Peters Winston: Budget Statement — Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Budget Statement — Budget Debate[Sitting date: 26 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11347. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): There is only one phrase to describe this document from National: this is a “Get stuffed” Budget. To those wanting a home that they can both buy and afford; to those in pain desperately seeking an operation this Budget says: “Get stuffed.” To those wanting a job with First World wages and security; to those wanting First World affordable education that is paid for by the State this Budget says: “Get stuffed.” To those wanting law and order in this country and burglars apprehended with the police numbers to catch them; to those wanting serious infrastructure spending to go to the regions and not just to Auckland this Budget says: “Get stuffed.” To those retired and living on stretched incomes even though today’s boast from the Prime Minister is the result of our 66 percent law; to those young families who are worried about their family’s future the answer is: “Get stuffed.”National thinks these people are invisible. This Government is simply not listening. I spend more time in the provinces and at public meetings than any Government member. I have more public meetings free to the public—and not a jack-up tired audience—than any Government politician. We know what they are saying out there. That is why on a workday down in Gore I heard all about Mr Barclay the boy MP. The place was packed out. We know how they feel about the jobs and the lives that they want.Hon Gerry Brownlee: There aren’t that many phone boxes in New Zealand.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Tonight around this country young parents will lie awake—no Gerry you have never had a public meeting that anybody remembers. Just incompetent. Cannot campaign cannot speak—all bluff and bumf. Tonight around this country young parents will lie awake wondering about the future that they can provide their kids. Grandparents will worry about the future that they once had not being their grandchildren’s legacy. Students will lie awake wondering whether they can ever pay off their student loan and get a good job when they finish. Farmers will lie awake worrying about the bank manager’s call and whether they will ever be able to hang on and pass on their farm to the next generation. Many elderly will go to bed cold without enough to eat and sit there worrying about the power bill on the table confused because the retirement that they have worked all their lives for has gone sour. The Prime Minister might sleep like a baby but hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders do not and they cannot. Out in the regions in the provinces they all wonder why they the economic powerhouse of this country have been sacrificed on a cross of Auckland gold in this Budget.This is not the New Zealand that we once knew. Our opponents like to talk and laugh about old people. They do not remember a time in this country when if you worked hard and played by the rules you could make a good life for you and your country. You could find a decent job buy a decent house put food on the table and every once in a while take the family for a holiday on a favourite beach lake or river. That was not a New Zealand dream; that was once a New Zealand vision which great leadership made a New Zealand reality. We all know about the growing gap between the rich and the poor and the problem is not that some have grown so rich; it is how so many have grown so rich. It is a bit like that man from Merrill Lynch boasting that he is a self-made man. He has never been a businessman; he has been a money trader speculating against whom—his country’s currency.We have seen three decades of economic experiment. We have seen the majority of people promised that their lives were to be improved and it did not happen. We were sold deregulation and globalism. We had to make sacrifices to become more competitive and we had to accept the much lower living standards of other nations. We were told that if we took this globalismaboard then a rising tide of economic prosperity would lift all boats—it would improve the lives of all New Zealanders. But accompanying this globalism there have been tax cuts for the rich and growing inequality for the rest. This is a chart by income decile of 10 decile numbers of New Zealand homeownership.Hon Members: It’s upside down. It’s round the wrong way.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I am not showing it the wrong way. You are precisely right: what should be up is down and what is down should be up. It is upside down and Mr Bennett when we take power we are going to turn it the right way up and get rid of you first. You are so right—thanks for helping out. That is the chart. Nine deciles all down; the top 10 percent way up. Thank you Mr Bennett. I knew that even in a Freudian way one day you might make some sense in this House. This is a “Get stuffed” Budget. Every commentator should look at this Budget and say “It contains spending details adjustments but are they adjusted upwards for the population growth?” because if they are not the numbers are bogus and propaganda. It is a “Get stuffed” Budget.Perhaps the best backdrop to this Budget was the announcement yesterday by Paula Bennett. This was a sign of utter desperation—proof that the emperor from Merrill Lynch has no clothes. It was a policy written on the back of an envelope thought up in the back of a ministerial car on the way to the airport. She announced that if people would leave Auckland she would give them $5000 to go. Just last week Mr Key said: “Go to the WINZ office.” Yesterday Paula Bennett said: “Here’s $5000; now get lost”—“Here’s $5000; get lost.” In short no matter how many generations you have been living in Auckland she wants you to get out of there so she can make way for an immigrant and that is what the Māori Party supports.Hon Members: Oh!