Peters Winston: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 21 December 2011. Volume:677;Page:48. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 As I was saying before I was so rudely and foully interrupted New Zealand is in economic and social decline and in trouble because of its blind adherence to policies that simply do not work. First though we want to thank the thousands of people who brought New Zealand First back to Parliament. We did not enjoy the massive taxpayer resources or the financial resources of other parties that seemed to be like a bottomless pit— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Are you going to pay it back? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: —or indeed the soft media idolatry that was conferred on people like Nick Smith who had a fund and claimed to have declared it to the parliamentary commissioner and she said that that was false—and it is on the Order Paper. So why was that not inquired into? Or is there one rule for you Mr Smith and a different one for us? That is what is relevant here. If you want to raise that sort of issue you have come to the right place. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes I understand. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is experienced enough to know not to bring the Speaker into the debate. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes Mr Speaker I understand. But if that member wants trouble he has come to the right place because he is raising matters of principle on which he himself has got no credible record unlike New Zealand First which was the subject of an inquiry that said there was no Standing Order made one up and applied it retrospectively. That is why as I said at the start of my speech before I was rudely interrupted this country has been pursuing policies for over 27 years that will not work.  
But we want to thank those people who despite the climate in which we were operating despite the soft media idolatry that was generously conferred on some political parties despite all the criticism came out and worked for us and backed us.  
We all know that New Zealand First was on the receiving end of a seemingly deliberate blackout a boycott a media embargo that was designed to discredit and diminish us. We packed hall after hall which is surely a demonstration of consumer political demand or indeed that there is such a thing as a political market only to find again and again that our message was being to use a media term spiked. In short we were blacked out. That is why I and my colleagues are deeply indebted to the New Zealand people and their sense of fair play and a fair go. They knew that there was something rotten going on and they were not going to be part of it. Over the past 3 years we went the length and breadth of New Zealand. We spoke to New Zealanders from the deep south to the far north. We learnt their fears their hopes their dreams and their aspirations of what they want for the future of their country. New Zealand First did not rely on focus groups opinion polls surveys and profiling to find out what the people of this country think. We simply went and visited them and listened to them.  
That is why New Zealand First is back here to provide a voice for New Zealanders who believe in the concept of a fair go for everybody. Our society was built on this great ideal. It is what made this nation a great nation once. What we have heard from the National Party again today puts us in mind of the substance that dairy farmers wash off a cowshed floor with a strong hose. That substance smells like a scented rose compared with the stench of the deals done by the National Party and its hangers-on. For example what happened to “One law for all” from the ACT Party? What happened to that? What happened to “No privatisation of water” from United Future? What happened to “No sale of strategic assets” from the Maori Party? Without these three parties selling out their principles this Government has no majority either on election day or now. It needs deceit and deception to be where it is. But it does not have a mandate. Without these three parties selling out their principles this Government would not exist. Those three parties of course are finished and the next election whenever it is even before 2014 will prove that. You cannot sell out the people and get away with it like that.  
But there is some good news—we are back in the nick of time. And although we are but eight lined up against the faces of irresponsible capitalism remember that in the bold old days a Roman soldier Horatius held the bridge with only two others. Eight is enough to make a real difference here. On 6 November you will recall—some of you especially my colleagues will recall—that at Kelston we warned New Zealanders of what to expect and it is exactly what has happened on election night and today. We set out in a speech the crucial issues that would bring New Zealand First back to Parliament. Do you know what the fascinating thing was? Not one media outlet told the public why New Zealand First had decided to go into Opposition and today from the Government you heard all the evidence that New Zealand First had made the right decision.  
Let us start with the giant leap into a state of apartheid called Whanau Ora. This is National’s billion-dollar bribe to the Maori Party. That is a fact. It was never campaigned on and never told to the public but it is a billion dollars to the Maori Party. National has promised the Maori Party at least $1 billion—and the papers will show it—of taxpayers’ money to feed the Treaty travellers corporate Maori and so-called providers of Maori services.  
