Peters: Beyond Selling Off and Cutting Back
new-zealand-first-party
Tue May 28 2013 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Peters: Beyond Selling Off and Cutting Back
Tuesday, 28 May 2013, 3:14 pm
Speech: New Zealand First Party
Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
28 May 2013
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Speech: Auckland Grey Power AGM
Hillsborough Room, Fickling Centre, 546 Mt Albert Road, Auckland
Tuesday 28 May, 1.45pm
Beyond Selling Off and Cutting Back
To understand anything about selling off and cutting back we need to first jump back seventy years to the words of a great Hungarian thinker – Karl Polanyi.
In 1944 he said - "To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment...would result in the demolition of society".
Last century, during the times of politicians like Roger Douglas – the “market mechanism” took over.
And, as predicted the demolition of society started and has continued to this day.
In essence, the market rules our lives.
It is a brilliantly contrived situation created by those who stand to benefit most from it.
These people are the very rich – the finance industry, Wall Street, currency speculators – those at the top of the financial heap.
They control governments – not the other way around.
They are truly global thinkers. Instead of wrecking one country at a time – they can hit half the globe.
Look at the global financial crisis and the shocking damage to some countries like the so-called PIGS.
Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain – even the United States.
This global crisis was created in the first place by the leaders of the banking and financial system in the United States.
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They built a system of shonky loans and packaged them as gilt edged securities.
The banks went on orgies of lending to make huge profits.
When the loans went bad governments had to step in and bail them out.
Despite that global crisis the same market-led madness is the prevailing mood in the Beehive.
The cut back culture flows alongside the asset sales mindset.
The marketeers hate the thought of any of their profits going in taxes of any kind.
They expect the state to guard their wealth, educate their children and pave their roads.
But those services are for others to pay for.
One of the core beliefs of these marketeers is that the state has no part to play in business – and that anything and everything can be sold.
Meanwhile countries that have not been sucked into this market madness are doing very nicely – barely twitching.
Countries such as Singapore and Norway.
Let’s list the effects of selling off and cutting back in New Zealand.
SELLING OFF
1. Taxpayer-owned forests sold to the United States, China and Japan. We lost the Forest Service.
2. The Post Office was sold – we lost ownership of our telecommunications and a big savings bank.
3. Telecom has ripped billions from the New Zealand economy, businesses and homes.
4. The sale of parts of our power generation. The results? High prices and cold people.
5. The government printing office – sold for a song.
6. The National Film Unit – sold for a song.
7. Fishing quotas worth billions of dollars – they were the first state assets handed out in an obscene transfer of wealth from the state to private companies.
8. The sale of the State Insurance Office and the result that can be seen in the faces of Christchurch homeowners trying to recover from the earthquakes.
9. The sale of dairy farms to United States, China and European interests.
10. The sale of Railways in the nineties. Asset stripped and then the state had to take it back.
CUT BACK CULTURE
1. Everywhere you look you see the costs that reliance on self- regulation, the ideology of the “free market” and a culture of cut backs is inflicting on New Zealand.
2. The tragedy of Pike River was a consequence of an under-funded and under resourced mines inspection service.
3. The leaky home fiasco was a consequence of the Bonfire of the Regulations in the early 1990s - and now there are also hundreds of leaky classrooms that need to be fixed.
4. Cut backs in the Department of Conservation are now leaving great swathes of the conservation estate and many endangered species at risk.
5. Our railway system is being dismantled by stealth with actions such as the closure of the Napier – Gisborne Line and the Hillside workshops in Dunedin.
Border protection has been compromised and mismanaged which allowed the Psa bacteria to devastate the Kiwifruit industry.
The Novopay debacle where a botched contract was given to an Aussie company on spurious grounds has caused endless cost and confusion to the education system.
Police numbers are down and morale in the Defence forces is falling as cut backs and ill-considered restructuring takes its toll.
And of course there is the lamentable state of Immigration NZ – where a seemingly perpetual state of poor performance appears to be Government policy.
The Government is full of bluster and hot air.
In election year National promised 170,000 extra jobs.
Where are they?
All their hopes are being pinned on putting an extra million people in Auckland in less than three decades.
This is madness.
Auckland cannot cope with its present population.
Roads are gridlocked.
The transport system is in meltdown.
There is a housing crisis of both availability and affordability.
There is huge pressure on hospitals, schools and other social infrastructure.
Auckland needs time to breathe and to get on top of its problems.
The Government’s policy to pour another million people into the City of Sails is truly dumb.
Most of the newcomers are coming from abroad.
They are buying up houses and investing in real estate.
The housing price bubble is growing at an alarming rate.
Every day we hear of another serious issue facing Auckland.
There is a limit to the amount of bad news the people can withstand.
When taxpayers in Invercargill, New Plymouth, Nelson and Napier have to pay extra taxes to finance infrastructure for another million people in Auckland, they will start feeling aggrieved.
Especially when local projects are ditched because of Auckland demands.