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes that is what it supports. Oh yes it does. Look Mr Ganesh Nana is an immigrant. Mr Ganesh Nana was on Radio New Zealand this morning and he said this—this is what he said because he is an honest man: “Underlining everything is the rapid population growth.” Not my words—he said it. He said that immigration plays out in all areas right across the board and Madam if you have not got the guts to say it I have. I am standing up for New Zealanders who know whom this country used to belong to. They spend decades—dare I say it a hundred years—to build this country and we will not have some soft-in-the-heart and soft-in-the-head person waving out to me from the gallery like that. On immigration this man who is an immigrant said this: “Underlining everything is the rapid population growth.” His words—not mine. To say that it is a matter of racism shows just how unpatriotic and un - New Zealand some people are.You know every year now the population of New Plymouth—or 68000 net—is coming to New Zealand. Every year now the population of Wanganui—or 34000—is going straight to Auckland and pray tell me who is housing them? Where is the transport? Where are the railway lines? Where are the jobs? Where are the schools and where are the hospitals? Answer that and then you can wave your hand. Every other party has welcomed that development; but one party has not. It has said for years that this is a looming disaster and here we have a Budget that is totally focusing on trying to fix up what? Mass immigration problems. We have got the courage to say it and out there hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are beginning to understand—you watch these polls go—and thank God they are.We are not going to have the sell-out merchants acting for foreign banks and foreign corporates running this country any more. There were all the gestures but the real message to all those with legitimate concerns in Invercargill and Kaitaia was “Get stuffed.” Where are the 10 bridges? Where is the super-fast broadband up north? Where is the first metre of the superhighway from Pūhoi to Warkworth let alone Wellsford? Where is the cell tower coverage? It is just absolute bulldust. This is typical of every Bill English Budget—it is just spin. It is a package of suggestions designed to create the illusion that some serious thinking went into the Budget but the real message from this Budget to all those areas—whether for Pharmac mental health or apprenticeships—is way short of demand. They could all be doubled and still be far short of what is needed. We built more houses in 1973 when our population was 3 million people than this Government is building with 4.6 million people and you tell me why we will bring in 68000 more people who need houses as well. That is lunatic stuff. No other country in the world voluntarily takes that level of immigration and nor should we. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! If Mr Bennett cannot control himself—I do not mind a reasonable amount of interjection; it is a heated debate. But when it gets to this level and it is continuous if the member does it again I will ask him to leave. Sorry to interrupt the member.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: This Budget has no integrity. There is an elephant in the room that is so big no one else can get in. Adding 68000 people per year is inflicting enormous cost on New Zealand. Massive immigration is impacting on every Government service: health education welfare transport infrastructure. Record immigration is adding all these things into this Budget and the rest of New Zealand is missing out. It is nearly all going to Auckland. Government Ministers and their cronies may not be suffering the erosion of the quality of life but New Zealanders know what is happening to them from what they see and feel every day and one party in this Parliament intends to respond to their concerns.We have to build new hospitals now because of it. We have to build schools houses and public transport—and hire people to keep running them—just to maintain current standards and some people think it is good. My challenge to the Government is this: why do we not double it and make it twice as good because lunatic logic works like that. That is what it works like and that is what we are seeing right now. The consequence of doing what we are doing is seeing a decline in services across this country for most people.Rural health is capped—no funding at all. Lousy figures like $10 million over 4 years—calling that progress. Lengthening hospital lists—you know today there are waiting lists to get on the real waiting list. You have got waiting lists in our health system to get on the real waiting list. As for the police they are grossly underfunded grossly undermanned and underwomanned. Here is the point: only one out of 10 burglaries gets investigated. Nine out of 10 do not get any attention. Crime pays under National. If you are a victim National’s message to you is “Get stuffed.”Conservation—there is the Prime Minister gloating about the numbers. The Department of Conservation is stretched out like a shanghai and cannot do the job. How many will come here if this country is flattened with tyre tracks and has rubbish strewn everywhere? And so much of this country’s tourism is done by people wishing to visit New Zealand on $20 a day. How dumb can you be? So much of this country’s tourism has been brought here by foreign airlines with people staying at foreign-owned hotels and it is creating far fewer jobs and less wealth than the Government boasts. Look at provincial