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Come on Winitana. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He says “Come on Winitana.” That is my name in Maori of course. Well you come on. I want to tell that member whose party is on a rollercoaster to oblivion because of the decisions they have made—a party in which Maoridom placed so much hope and their dreams campaigned and spent all the money on them—that this is what Maori people need. It happens to be exactly the same thing that all New Zealanders need. They need jobs with First World wages so that they can provide for their families. They need jobs so that they can retain and regain their dignity. They need housing that is warm not housing that promises insulation for which they cannot afford the power bill to warm them in the first place. It is not a deal that says: “I know what we’ll do. We will have insulation in Ngati Porou and Ngapuhi the two warmest places in the country where Maori live and the rest of you can freeze.” That is what the Maori Party has done and National went along with it. Maori need and we all do good health-care and sound education and training. This will not be achieved by siphoning a billion dollars to set up separate agencies to deal with these matters separately. That is what we said at Kelston when we made our decision to go into Opposition. New Zealanders never heard that message because some people decided it was better that they did not hear the truth of a serious political concern in this country.  
Past Governments of all political colours have worked hard to include Maori and to provide better housing education health care and employment. I remember the day when the Minister of Labour knew every unemployed person in New Zealand by name—because there were not 27000 or a hundred and something thousand like now or 2700 but there were only 27—in person and not one Maori unemployed. Whatever was wrong in the past it was not the economic strategy and that is what is wrong now. The coalition deal between National and the Maori Party is a document that brings great shame to everyone involved in it and all those National members will find out in the next 3 years how stupid and foolish they have been. They are the very people who campaigned on “One law for all”.  
Hon Member 
: Rubbish! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I know it was rubbish. I know you have made it rubbish but that was the mantra that saw the National Party get halfway back in 2005. They hardly got responsibility and they threw “One law for all” out the door. Listen to this: “National and the Maori Party agree to support the evolving focus and ongoing implementation of Whanau Ora.” What does “evolving focus” mean? That means making things up as you go along. Another translation is thinking up better ideas to get more trotters in the trough. That is what an “evolving focus” is. Then there is “a stand-alone commissioning agency over the next 12 months.” This of course is the new “Ministry of Apartheid”. The most amazing thing is that when the great civil rights movement of the 1960s in America flowered the black people did not want to set up their own institutions. They wanted to bust through the doors of the best white ones and here the Maori Party and others because of their intellectual and historical weakness always revert to the failed strategy that sees a separate path. 
Hon Member 
:  
Ka Awatea. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh no we do not.  
Ka Awatea 
 was about unleashing Maori economic and social aspirations and making an equal contribution to the whole country. At the time coming with  
Ka Awatea 
 was a new clause in the Ministry of Maori Development Act that gave the ministry or Te Puni Kokiri oversight over every other ministry. What happened? I am asking the Maori Party that and I am asking National as well. They might docilely accept as the Maori Party does sitting at the table but one thing New Zealand First will never do is sit there and have our heads rubbed; sit there and sell out our people and have our heads rubbed by inferior human beings. That is never going to be our destiny and that is why we are back. 
This agency of course as I said is the new “Ministry of Apartheid”. But wait as the saying goes there is more: “Whanau Ora will increasingly bring a greater focus to address the issues of employment housing educational achievement and the wellbeing of the most vulnerable …”—“housing educational achievement and the wellbeing of the most vulnerable …”. That is psychobabble and it is sad that so many people in Maoridom have so cruelly been sold out. Employment—we thought the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance announced 171000 jobs in the last Budget. Or was that just a fraudulent document? We know you cannot create more jobs by setting up a separate system except for the selected Treaty travellers heading for the trough. One thing New Zealand First will never do is forget that the people in whose names and numbers the claims are made deserve to get the rewards and they have not. The Maori situation is worse than it ever was in the last 30 years despite the emergence of a so-called Maori Party.  
