Peters Winston: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Peters Winston: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:645;Page:14093] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 There will be some furrowed brows on the dusty roads of countryside New Zealand today. In the cowsheds the woolsheds the shearing sheds and the export works there will be some seriously concerned people because after 20 minutes they heard what the member who leads the National Party will do but they never heard how he was going to do it. 
For example the member said that in public health he would make his priority doctors and nurses. What about the patients? I thought we ran a health system for the people—not for the professionals the apparatchiks and the amateurs but for the people who pay their taxes. 
Did members hear how he would correct the slide of immigration to Australia? No. Did they hear what he said about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act? 
Hon Members 
: No! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Do not be surprised; members are not going deaf. He did not say a thing about it. He complained about interest rates—which I might add are higher than in half of the countries that are in the Pacific like the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu—but he never said he would do a thing about the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act that may make the New Zealand dollar go to US89 or 90c. We did not hear a word about that; not a murmur. But in their inimitable style his colleagues jumped to their feet and clapped for another leader. How many times have I seen them clapping for yet another leader? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: For every leader gone. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I have seen it for every leader gone. There was Jenny—brave Jenny. She reminds me of the Flight of the Conchords’ song actually. I ask members whether they have heard that song. She is very much like that Jenny. 
Then they had Bill and he was brilliant. He was trained by the Treasury of this country and he was the right man for the job—and a family man as well. That was going to be important. Then they had Don. 
Hon Members 
: Don Juan! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I still think that is a National Party conspiracy. I do not believe one of those rumours at all. I truly do not because one cannot silk purse a sow’s ear no matter what one does and no matter how different one might be. 
I ask Mr Key what National did in all its time in Government about the telecommunication monopoly run by Telecom. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Nothing! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No not nothing—it did something worse. National tried to stop the Treasurer—namely yours truly—from opening it up. Members should ask Maurice Williamson. He knows precisely what I am talking about. 
Mr Key talked about roading. Excuse me but what was the National Party’s most recent policy on roading that was of any substance? It was to have four private companies running all of New Zealand’s roads. Members should ask Maurice Williamson. Why? Because he is back on the front bench and that must mean his policies are important. 
And—oh yes—I have to raise this one. Apparently going to Waitangi was important this year. Let me tell members something. I would never have believed that a political leader would walk on to the lower marae at Waitangi with someone with a conviction and a jail sentence for the brutalisation of children. I will tell members what the National Party tough-love policy on crime is about; I have a photograph of it. This photograph shows real tough love for a criminal facing serious charges. This is the tough-love policy. I bet all the gangsters are trembling with knock knees at the moment. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why did the Government pay for him to be there? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: What that story tells me is that alongside Television New Zealand (TVNZ) crime not only pays but the taxpayer is now paying for it and the man who wants to be the alternative Prime Minister thinks it is OK because it is politically correct. He gets taken on to the marae by a person convicted in 1988 and given a jail sentence for the organised brutalisation of children. Then he goes on to the marae as well and starts hongi-ing up and making friends with someone facing some very very serious charges because the media thinks it is politically correct. 
I had calls from farmers people I would call “old National” saying: “It cannot be true. Is this a media conspiracy?”. When they said that about the media I thought that maybe I should check out the photograph first to see whether it was genuine. But it was in every print and telecommunications media so I have to take it to be correct. 
I want to say this. It is one thing to talk about Auckland’s transport problems but if Mr Key’s policy and the National Party’s policy is no different from the Government’s—50000 immigrants per year the majority of whom will go to Auckland—then there is no solution to Auckland’s roading problems or Auckland’s housing problems full stop. Everything else is a lie. If Mr Key tells New Zealanders he will solve those problems whilst bringing in 50000 people whilst Australia a country much more huge in its dimensions takes on only 80000 then he is not telling New Zealanders the truth. He has not got a solution and he is just compounding the problems that every Aucklander sees every day now with a trip to the airport. What used to take half an hour is an hour and 15 minutes if one is lucky and if one hits peak time it can be much longer than that. That is a massive loss of productivity costs to this country. 
When Mr Key sat down he had not outlined one policy that National would implement apart from the solution he had for 16-year-olds. What would that be? What did he offer as a solution to the swearing cursing badly behaved and badly parented young people of this country? He said nothing at all. 
