Peters: The Big changes
new-zealand-first-party
Mon May 07 2012 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Peters: The Big changes
Monday, 7 May 2012, 10:21 am
Speech: New Zealand First Party
EMBARGOED AGAINST DELIVERY
Rt. Hon Winston Peters
Leader NZ First
Venue: Victoria University, Hunter Building
Kelburn Parade, Wellington
The Big Changes
It's interesting to note that when I spoke to this class last year it was seriously reported that Winston Peters would be challenging John Key for the seat of Helensville.
Watching the TV3 news when I arrived home that night, Duncan Garner assured me that this would be the case.
Later in the year I would learn that I would be standing in Northland, Whangarei, South Auckland and Epsom.
The same forecasters said New Zealand First would never make it back.
At some point in your political science studies you will get to learn about the ‘Big Change Moments’ in New Zealand politics.
If you have a note pad, take some notes.
These were radical transformations that fundamentally changed the direction of politics and had a lasting impact on the way we do things today.
So far, there have been four such moments.
First, there was Vogel, and his bold decision to abolish the provinces –which paved the way for massive economic nationwide development with the construction of national roads and railways.
Then there was ‘King Dick’ Seddon, whose Liberal Government laid the foundations of the modern welfare state, and presided over sweeping land reforms.
Almost 40 years later, Savage and Fraser solidified the role of the state in New Zealand with the Social Security Act.
Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
They gave every New Zealander the right to a reasonable standard of living from the cradle to the grave.
The terms of political debate were set for the next 50 years.
During this period New Zealand was one of the most prosperous country in the world with the second or third highest living standards in the world.
Then Roger Douglas came along and stuffed it all up. 1984 marked the last ‘Big Change Moment’ in New Zealand politics.
But the legacy has not been great. It has been long-term unemployment, poverty and a second-rate economy (not to mention mass emigration from our shores).
We have been struggling to make up for it as a nation ever since.
Fortunately, you have a choice about the future and it’s not complicated.
You can continue on The Road to Serfdom - or you can forge a new direction.
Since the election last year, not much has changed under National.
The economy is still in a state of malaise.
Large swathes of land are being sold from beneath our feet.
Unemployment is becoming the highest in a generation.
Our exporters are struggling to compete internationally because of the high dollar.
More and more jobs are being outsourced to Asia.
The state-owned power companies are jacking up their prices as they prepare to be sold.
The number of children relying on food parcels from charities has soared to levels not seen since the ‘90s, shortly after the experiment began.
And, to top it off, more than a thousand New Zealanders are leaving for Australia per week.
Welcome to life under John Key and the National Party.
Some of you would have watched ‘The GC’ on TV3 last Wednesday night, largely financed by NZ on Air.
Its complete lack of cultural value aside, this programme gives us an insight into why we are seeing an exodus to Australia.
The drinking and partying lifestyle afforded by high incomes and first world living standards is in stark contrast to life back home in Aotearoa.
‘The GC’ might as well be National’s youth policy.
In 2012, the reality is we are educating and training an entire generation of young people for a life in Australia. That is how dire things are.
This brings me back to the subject of change.
New Zealanders have got a choice.
We can sit idly and watch as our country is stripped bare of its productive assets, and New Zealand is dragged further into third world status.
OR
We can stand up, regain some pride in our nation, and reclaim New Zealand for New Zealanders.
Now you might think that we are extravagant with our warnings.
But we have the lessons of history to go by.
Any people who lose their land and their language are eventually lost themselves.
History will judge the neo-liberal revolution since 1984 very harshly.
State assets that had been built up over many generations were sold very cheaply and these bargains were snapped up by foreign and local predators.
The protest now over the proposed sale of further Crown-owned assets is not surprising given the total shambles the politicians made of this process beginning over two decades ago.
Between 1984 and 1999 they sold major strategic assets including Telecom, the Railways and Air New Zealand for a measly $19.1 billion.
These sales enriched a number of overseas investors and a few New Zealand business people.
Let me give you two examples.
Telecom was sold to overseas interests for $4.25 billion in 1990.
Since then it has made distributions to shareholders, in the form of dividends and capital repayments, of about $15 billion.
Nearly nine billion of this went to overseas shareholders. To put this into proportion that’s just $3 billion less than total student debt for the past twenty years.
And the people who sold this asset that gave nine billion to foreigners now say they can’t help students.
This represents a huge transfer of wealth away from New Zealand to overseas investors.
That capital could have been reinvested in other New Zealand productive enterprises.
The Bank of New Zealand was sold to National Australia Bank for $1.5 billion in 1992.
Since then it has delivered total shareholder value of nearly $13 billion to its Australian owners.
Now this government is going to sell highly profitable state companies, once more.
There is no logical reason to do this but it is in the DNA of the recent National Party’s leadership to do deals.
Some sound good in the short term but in the long term our assets are stripped, our land is sold and the people are left with their noses pressed against the window of a foreign boardroom.
If you want any future in your country you must own it.
You must own your profitable companies, your communication and transport systems.