In case National and the Maori Party have not noticed there are already State agencies that deal with the same matters. Te Puni Kokiri or the Ministry of Maori Development already has a statutory oversight and responsibility to ensure various ministries deliver to Maori. If these ministries are not working to capacity we suggest that Maori should look at the Ministers in charge of them. There is an old-fashioned way of motivating Ministers and it is contained in two words: one starts with “k” and the other starts with “a” and they usually come in inverted commas. We are uniquely qualified in New Zealand First to reveal the expensive separatism hidden in Whanau Ora—a document I might say that came without any analytical material whatsoever and was based on pure anecdote; not one analytical fact. That is what the National Party now purports to think is the way forward in their concert with the Maori Party. 
 Great New Zealanders leaders of the past both Maori and non-Maori knew their people. They built this country and they worked hard to provide jobs health care education and housing for everyone. Every month a health visitor visited every school there were dental nurses and free milk—all the things that made us an incomparable society all now abandoned by a party that claims to be National and really has no right to call itself that. It is the “Global Party” the “Internationalist Party” the “We’ll do anything if it gets us back into power Party”. New Zealanders will never accept the separatism in Whanau Ora. National was strangely silent about this during the election campaign. On this matter there was not a mutter not a syllable not a murmur not a sound. When you bring in 500000 new visitors as they have done in the last 25 years pray tell me where they fit in in this scheme of separatism that this Government is pursuing.  
While we are on this coalition agreement let us look at another outrage the review of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements. We warned in the Kelston speech on 6 November about that as well. National and the Maori Party are going to “progress the review of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements” with the Treaty of Waitangi as its cornerstone. What do you think of that? 
Hon Member 
: Nonsense. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh yes it is nonsense I understand that. It is nonsense. This three-clause document is now going to be the cornerstone of our future constitution but we cannot say too much about it; let us keep it behind closed doors. My question to all in this country is what about the 4 million - plus other New Zealanders who live here. The democratic rights and the governance of New Zealanders are being traded between National and the Maori Party like junk bonds on Wall Street. We are a country where people have died for the cause of democracy we have had an election every 3 years since 1854 which makes us one of the most unique countries in the world and this is what is served up to us in 2011. This country has a history of fighting the forces of fascism Nazism and communism. Nobody gave National and the Maori Party the right to meddle with our constitutional arrangements. We will do everything in our power to stop it and to make sure New Zealanders know about it.  
Now let us look at the detail or rather the lack of it. Where is the money coming from for this deal? Does anybody know? Listen to this—a deafening silence. I am asking a simple question—where is the money coming from? Or as that man in Christchurch waving his hands like a stunted penguin said where is the money? The answer to that question Mr Key was: “Well your mates have got it.” That was the answer they should have given that night in front of the press in Christchurch with that massive banner that would have done Nazi Germany proud the so-called debate. Where is the money? Well the mates of the National Party have got it which explains why Mr Key spends so much time seeing the boys at Macquarie Bank—go and check his diary when you have got a spare moment.  
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: A bit more of the old sort of style. That is great. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I beg your pardon? Oh no I know that Gerry is not liking this but this is truth and tell time—it is truth and tell time. I am asking and my colleagues here behind me are asking the members over there who gave their rubber stamp to this where the money is coming from for this operation. Do not tell us that we are going to sell power stations and lakes and rivers to fund Whanau Ora. Please do not tell us that because as we know and as Mr Henare over there knows all around Maoridom the seas and the water have enormous mythology. Are we going to sell that to China or Japan? [ 
Interruption 
] Oh it is not a laughing matter Mr Flavell; it is far beyond that as that member will find before Christmas is halfway under way when he goes home. He will learn that you can fool some of the people some of the time or some of the people most of the time but you cannot fool all the people all of the time and particularly not the Maori people when it comes to their treasured assets.  
