apirana Ngata warned against such a thing. Mr Finlayson of course knows better because somehow—I do not know how he got it—he acquired a greater knowledge of both the Maori and the European and everybody else in the law and he thinks that a divisive constitution based on separatist interests is sound. If that is not bad enough— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: What’s this got to do with MOM? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It has a lot to do with this because it stands on all fours. Then there is Whanau Ora—social development delivered differently—and now we have water. What used to be something that we thought was a gift from God or if we were atheists a gift from nature is now a gift from whom? Mr Finlayson and the junk bond dealer the guy who does a deal within an hour and moves on if he can—“Mr Spray and Walk Away”. It is a deal between him and Mr Finlayson but it is no longer what belongs to everybody in this country no matter how long they have been here or how recently they have arrived. 
So one of the great characteristics of being a New Zealander is what the National Party is prepared to trade away. Instead of prioritising the things that matter to Maori like housing education a decent health system First World wages and employment in their own country—no no—off it went and did a deal with all the radical Maori fellow travellers. It is in bed with them—and if it thinks that the majority of New Zealanders out there are going to swallow that no they will not. Our job is to go out and ensure that they are not wilfully and blindly ignored by the National Party in the ensuing months. 
It has been a total fiasco and a Cabinet paper warned National about that but I want to know this. Why was the National Party so stupid as to take this issue after the foreshore and seabed from where it was when we all owned it regardless of our background? And now we are going to have people owning it on the basis of race. How can that possibly be where our country wants to go in the 21st century? So if you are out there and you were once a National Party supporter my advice to you now is—I know you are desperately worrying about what your party is doing—do not give up. Do not stop being involved in democracy. Hang on because help is on its way and vote New Zealand First in 2014.