Peters WinstonRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Can I say that it's very difficult to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. All the elocution lessons; all the lessons on how to stand pull your chin in speak deeply; all the lessons on how to look like a statesman have all been wasted. He took 17 minutes of a 20-minute speech to say that the National Party has a plan—17 minutes.Now can I say to the backbenchers—I just saw a poll this morning. It's about the leaders of political parties in this country. One of those polls has the leader on the positive-negative equilibrium. I'll say it slowly for the big chap because even he could do better than that. The woodwork teacher I mean. The woodwork teacher could do better than that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Have a go at the tradies.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh the tradies. He wouldn't know a hard day's work physically if he saw it and it shows—look at his soft hands. He doesn't know what work smells tastes and feels like and it's demonstrable. Have a look in the mirror.Now back to my point. There was a poll and I saw it this morning of the leaders of political parties in this country. One party has a leader whose positive-negative rating is minus 32 percent. I don't care what the Australian Liberal Party told you for the backbencher over there. You cannot make it from that percentage. It's all over Rover. I have got great news therefore for Judith. Judith can do better than that; I've seen that poll as well. They're in serious serious trouble.But I want to begin by saying that the New Zealand First Party is a party where the differences in what you just heard are so obvious. Optimism versus pessimism. More progress versus back to the future. Investment versus divestment. Unity versus division. And what happened to the Christian upbringing? That was pretty nasty wasn't it? I mean I've got to wonder which part of the sermon did he miss because that was not nice. It was pretty basic.We begin the year in good heart in good standing positioned as the centre party of this country ensuring that balanced common sense and good policy prevail over rampant ideology and bad ideas. Let me tell you the barometric measure of that when it comes to politics is the latest attack on you-know-who. Has it got a familiar ring about it?I don't want to sound like this because it might sound arrogant but it's not my words. But when a true genius arrives in this world you'll know him by this mark: all the dunces are a random confederacy against them. And I'm looking at them right now at this point of time.We're constructive and throughout this term we've looked at restoring capacity in our central social services addressing the massive disparity between country and town city and the provinces laying foundations for a more just society and creating a comparatively robust economy for all to share in not just for the few and the very few. Since then growth is up; immigration is down. The minimum wage is up; unemployment is down. Infrastructure investment is up; business pessimism is down. A billion trees are growing up; the National Party support is crashing down.The Prime Minister just shared another poll that she's heard about with me. I can't tell you of course because it's confidential. But if I was over there I'd know the feeling. Three more years possibly three more years of going nowhere fast. That's why they're deserting in their droves. That's why they're retiring from safe seats. They're saying I don't want to be here under this sort of leadership."We're ambitious to do more and achieve more. After all we've only just got started. New Zealand First stands for in this election—the best place to outline that is to tell you what we're not going to stand for. We're a party that will not tolerate letting this country fall into a pattern of decline and drift. The previous National Government was complacent unconcerned and unable to address growing inequality and obvious signs of social stress.The Prime Minister laid them out one after the other and there they are in massive denial with incompetent hopeless people like Nick Smith shouting at the top of his breath looking like he might have a vein go in his neck. That's how angry he was. He's sort of the kind of guy born with a sense of noblesse oblige but without class. He thinks he's born to rule. Do they look like they're born to rule? Have a good hard look. They haven't been in business themselves. The leader and deputy leader wouldn't know how to run the university tuck shop have never ever run a business and nor has their finance spokesman Goldsmith. No—he's spent his whole life writing about businessmen but he's never been a businessman himself. And you know you cannot learn on the job. Either you've done it or you ain't son—and you ain't. SPEAKER: Order! "Son". Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh sorry—sorry. Well you know some people would be proud of that but never mind. Now one forgets how distorted National on the economy was and how rundown the social services were and they had one plan and one plan alone: open the floodgates of immigration—and that's a fact. Between the 1990s and the 2000s immigration was around 12000 per annum and then under National after 2014 it massively exploded to 38300. In the year after—2015—it was 58300. In the year after that it was 69100 and by 2017 it was 72300. They only had one part of the economic plan: just explode the population. Now everybody in Auckland knows what that meant and everybody around the country knows what that meant: house prices going through the roof a lack of housing and a massive demand for schools hospitals and infrastructure. The stress was minus and immigration explains the housing market distortion and crippling infrastructure deficit. Health education social services were run down. Evidence of neglect was everywhere from people sleeping in cars to rotten walls in hospitals. The other day I picked up the Whangārei Advocate and there was an advertisement from Mr Reti on the highway to Marsden Point. Hon Nathan Guy: Dr Reti. