Peters: "Stand up and don’t take this anymore!"
new-zealand-first-party
Fri Apr 15 2011 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Peters: “Stand up and don’t take this anymore!”
Friday, 15 April 2011, 4:16 pm
Speech: New Zealand First Party
**EMBARGOED AGAINST DELIVERY
**
Rt. Hon Winston Peters
Leader NZ First
Address to: Horowhenua
The Memorial Hall, Chamberlain Street, Levin
Date: 15th April 2011
Time: 1.30 pm
“Stand up and don’t take this anymore!”
Today let’s talk about some of the burning issues of our time.
It's hard to work out exactly where to start – what's happening seems so bizarre!
It's like we've been suddenly caught in a Time Warp of the mid 80s to early 90s.
Some days the land of the long white cloud feels as though it's some giant lunatic asylum. (if you are allowed to use such terms in these days of political correctness).
And worse, the asylum is being run by the inmates!
It reminds us of that song written for the television series MASH.
You'll remember the characters – Hawkeye, Radar, Frank, Colonel Potter, Hot Lips Houlihan and the cross dressing Corporal Klinger.
Here are the words from one of the verses of their song:
A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
is it to be or not to be
and I replied “oh why ask me?”
It's a reflection of our times.
All we get are questions and nobody is providing any real answers.
In short – New Zealand has run out of responsible leadership.
We do not have a government that acts in the interests of all its citizens.
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What we have is government by public relations, platitudes, photo opportunities and political correctness to the power of ten.
And to make matters worse, the government has got most of the media outlets in its pockets.
And these media outlets are laying off journalists so we guess it's only a matter of time before all the news comes direct from the government's own big media team.
However there are some things that even the most powerful and well paid public relations team cannot disguise and that is this government is under pressure.
And the more pressure that goes on – the worse it performs.
It does not answer the hard questions – it just hits the long suffering people in their pocket while looking after its mates.
Over the past few weeks we have had financial scandal after scandal.
Bailout after bailout.
The government is pouring billions of dollars of good money – taxpayers money – into failing business like South Canterbury Finance and AMI insurance.
The story of AMI is simply this.
The business leaders of this company were happy to take millions of dollars in premiums from ordinary people but when the time came to put their money where their mouths were they went bleating to the government.
There is one very quick and simple solution to AMI, which has to honour its claims from the people of Christchurch, and it has to pay up quickly.
The government should simply nationalise AMI and send the people who supposedly ran this insurance company to a tent camp in a Canterbury pine plantation for the winter.
It's ironic that a hundred years ago men of vision in New Zealand politics set up a Bank of New Zealand, an insurance company and other institutions that were owned by the people.
Those visionaries knew the people had to have some form of local protection against the uncertainties of fate and Nature.
They knew that the people could not rely on avaricious foreign companies that sucked the economic lifeblood from New Zealand.
Sadly it happens time and time again. History keeps repeating itself.
The financial crisis that knocked most of the Western world to its knees – shows that the so-called “market” cannot be trusted.
Yet this government has a slavish devotion to free market “principles” that sound fine in theory but are really just another form of unbridled greed.
The leaders of this unlovely movement are guiding lights in the National and Act parties.
They are predators on an unsuspecting population that is being fed public relations pap while taxpayer dollars get siphoned off in billions to save failing businesses.
It's their continuing mantra - “privatise profits and socialise losses”.
There is an alarming trend developing of state services being slashed while private enterprise is propped up with public funds.
South Canterbury Finance is costing nearly two billion and there is no sign of the government getting back the taxpayers money that was poured into it.
Now the case of AMI - a mutual insurance company that is threatened by the weight of claims and is in the gun for hundreds of millions of dollars.
What else is there in this so-called market led shambles that cannot and does not stand on its own two capitalistic feet?
What about the finance companies and speculators like Blue Chip that went to the wall with billions of dollars of old peoples' money clutched firmly in the hands of the shysters who ran them?
Or on lent to their associates speculative ventures.
And what happens if these crooks take away the livelihood of old people?
You all know this one.
What happens is that they go on home detention in a multimillion dollar mansion and live off multimillion dollar family trust funds.
You know, as mentioned before, once a upon a time in this country there were some far sighted visionaries.
They were not ripoff merchants or greedy speculators.
They tried to make this work.
They set up State Insurance, the Bank of New Zealand, the Public Trust Office and the like because they did not want New Zealanders to be at the mercy of foreign owned banks and insurance companies.
In fact, State Insurance was set up because New Zealanders could not obtain affordable fire insurance.
Then some really clever people like Roger Dcouglas and Ruth Richardson decided that these highly valuable service institutions and the assets we had built up should be flogged off for a song.
This is one of the main reasons why New Zealand is in trouble.
It was not caused by old people – or young people – or family people.
It was caused by a pile of economic saboteurs who polluted Parliament with their presence in the eighties and early nineties.
These politicians – and we can name every one of them – have caused misery and hardship on generations of New Zealanders by selling off publicly owned assets.
And don’t forget that Labour started this process. It's interesting that last week Labour launched a campaign to save state assets.
It was a Labour cabinet that started selling state assets.
Now it has done an about turn and is following New Zealand First's position.
We don’t mind – as long as it doesn't do another 180 degree turn.
Now another group of ideologues are back in business to finish wrecking the place.
Their true colours were shown last week when Finance Minister Bill English boasted about the low wages in this country being an attraction for overseas investors.