Hon Member 
: I didn’t hear it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I did not hear it. Some research unit told him that would be a good idea. He has a few floozies and “dozies” up in the gallery who will actually believe him. They will think it is a policy. But the problem with young people in this country— 
Hon Member 
: Floozies! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well I do not mean it in that way; I mean floozie in the head. Young people have decided that the National Party deserves a term in Government and that they themselves will create the outcome to the 2008 election. Well they should dream again. That is exactly what is not going to happen. If National is ever to get to the Treasury benches it will be because it has some policy that is alternative and different to the present Government. Why would people bother to have a change when they get no change? National will not get away with running around boring the rotary clubs and agreeing with them. National has to have a policy. 
That is why I am pleased to say that in 2008 New Zealand First will go on ensuring that there is stable Government in this country—that is No. 1—because we keep our word. We are famous for it. What we say we will do we do. That is why some people do not like us. What we say we will do we do. We do not back down on our word. 
By the way just one last thing for the media on the word “bauble”. “Bauble” means a trinket not worth having. So some of those dumbos should go back to the dictionary find out what it means and stop making damn idiots of themselves every time they repeat it. Which part of my job looks like a trinket not worth having? Members of the media should try to extend themselves. 
Today we appointed Brian Donnelly one of the most eminently qualified people this Parliament ever had—and people cannot deny that—to be a diplomat. Do members know what the media said? It said: “Oh jobs for the boys.” How do members like that? Let me remind the media who National sent abroad. It sent some seriously untalented people and worse than that people who would have been expelled from Parliament had we known in this Parliament what they were guilty of. May I remind members who they were? 
Hon Member 
: Yes go on. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No I will wait until they die. But all those members over there know what I am talking about and so would some of those journalists if they were not such young pups. How dare they compare an eminently qualified suitable person like Brian Donnelly to that? I make one appointment and they cannot help but have a go and say I am appointing my own mates—one guy in a whole career and they think that is a fair criticism. For goodness’ sake I say to the media try a bit more this year to be neutral balanced fair and slightly professional. The whole democracy depends upon the fourth estate being a watchdog not a Chihuahua signed up to its ownership from abroad—and that is what they are doing. 
Mind you I have to tell the Minister of Broadcasting that somebody should be asking TVNZ what on earth it thinks it is doing with taxpayers’ money in bringing Tame Iti up to Waitangi. Does it not know that Tuhoe never signed the Treaty of Waitangi? Why bother going to Waitangi if it is so blissfully ignorant that it knows nothing about the history of New Zealand at all? Up comes Tame Iti having bared his bum at the people the Crown and everybody else and TVNZ thinks that is news. Shame on it. The world deserves to see and should see a better New Zealand but because of TVNZ’s irrelevant attitude and its blatant ignorance it presents that to the people abroad via telecommunications. Shame on TVNZ—a taxpayer-owned organisation. 
I want to say something about being right. Recently there I was getting stuck into work on my beach property. I have neglected it for far too many years while serving the public of this country. I was watching the 6 o’clock news and out of left field I heard the name Asha Ali Abdille and I thought that name rings a bell to me. I remember this person. This person was a case I brought to Parliament. She had come here brought in by the National Government in 1994. She had for 6 years under the National Government done what she liked. She got a house paid for by the taxpayer despite tens of thousands of people being on the waiting list. She had a list as long as one’s arm as I said that would make Al Capone proud. And of all things she then committed this offence our first hijacking of an aeroplane. Let me remind members of one other fact. Just days before this event the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board declared her to be sane. I say that perhaps we should have an investigation into the members of the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board by a psychologist because if she is sane the board members are not. 
But my point is that there are hundreds and hundreds and thousands of these cases. Do members remember a guy called Mohammed Saidi? He was the one who said he could not go back to his country of origin because his life was imperilled. Some soft-headed people who have far too much prominence in this country said they agreed with him so he stayed long enough to get residency and sufficient savings to go back to his country of origin for a holiday. 
There is case after case after case like this. What did some of the people in this Parliament say particularly to my friends in the National Party? They said: “Oh he’s racist. He leads a party of xenophobic people who are somehow prejudiced against others.” Look we in New Zealand First do not even mind English people—we have got one here. No party is perfect. But that is what they said because they were interested in only one thing. A lot of their supporters agreed because they knew the Business Roundtable liked cheap labour. If we keep up high immigration we drive wages down. We neglect to train and educate our own and skill our own and what happens here is that immigration numbers rise then immigrants go to Australia. Half of those leaving came here. They were not New Zealanders in the first place. They used our country as a bolt-hole and they make up the figures. 