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Dr Reti had an advertisement saying that it had been reinstated. Dr Reti please tell us how many dollars were set aside by the National Party with respect to Marsden Point? Mr Reti put your hand up if $1 was assigned to Marsden Point to Whangārei—please put your hand up. You see what I mean? He can't tell a lie—I admire him. He's an honest man. But don't have your party put that crap out and think you're going to get away with it. The same thing when it comes to for example north of Tauranga. There's the member for Tauranga talking about Ōmokoroa being promised and all the way to Katikati—not "Catty-catty" as he said; Katikati—and Mr—Hon Simon Bridges: The Te Reo renaissance man now—are you? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: OK Mr Bridges put your hand up if $1 was assigned by you as a transport Minister for that road. He can't tell a lie either. I hope some people in the media are watching because now we're having a confessional. We're having an admission. We're getting it out of him but boy how hard it's been and why do I have to do the job that they should be doing? Where was the money? Well it was never there but he got up and said it. He read a list out today of what they had promised excepting—as Grant Robertson will tell you and as Mr Twyford will tell you—there was no money assigned to it. When it comes to defence they had a $20 billion plan with not $1 assigned to it. Along comes Ron Mark and in very difficult and trying circumstances with the Minister of Finance he starts getting the funding that defence desperately needs. All over the country and all over the Pacific our troops are helping this country's image in essential humanitarian work. It's multifaceted but it's this Government that's doing it much to the surprise of the Defence Force. They have always believed that National was for them excepting they never were when it came to finding the money that really mattered. Hon Simon Bridges: Why is she not listening? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh the Prime Minister's listening all right because I shared this speech with her before I started it. We're a Government of cooperation—in fact she could have written it herself. Ha!When I was the Acting Prime Minister I can tell you what happened one day. I'll never forget it because I was absolutely shocked because in the room came a group of civil servants to tell me that the Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoy programme—which for decades we've been financing to warn us if a tsunami was coming our way and our Pacific neighbours as well—had all been allowed to run down and the last of them was on the blink. This previous Government—if you want to look at any evidence of how shocking and neglectful they were they were prepared to see the tsunami come down sweep through the Pacific islands and take the top of the North Island out with no way of warning ourselves. I stood there and I could not believe it and my colleagues know what happened. They are sitting here now. We said "We're going to get on to this. We're not going to lose one day. We're going to rebuild these DART buoys." and last year before Christmas five were sent to the Pacific and at the end of the year 15 will be in place. That's the difference. There is nobody on that backbench who was told that—that we could have had circumstances where when the media asked "What happened here?" we would have found that the so-called Government of Gerry Brownlee and Mr Bridges had allowed the whole warning system for the Pacific and ourselves to lapse and rot and decay. You don't need to know any more about Government or policies but to know that. More importantly the Australians were shocked and said "We'll help out." I spoke to the United States. They said "We'll help as well." But they could not believe that the very people who had put that in place—Hon Gerry Brownlee: No that part's not true. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —under former responsible Governments had allowed it to happen. Mr Brownlee is still fully unaware of what happened. But you know if you're not spending all your time focusing on politics and other things then you can possibly—possibly—lose the plot. Can I just say one thing: the National Party today—and its image is very clear—is a party with a small "n". It's not a centre party any more. It is still in the throes of "Ruthanomics" even though that was a disaster that took the National Party in the space of three years from the biggest majority ever to a hung Parliament—in three years flat. They still hanker for that. They've still got control of the National Party and as for the rest of the backbenchers they've got no influence whatsoever. Here we've got Mr Goldsmith. You know what his experience is: he's looking to cut anything and everything. He's spent every time on massive essential investments in provincial New Zealand scoffing at every idea—parked up in Epsom. He's notorious of course because he's the only politician in the whole Western World that is remembered for pulling his hoardings down—not for putting his hoardings up; pulling them down. We have never seen that—David Seymour: How's Northland going? Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —anywhere in the Western World and now here's the political cuckold from Epsom shouting out now. You know who that is don't you? The one who's looking for a second tango partner. In fact I saw the other night on TV him dancing again—it was on the weekend show—and I had a good hard look at myself and I thought "You know this cannot surely be—that we in New Zealand have a Parliament where people are so desperate for publicity they're prepared to do that." They pick these special moments on national TV to humiliate themselves. But you know can you remember the ACT Party's leadership? I do. Remember who the first one was? Douglas and then Prebble then Hide then White—was it? And who else—somebody in between? Hon Members: Brash. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh Don Brash—sorry. Oh Don Brash yes. Don Brash and now Seymour. Now look this is a case of serious mortal mental deficiency—it shows. Seven leaders—seven—and the present one's only there now because there's not a second vote. That's what he's doing there. By the way when you say something like you said the other day if I thought he had a cent I'd sue him. But he said on TV something that's defamatory. If I thought he had any money or he had a sense of being able to pay me I'd sue him but I'm not going to waste all my money to get—Hon Simon Bridges: Talk's cheap sweetheart.