and regional New Zealand where they go and tell me it ain’t so. Our natural estate is at risk the department is massively underfunded and as for the cutting of carbon emissions well this has been done by a Minister for Climate Change Issues whose credibility on this issue—self-confessed—is zero.As for public finances this is not prudent fiscal management. Engineering a surplus when you cut core services—this is not a surplus. The manipulation of the public finances is now so gross and shameless as to render any claims to balancing the books or reaching a surplus as hollow. The real truth is that the quality and quantity of New Zealand life and Government services is in decline. The Budget is silent on what really matters to New Zealanders yet the Prime Minister is already touting tax cuts of $3 billion in next year’s Budget. We need to be on guard. The Prime Minister will not come clean. What he will not spell out is what his tax cuts actually mean in terms of reduced quality of life for New Zealanders.This is a Government that ignores foreign corporates sucking this country dry earning over $600 million a year in this country and paying 0.38 percent—like Tegel chicken. Is that a fair policy—0.38 percent? Facebook right? What does it pay?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Come on Pita wake up.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It paid less than Gerry—it paid $42000 last year. This massive multinational corporation in New Zealand paid $42000 of tax and the National Party backbench laugh. The laugh is on the other foot sunshine. They are going to come for you and very soon. The New Zealand voters will not put up with this any more. They will not take this shilly-shally. They will not take this “fast on the lip slow on the hip” type of behaviour from you any more. They want you to get up in Parliament and say something and do something and actually put your people first and put your province first. Be a voice for the regions. Do not come here as a bunch of Tea Party clones being told what to do aping what the Prime Minister says and getting your head patted like an ACT Party member and thinking that that is worthy account for your pay.As for the Auckland regional policy in this country today we have got two economies: one is Auckland and the other is the rest of us.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Someone ring the bell.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: A total failure—[Bell rung] Yes will someone ring a bell so that Gerry can have an idea. Thank you Mr Speaker for ringing that bell. Gerry needs an idea; he cannot get there by himself. The total failure to apply common sense in policy—let me say what we are going to do. We are going to provide the infrastructure investment for roading rail and strategic assets to support regional growth. We will bring royalties into the regions where what you earn there from your extraction—no less than 25 percent will stay where it came from. In Southland on the East Coast and up north we are going to have new initiatives to disperse Government agencies not just to Wellington and Auckland but right around New Zealand. Why should they not be? We have got computerisation. Why are Auckland and Wellington getting them all? And we are going to change the Reserve Bank Act so that the currency reflects that we are an export-dependent nation. To all those students graduating prepare to go to the critical shortages in our regions. We are going to say: “You go there for 5 years and we will get rid of your student loan.” Make no bones about it; we have got a policy. Our policy is about economic growth.Today’s Budget had nothing about economic growth and no plans at all; just steady as you don’t go nowhere. Bill English said the economy had had 3 percent growth. Where is that in the Budget? It is 2.8 percent and that is wrong. Nowhere in that Budget document is the term “3 percent” used. Worse still this is a country where the economy is financed on foreign money and the outcome for that is always this: ask Ireland—ask Ireland. It had three decades of magnificent growth and then utter collapse. Mr Bennett can laugh because that is probably the smartest thing he ever does. As for housing in Auckland what a gaping hole. Housing in Auckland? No answer whatsoever. Here is a message to the Prime Minister: Mr Key people do not choose to live in cars or garages or tents. They do not choose to live under bridges or to live out in the cold. Foreign speculation has come in here and bought one person sometimes 50 or 60 houses. Housing affordability has collapsed as that chart shows.I want to close by saying this. The global outlook is not good for this country. It is very uncertain and this country needs just one or two things to go wrong and we are going to be in serious shock. Even now Australian forecasters are saying that we are not going to make 2 percent growth—more likely 1.7 percent. What is Mr Bennett going to say about that then? I want to close by saying this: there is one party that for a long time has forecast what would happen to New Zealand if we went down that path. It is still here. It is growing faster than any other political party. We have a Facebook page right now that gets 60000 strikes and rising. Yesterday’s debate when the Prime Minister made a fool of himself has got 171000 strikes in less than 24 hours. You can laugh chaps but I know it is a nervous laugh because very soon the message that New Zealanders will want to hear is “Are you back New Zealand First?” and the answer is most certainly—David Bennett: “Get stuffed.”Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —we will tell you—we will not tell you to get stuffed; we will tell you to get enrolled get out and vote and when you do the possibilities for this country are magnificent.