This is the same minister who was paid tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for living in his own home in Wellington.
He told the Australia-New Zealand leadership forum in Auckland that New Zealand has competitive advantages over its trans-Tasman neighbour, including the fact wages here are 30 percent lower.
This is the same minister in the same government that has set up an expensive task force to work out how to match Australia!
It is all a giant con job on the people of New Zealand because this government actually wants a low wage economy and is now boasting about it.
And remember if wages are low then pensions are low because the rates for pensions are calculated on the net average wage minus overtime.
The only people this government looks after are those at the top of the pile.
Despite the doom and gloom for those at the bottom of the heap – those at the top are creaming it!
Here is an example.
In the last Budget the government gave its mates some big tax cuts.
Look for example, at the boss of the Australian bank Westpac in New Zealand.
His salary is $5.6 million dollars. That's right 5.6million dollars.
When National handed out tax cuts – the bank boss got more than $5,000 a week extra.
That's right $5,000 a week extra because of his tax cut.
Now for the unfairness of it all.
National recently lifted the minimum wage by 25 cents an hour to $13 an hour.
That means someone on the minimum wage – and there are thousands of them – now receives just over $27,000 a year.
That amounts to about $437 a week take home pay.
It's easy to see the people this government is looking after.
If you are a bank boss on $5.6million, helping cause a recession, you get an extra five thousand a week.
If you are on the minimum wage – you get an extra 25 cents an hour.
And start heading for the nearest food bank.
Let's face it a trip to the supermarket has become an expensive business.
The price of petrol for your car is now way over two dollars a litre.
Your power bills are rising by at least ten percent and so is the cost of your telephone.
What about car licensing – your rates or rent? Everything is going up.
But this government gives huge tax cuts to the rich and increases taxes on food and the necessaries of life for families.
The top 20 percent of the population are doing OK – some are doing very well indeed because of their tax cuts and tax dodges.
There is no doubt that wages in New Zealand are low by first world standards.
We are working on a plan to lift wages to a level that families can live on but we need your help to get into a position where we can stop the rot.
We were horrified to hear a recent report that some pensioners were at times forced to live on pet food.
It made me feel ashamed. What is happening to our country?
What are we doing to our old people? This eats right to the heart of what we are, our values and what we stand for.
A single pensioner gets about $330 a week. That is not enough.
We know that John Key has said that $300 a week is plenty if you budget properly but it just shows how totally out of touch he is with ordinary people.
We suggest that he try living on a pensioners' income for a while. It might be a learning experience.
Let me give you an assurance here today that New Zealand First has some unfinished business for senior citizens.
We will protect the concessions provided by the SuperGold card and we will extend them.
The first of these concessions has already been announced to Grey Power nationally and that is the introduction of further help for medical care.
It can be expensive for people on fixed incomes and some older people keep putting off a trip to the doctor because of the cost.
We will bring in a scheme allied to the Supergold card that will provide one free health check a year with your GP and we will cap future doctors' visits at ten dollars.
We believe that this policy will actually help reduce the overall cost of health because problems will be picked up before they get serious.
There have been recent reports that visits to the GP, especially after-hours, have become unaffordable for those on low or fixed incomes**.**
That worthy organisation Age Concern pointed out that this group includes the many older people living on New Zealand Superannuation alone.
An after-hours fee in some cases of around $100 dollars represents almost a third of their weekly income, and that’s without additional transport and prescription costs.
Last year’s Auditor General’s report on after-hours services found that older people have specific problems accessing after hours care.
Cost was cited as a problem, as were lack of transport, immobility, frailty and living alone.
Older people need to be able to afford to go to their GP.
They also need affordable GP home visits, especially when they fall ill in the night or if they are unable to get to their medical centre.
In many areas these are not available.
Moving the SuperGold card into healthcare is a logical extension to the benefits available now.
We have to be careful about how we spend taxpayers' money but free medical checks and cheaper GP visits will actually save money in the long run.
Conclusion:
New Zealand First is not going to make promises that we cannot keep.
What we can do and what we will do is husband our resources and ensure that everyone is treated fairly.
We will step in and deal with any situation that smacks of undue hardship for old people.
The days of pensioners eating pet food will be over the day we walk back through the doors of Parliament.
It's time that we went back to system that gave everyone a fair go. And this might help you make up your mind on a certain day this November.
If you don’t want to vote for National, vote for New Zealand First.
If you don’t want to vote for Labour, vote for New Zealand First.
If you don’t want the others vote for New Zealand First.
If we have to, and if that is what New Zealand First decides, we will be pleased to sit on the cross benches guarding the interests of ALL New Zealanders.
We have done it before.
National and Labour can look after themselves.
We will support legislation that's in line with New Zealand First policies.
And we will always support any policy or idea that's good for the country – no matter where it comes from.
And we will stand firm where it matters.
We will stop sales of state assets. We will save what's left of New Zealand so your grandchildren have something to look forward to.
We will stop the sale of valuable farmland to foreigners.
We will end this system of taxpayers bailing out companies that won’t meet their obligations.
We will insist that we all live under the principle of one law for all.
And we will provide leadership to help steer our country towards a better future for everyone.
We are not frightened of the task ahead.
We will meet the obstacles head on and overcome them.
This has been a great country.
Our time will come again – and that time will come with New Zealand First back where it belongs looking after the people and standing up for what they believe in.
ENDS
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