This year the Prime Minister—listen to this and learn—gave three different reasons for privatising State assets. In February he said they were going to sell assets to repay debt. Then someone reminded him that the problem was not the public debt it was the private debt. So he then said he was going to sell State assets to buy other State assets. Now this is fascinating is it not? 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: They don’t raise any revenue. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yeah well we got to learn later on that these other State assets were schools and hospitals that have no revenue. In fact they have an ongoing cost. So I thought to myself that this has got to be a Merrill Lynch special. This has got to be Merrill Lynch at its best—the kind of thing that brought the Western World to its knees with deceit and corruption at Wall Street. That is what happened. Now when that went down like a lead balloon he went back to reinvesting the money in new investments but we did not know which ones. Right in the heat of the campaign when that was not going over too well this is what Mr Key said he said: “There’s going to be a”— 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: Where is your vision? Give us your vision. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well our vision is to straighten out the country and not come along like the Greens did and say: “We are the most aligned party to National.” Oh yes! Before the election it was “We want a Labour-led Government we want to be in Cabinet—in fact we want to be a finance Minister.”  
Hon Member 
: Grow up. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I know I have struck a nerve. I know I have struck a nerve. The challenge came from the member’s colleague. Now face the response. 
 Here is what happened. Before the election everywhere they went they told all of the Labour supporters: “Look you can vote for us the Greens because we’re going with Labour. In fact we’re going to form a Cabinet with them.” So more than half of the Greens’ vote came from the Labour Party. Straight after the election—oh change of plan—they publicly told the Clerk of the House the Speaker and the rest of us that “We are the most non-aligned party in this Parliament.”  
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who said that? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The Greens said that. I am going to make sure in the next 3 years every darn Green voter gets to hear what happened in the last month. Before the election it was “our ever-abiding affection” for Labour and straight after it it was: “We have an MOU with National”—a memorandum of understanding with the National Party. You cannot have your political cake and eat it too.  
Hon Member 
: The world’s moved on Winston. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh no no no. We are not going to move on. We want peace and transparency at this Christmas time. New Zealanders must know what is going on because the last thing we are going to do if we are going to defeat this Government in 2014 or whenever they throw in the towel is have fair-weather friends. We want to know who is with us and who is against us. My question— 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: Give us some vision. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well I know that the member heard a speech from his leader. He heard no vision. What he heard was a most stunning speech about the proximity of the Greens to Christ and I thought that was news. I have heard a few things in my time in politics but I really think that might take the Christmas cake. Mr Key says share purchases by one entity are capped at 10 percent. Let me ask how this works because we have not found any mum and dad New Zealanders who could afford 10 percent of Mighty River Power or Genesis or any other asset.  
Hon Member 
: Mum and Dad Fay. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: This is simply more deception. My colleague is quite right. He says “Mum and Dad Fay and Richwhite might.” They might be able to but nobody else.  
Hon Tau Henare 
: Not that one again. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I know they are Tau’s friends. You know Mighty River Power is a jewel in the crown of State assets so why sell it? We all know it will end up in foreign hands. Is that the bell for 5 minutes? Thank you very much. That will be all I need. We all know it will end up in foreign hands. Do not believe me or New Zealand First; ask Treasury. That is what they said. You sell this into New Zealand ownership. Trying to cap it at 10 percent does not matter; in time it will go into foreign hands.  
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Like Contact. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Just like Contact Energy. Whilst we are at it how could this person who sold Contact Energy with no business acumen whatsoever end up heading Genesis? Talk about jobs for the girls and the boys—unbelievable! A director of the No. 2 Chinese bank—the second biggest bank in China—former leader of the National Party on the board no banking experience. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You never liked her though. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Now now Mr Henare. Was that member not the one who said “I will never work with her ever.”? 
Hon Tau Henare 
: That’s right and that’s what you told us to say. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is him. Never work with her ever and then— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: That’s what you told us to say. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member cannot say that. He cannot say that is what I told him to say. That is what he said. He volunteered it himself and there is no greater shame in the Maori world than hiding behind the skirts of a woman. There is no greater shame in the Maori world than hiding behind the skirts of a woman. No amount of noise will win this debate. 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I consider that to be a sexist remark. I take personal offence and ask that the member be required to withdraw and apologise. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Speaking to the point of order for a member to say that—as the member for the Green Party just did who claims to have some knowledge of Maori—is to demonstrate just how little she knows about the Maori world. That is an old saying that has been there for centuries pre and post-European times.  