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no. Talk's not cheap—that member's going to find out how expensive it is. This is a member that's all over a tape recording of illicit funding of the National Party. The tape recording's going to be disclosed in this Parliament shortly.Hon Simon Bridges: Run us through the defamation.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And he's shouting out that he's innocent. Is it somebody else's voice? Is it somebody else's voice? Mr Bridges when the voice is played will it be Mr Bridges' voice or someone else's? Because if it's his voice then he's deeply implicated. He gave the directions. No wonder he said he wanted to move on—he wanted to move on.Can I just say that recently the Fitch Ratings agency said that New Zealand had sound fiscal management low and declining debt in relation to GDP and they said that this would enhance the country's resilience to economic and financial shocks. The reality is that we face difficult times that I have forecast in the past. I'm not trying to be wise before the event but if you look at the level of bank indebtedness around the world and the amount of money that's been given to cheap interest then you've got to ask yourself: when does the ferryman have to be paid? When will the day of reckoning be? So for this Government to be positioning itself in preparation for these sorts of potential financial difficulties is a very very sound measure.For all those who will say otherwise bear this in mind: when this shock happens we will be affected; just like we are with coronavirus as we speak where it will have a 2 percent effect—it looks like—on the Chinese economy. There are going to be international ramifications. The issue is: have we done all that we can to ensure that we've protected and shielded our people from those consequences? And I believe we have.We're looking at ways to support small and medium businesses and in that regard the following principles are guiding our policy development: the ease of understanding and compliance tax efficiency practical tax relief that will have a real impact on economic growth innovation and productivity. We're going compared to other similar economies very very well. But we could do and can do a whole lot better.Now do you remember the National Party and its rail privatisation programme? Well I do. In 1993 they flogged it off to their friends. Then they recapitalised it and the shares went up to $9.34 and after they'd recapitalised it and gouged it the shares went down to 28c. That's their record on rail. So then the Labour Party bought it back having realised that this wasn't a very wise thing to do and put it back together again. National gets back in and deliberately set out to run it into the ground again—again.Chris Bishop: Rubbish!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know it's rubbish and that's your specialty. Unbelievable. What a sucker eh? Ha ha! What a sucker. I want to focus on my speech; otherwise I'd have a field day. It's like having a duel of wits with an unarmed opponent mate. And I don't like being unfair to people I'm a nice guy.Back to my point. Can I just say that the big thing that's going to happen this year—it's important for New Zealanders to recognise this—is that we need a dialogue with the New Zealand people about our future population policy because the forecast of New Zealand's population by 2050 has got us there already. All the forecasts said that where New Zealand would be in 2050 is today's population and no one has had a discussion with any New Zealanders at all and the consequences are huge. We can see the straining and suffering out there where we've got Third World problems that we have allowed to be created because we haven't had a focused smart policy. Where are they all going to? Mainly to Auckland. All around the provinces we need workers. So we need a focused immigration policy that looks at making sure the provinces get their fair share of overseas expertise as well. Meanwhile out in the provinces there's a different dichotomy of ageing where they are older than in the big cities with so much immigration. What that means in the long run is that they'll be gouged out as well until the services all go. We need to look after New Zealand from Invercargill to Kaitāia and to understand this more than anything else: that it's the riches of the provinces that keep this country going that you can burn down our cities but the provinces will build them up but you burn down the provinces and you're gone. One party understands that.I want to tell people out in provincial New Zealand that they've got all these members of Parliament from the National Party from the provinces—they're lions in the electorate and lambs in the caucus. They have never defended the interests of the provinces when it comes to exporters and farmers.Look let me say—because I was a member of the National Party once—if your choice as a young person is to join the National Party because you're trying to find a wife or husband there are better places to go—there are better places to go for real company. The problem is that once they get here the big banks get to them and they stop speaking for the provinces. For example when was the last time Sarah Dowie made a speech about Invercargill? When was the last time that Mr McKelvie made a speech about the provinces? When was the last time anybody in the countryside from the National Party got up and told the world what the country needed? Now you know it's deafening—they can't tell me one example. Well who was the last one that made a speech?And please don't tell me the guy from the prosecution office from Tauranga even though he didn't have a warrant. Please don't say he speaks for the country. Oh yes it sounds good on the CV; he used to be a prosecutor he says—he used to be a Crown prosecutor. Mr Bridges did you have a warrant? No again exposed. It's like taking candy off a baby isn't it? Just answer the question. Oh Judith knows because Judith has a real background in law; I do respect that. But when it comes to the man with all the teeth in Tauranga: no go no show. Thank you very much."