Peters Winston: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6132. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Interest rates in New Zealand are four times that of the USA the UK the EU and Japan and Nick Smith made that claim! But mind you he made a claim that he advised Dame Margaret Bazley of a legal fund when she was in charge of the parliamentary pecuniary interests except Margaret Bazley denied it and yet he wants to come back and be a Minister when he told Parliament something that was demonstrably not true. Look at the  
Hansard 
. It is all there. 
Yesterday of course the Maori Council won the right to take its case on State asset sales and water rights to the High Court—just one tragic milestone along the road to separate development apartheid and assets divided up on the basis of race. How under a National Party that campaigned on “Kiwi not iwi”— 
Hon Member 
: That’s right. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It did did it not? National campaigned on “Kiwi not iwi”. How therefore has it come to this? What has New Zealand done to deserve this appalling Government? What manner of Government is it that would plough on with its misguided asset sales programme in the face of all the damage it is doing? 
There is no sound economic rationale and it gets worse. The whole process has been botched so inept and so shambolic that it is now further undermining New Zealand’s social cohesion and it is racism that the Government is encouraging. This very privative campaign—inevitable to see that happen. A cynical person might even suggest that this Government intended to have that effect as people overlooked the nation’s interest and scrambled for their share of the spoils. Why did the Government not foresee the discord its sales programme would generate? It was spending $120 million on consultants to give it advice. Surely one consultant said that. So many trails and twists and no coherence. 
Does anyone remember “shares plus”? Well last week it was iwi shares that were on offer coming out of nowhere. So now the proceeds of the asset sales programme—unquantified of course—are going to pay off debt pay for schools pay for hospitals and now we learn out of left field that they will also be contributing to Treaty settlements. How many times can the same money get spent? Where is this all going to end? Who knows? Those members do not. They just blunder along—ad hoc shoot from the hip chaotic make it up as you go along—despite the serious damage that has been inflicted on our country by this issue. 
How petty and small-minded some people are becoming including the Prime Minister. In response to Rahui Katene of the Maori Council on the question of the right to go to court this is what Mr Key said: “… hardly a victory when you get the judge to agree to … your case.” So there you have it again: just “Spray and Walk Away”. A classic Key one-liner—dismissive flippant sneering. 
What is clear is that the issue will fester and create future dispute and discord. How many now think that the country is being held to ransom by certain Maori interests that want to exploit the situation to their own advantage? For those who want to undermine our social cohesion this Government’s asset sales programme has been a gift. It has put Maori against other New Zealanders Maori against Maori and iwi against iwi. What a mess. What a way to run a country. And what a tragedy for New Zealand that someone behind that court case is saying: “When the water passes over our land or rohe the proprietorship right is with us.” Which part of the water? The foundation the middle part the end part or whatever runs out to sea? 
What a tragedy for New Zealand. But the polls say—and this is the only good news in this speech—that we will soon have to address this issue and set it to rights.