Bitter experience has shown that you must also have a state- backed bank and insurance company.
We’ve already mentioned the Bank of New Zealand disaster but we also once owned an insurance company – called State Insurance.
It was flogged off.
The foreign owned insurance companies here now are here to make a profit – nothing else.
Billions of dollars are sucked out of our economy every year by these leeches.
It’s going to be a long road back to prosperity and the sort of New Zealand that I grew up in.
But we are going to make a start within the next few weeks.
At the heart of our problem is our overvalued currency.
New Zealand First has prepared legislation to amend the Reserve Bank Act to remove its total fixation with inflation.
This fixation and a free floating, wildly fluctuating over-valued currency are driving our exporters to their knees.
The Reserve Bank controls inflation by adjusting the price of money through interest rates.
Higher interest rates are supposed to deter borrowing and slow economic activity.
This reduces consumption and means less money in the economy.
Since inflation targeting was introduced in 1985, price stability has been slowly achieved but the result has been a high and volatile exchange rate.
New Zealand currency is about the seventh most traded in the world. Four million people and this outrage.
Our party does not believe that our monetary system should be the plaything of international speculators.
We believe that Reserve Bank policies should be aimed at maintaining a stable, competitive dollar like Singapore.
Singapore loosely pegs its dollar to a trade-weighted index and uses it as an intermediate target for managing inflation.
So it can be done and all it needs is the will to do it.
Just remember the same sort of people who speculate on our currency brought the great free markets of the world to their knees a few short years ago in 2007 and 2008.
The speculators bet with our money and your future.
We believe that New Zealand could again be a thriving export economy.
A thriving economy means more jobs, more services, more money and a better future for you in your own country.
If things continue as they are – on this path to nowhere – you might have to take the advice given recently to young people in the Philippines.
A report published in Manila explained that there would be 790,000 jobs available for Filipino nurses and construction workers in Australia over the next 20 years.
It said and I quote” With its mining and construction boom that runs short of skilled workers and its healthcare system now with an acute need for registered nurses and other allied professionals, there are tremendous opportunities to widen the gateway for jobs for Filipinos in Australia across all industries and across all states and territories”
So there you have it.
When things get really grim here, trade the nuances of political science for nursing.
Learn to drive a bulldozer.
Train to become a carpenter, an electrician, fencer, concrete floater, steel fixer or roofer, or nurse.
Throw away the social sciences and take up a health science.
Trade your campus for a catheter.
And just keep your eye on the airport.
New Zealanders are closer to Australia than the Filipinos are.
You’re going to have to beat them there!
There is another point to make today and that is the astonishing changes that have been made in Parliament.
When NZ First came back into parliament at the last election we found the Opposition Parties cowering in their seats.
Parliament was being run like a government department with Parliamentary Services in charge.
The life, the spark, had gone out of the place.
So, we had to put some steel in the backbone of the Opposition.
There was a mind shift when we went back into the debating chamber and started smacking the smug faces on the other side.
As you know we don’t mind a scrap, and it was important to let the other parties know that we are not intimidated by National.
We told New Zealanders before the election that we would go into Opposition and hold this government to account.
You should have seen John Key’s face when we asked him why the taxpayers were paying for family reunions under the guise of a privatised welfare system called Whanau Ora.
Now the Opposition parties are starting to act like they are supposed to.
It goes to the very heart of democracy.
There is one problem however and that is the prime minister does not bother turning up on Thursdays.
He spends less than four hours a week in the House.
Last Thursday while Opposition MPs were trying to get to the heart of the double standards of National towards John Banks and Mr Dotcom, John Key was telling some school children he wants to be a butcher when he grows up!
Mr Key claims he had never heard of Dotcom even though he lives in Mr Key’s electorate.
John Banks tried to not know him as well but every day brings a new revelation of who knew what
This is not over yet
But in the meantime we are back in Parliament with a purpose.
Over the next two years we will be doing everything we can to hold our country together in the face of slash and burn, scorched earth policies.
If you want to help yourself to any sort of future take a bit of time to tell the government that you are mad as hell and you are not going to take it anymore.
That you are not powerless. That you are smart and energetic. You care about your country.
Get out there and do something about it.
Target the National MPs in marginal seats.
Tell your friends.
Tell your family.
Tell them to make a lot of noise and kick up a storm.
Five thousand people marched on Parliament the other day to protest at the sale of state assets Where were you?
John Key laughed at them.
It’s up to all of us to wipe that smile off his face and tell him that New Zealand belongs to its people.
And keep reminding him and his cronies, that our country, and your future, are not for sale.
ENDS
Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
a.supporter:hover {background:#EC4438!important;} @media screen and (max-width: 480px) { #byline-block div.byline-block {padding-right:16px;}}
Using Scoop for work?
Scoop is free for personal use, but you’ll need a licence for work use. This is part of our Ethical Paywall and how we fund Scoop. Join today with plans starting from less than $3 per week, plus gain access to exclusive Pro features.
Join Pro Individual Find out more
Find more from New Zealand First Party on InfoPages.