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am not sure that we are making a lot of progress. I just think we should move on and not refer to that matter again. 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My understanding is that where a member has taken personal offence that is entitled to be taken seriously by the Speaker and that in those circumstances the member who has made the offending remark is required to withdraw and apologise under the Standing Orders. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That is clearly not the case. It could not possibly be the case that a general comment made in that way can be applied specifically to an individual. The personal offence would be if the accusation was that Ms Turei was hiding behind Russel Norman or something similar not a general comment. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: It is a matter really of whether the rules have been broken. My test on this and I think it is Speaker’s ruling 55/3 is whether the House is offended. A member can stand up on any occasion and say: “I take offence at that.” So there is kind of another test. In this case I deem this to be a general comment not levelled at anybody and my response to that is to just park this and move on so that there is no further offence created. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If it is required that other members take offence I would like to take the opportunity to take offence on that matter as well in support of Metiria Turei. It is a matter that culturally could be debated for some time. It is out of order to believe that that saying goes way back to umpteen millions of years ago. That is not appropriate. But I just wanted to support what you talked about—whether the rest of the House takes offence. I take offence and ask that it be withdrawn. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Speaking to the point of order before you rush to judgment I am happy to provide the House with my evidence for saying what I have just said. It is a fact and I am not prepared to stand here and have some Maori revisionism going on telling me that this is not a phrase common in Ngapuhi—I have heard it countless times myself. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I do not think we are actually gaining anything by trying to litigate the history of this. I have made the comment that this was a general comment not referring to anybody specifically. Therefore I have ruled that it is not— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It referred to Tau. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: It is not a matter that requires a withdrawal but it is a matter where I have cautioned the House to park it and move on. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: What I was saying was that that is what happens—these sales of assets and their transfer to foreign ownership—when you have a Cabinet of wheeler-dealers taking over the country. They are fully applying the principles of irresponsible capitalism taught by the Wall Street traders except that principles of course have nothing to do with it. This is what they firmly believe in: capitalise one’s profits and socialise one’s losses. That is the No. 1 part of this party’s plan. Take the dog of an insurance company called AMI. The taxpayer picks up all the debt; the customer base is sold to a foreign company. There is the first one. Then you have got South Canterbury Finance—$800 million was the cost that they undertook to guarantee and then it goes to $1.6 billion. No cap so people were investing in a gilt-edged security and could not possibly lose and I wonder who those investors were. Friends of the Labour Party friends of New Zealand First friends of the Green Party? No. Friends of the National Party did that—lawyers consultants and accountants all making a packet at the taxpayer’s expense.  
Charter schools—no word about that before the election and now the Prime Minister gets up and talks about something that is simply shorthand for privatising education. And then the free-trade deal we heard about today—one more free-trade deal where foreigners get all the massive benefits—and our slide down the OECD just goes on and on and on. Listen to the debate in America at the moment in the Republican cause and tell me that I am not right about what is going wrong with this country.  
But I want to close by saying this to everybody in New Zealand who thinks about investing and selling to foreigners: we will be back before you know it and it is our intention to be part of a Government that takes those assets back. We are not going to stand by while people rob this country blind in the temporary empowerment of National which got back after the election because the media put it there. It would never have won without the soft media giving John Key the biggest hug over 3 years that I have ever seen anywhere in the world. No campaigning; kissing babies making them wild and crying photo opportunity after photo opportunity like Kodak is going out of fashion—that was the campaign. And with all that help from the media National just got home because three parties sold themselves out. It has no mandate.  
I want to close by saying this though. We are going to do in the next 3 years what New Zealanders are paying us to do: oppose bad policies and support good policies. But I will give you this last quote. It came in a paper here in Wellington and it said this: “The new Government has a job to do. It is in no-one’s interests for it to be diverted by politics.” This is not North Korea; this is a democracy. My message to the media is: “Get over yourselves.” because to use a phrase that Mr Cullen once used: “We won. You lost. Eat that.”