Up gets Don Brash and now John Key and his ilk who say: “Oh look at Australia. It’s successful. That’s why people are leaving New Zealand.” Well what policies has National pursued since 1984 that ever helped this darn country? It even supported the Fonterra sale—the proposal to make Fonterra an international market commodity. John Key would love that idea. He is a broker. But right now with the drought how many farmers if they have any brains would think that was a bright idea? The only thing that is saving the farmers is that Fonterra is a New Zealand - owned company. 
It is the same with Auckland airport. What is the National Party’s view on Auckland airport? There is not a word not a whisper not a mutter not a murmur because National’s political ownership and financiers want it to argue for international ownership of our asset wealth for privatisation and for overseas ownership. 
What does the National Party say about banking charges? There used to be a time in the National Party—because it was a National Party and believed in the word “nationalism”—when it was very strong on banking banking practice and banking costs. Today there is not a mutter from any of these people apart from one Bob Clarkson telling everybody that he can fix up every leaky home for $20000. That is what he said. He also said that he can fix up Tauranga’s new stadium requirements for two-thirds of the price that the council wants to fix them for. This is apart from the fact of course that he has just flogged off Baypark Stadium which is a white elephant and a loser to the ratepayers of Tauranga and it has cost them a fortune. Bob has just gone off and bought a couple of new farms worth almost $24 million. Bob is a property developer. Bob is not a builder; he is a property developer and speculator. That is true. Bob does not know I know that. He is not saying too much now. But all I am saying to Bob is: “Come on Bob. Are you going to stand in Tauranga this year? You have bluffed everybody else. I know they don’t want you. But are you going to stand in Tauranga this year Bob?”. I am not hearing anything am I? He is not so loud now. 
I know that the National Party’s mates have all these young bright little lawyers—who do not believe in humanity of course just themselves—lining up to take over from Bob. I say to Bob: “Are you standing in Tauranga?”. I am sure the Speaker would like to know—not that I can bring her into the debate. Yes or no? There is not a word. [ 
Interruption 
] He is bluffing and saying if Winston is going to stand he is going to stand. Only a fool tests the water with both feet I say to Bob. But is he standing or is he not? 
Hon Member 
: They’re looking pretty glum over there you’ve got to say. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well I suppose he got the ratepayers of Tauranga to pick up a white elephant—which he said was a gift to the people except when we do the fiscals it looks pretty bad. It required 39 full nights to pay itself and they cannot fill it for nine. He went with Blue Chip. He dumped Western Bay Finance and went with Blue Chip. Have members heard of this company called Blue Chip? It is making a lot of headlines right now. That company is the co-sponsor with Bob. Bob thought: “I could unload this real fast. I know what I will do. I will do what all Tories of late do”—not the old-fashioned Tories but the new breed—“and I will socialise my problems and my debts. I will get the taxpayer or in this case the ratepayer to pick it up.” It is the oldest trick in the book. Fay Richwhite invented it and Bob refined it but only in a local way down there in Tauranga. 
Madam Speaker I am sorry I have diverted but I want to close by saying that on so many things in the last 15 years one party has been right and that party has been New Zealand First. It has been right on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and on export policy. Members should look at racing. In the space of 2 years racing has been dramatically turned round. Last month at the Karaka sales yearling prices were up a massive 40 percent. My promise to Mr Cullen—was it 60 percent? I was overseas at the time. The news was good but I did not think it was that good. But my promise to the Minister of Finance was: “I bet you will get your money back by having confidence in New Zealand and New Zealanders.” 
We in New Zealand First are saying that if we were given a chance by the New Zealand people what we have done for the racing industry we could do for all of New Zealand. All we are saying is: “Don’t give us a microlight in 2008 and ask us to fly it to the moon. Get your vote out buy some insurance on your second vote and we don’t even mind if you vote Labour for your first vote or National if you are really desperate for your first vote. But if you are wise and you think this country has a future and you believe in a party that puts the New Zealand interest first that is not globalisation-mad that does not believe in one world but in one country before others then you will put your vote with New Zealand First.” That is how great societies are made and those great countries make great international communities in time—not weak countries but good and strong countries with values and principles. I cannot think of any other party that so fits that description than the party I am proud to lead and will lead into the 2008 election called New Zealand First.