The fact is there are any number of politicians and commentators who will tell you how they are going to solve Auckland’s problems.
But if they don’t wind back the huge influx of outsiders to Auckland as part of their plans to give Auckland a chance to get on top of its problems then these politicians and commentators are talking pixie dust.
SUPERANNUATION
There is a serious flow on effect to New Zealand pensions.
In the past great numbers of immigrants have come to New Zealand to work a substantial part of their working lives, pay taxes, and contribute to New Zealand.
No one begrudges them getting Superannuation when they turn 65.
But of late New Zealand taxpayers are paying pensions to thousands of immigrants who have done little to contribute to this economy.
We are an offshore retirement home for many from China.
It stems from that country’s official policy of a married couple allowed only one child.
One skilled immigrant from China can come with a spouse and a child.
That means a man and his wife can bring both sets of parents here under the parental reunion policy.
So, we employ one and then get a whole extended family on the health and welfare system of New Zealand.
Last year the number of skilled migrants from China was matched by an equal number of people coming here under family reunion.
Parent migrants go straight on to our health system the day they are granted residency.
The biggest hits are on New Zealand Superannuation.
A migrant only has to be resident for 10 years, and from age 65, is entitled to FULL New Zealand Super without any requirement to work.
No other country in the world has a universal pension at this level of generosity.
You spend your lifetime struggling and you get the same pension and health entitlements as a parent from abroad who comes here at age 55 – and contributes nothing!
It is simply not fair and an abuse of New Zealand’s welfare and health systems.
Asian studies professor Manying Ip, of Auckland University, has warned that if the trend continues, it will bring new health, housing and socio-economic challenges.
When licensed immigration adviser Jimmy Lee says that having too many elderly Chinese migrants here “could end up a liability for the country” then it’s time some took off the blinkers and looked at what is happening.
Last week when we discussed the effects of a million extra people in Auckland, and pointed out the down side of this, there were predictable screams of outrage.
For many years we have questioned the wisdom of immigration policies that bring a highly disproportionate number of ageing people from one country because of that country’s family policy.
Our population, and the number of taxpayers, simply cannot sustain the cost of this.
New Zealand First has this quaint old fashioned idea that we should look after our own people first.
We emphasise that we stand up for the most vulnerable groups – the young and the old.
We believe that it is insane – indeed criminally insane – to allow elderly New Zealanders to be cold in their homes while we pay full pensions to people who have been here only ten years and have contributed nothing.
Nearly 65,000 people have come into New Zealand on the family reunion policy over the past fifteen years.
When all these people receive superannuation – the bill to the New Zealand taxpayers will hit a billion dollars!
This is the real reason that some political parties are trying to lift the retirement age while others want the pension reduced.
NEW ZEALAND FIRST POLICY
New Zealand First has a plan to ensure that our pensions are fair and sustainable.
We have to look after our own people first and be fair to taxpayers.
Our scheme is based on the years of residence in New Zealand between the ages of 20 and 65 years.
Very simply, a person of 10 years residence, like the cases explained will be entitled to roughly a quarter of New Zealand Super.
And nothing more!
This is not criticising people as individuals.
It is simply stating the need for a sensible policy in place for those middle aged migrants coming here under the parent category.
Life expectancy at 65 is about another 20 years – so that’s equivalent to $350,000 from NZ Super and NZ taxpayers with no requirement to work!
We face an ageing population and a flood of retirees returning from abroad – the last thing we need is to add to it!
New Zealand First has a solution – to put in place sensible and sustainable immigration ratios and strictly apply them.
Of the total number of people granted permanent residence in any one year we say no less than 75 per cent should be skilled migrants.
Of the remaining 25 per cent we would use the following allocations for:
• Family reunion
• Parent reunion
• Humanitarian or refugee.
And we would cap parent reunion at the same percentage for all countries – so no one country has an unfair advantage as happens now.
This would put an end to the situation we had in 2012, where China hogged over 50 per cent of the parent category quota, disadvantaging parents from all other countries.
OVERSEAS PENSIONS
Now there is another problem and it covers the people who:
• Come to New Zealand after contributing to a pension scheme overseas.
• Are ex-pat Kiwis returning home
• ‘The Section 70s’ – who get stripped of their overseas pension and get New Zealand superannuation instead.
We say this is unfair.
Section 70 migrants and expat Kiwis who have worked overseas and bring overseas pensions home should keep them.
They can’t expect to receive full NZ superannuation as well but they can expect the proportion of super that their taxes have paid for while working here.
FUTURE
Our future lies in exporting.
We make some of the world’s best food.
We innovate and improvise.
Our beautiful country will always attract visitors.
With sensible conservation policies, the waters around us could sustain a great fishing industry.
We have to grow and process our raw materials ourselves.
We have to help our manufacturers and exporters so they in turn can provide jobs.
We have to be a lot smarter.
We cannot hang the hopes of future generations on waiting on tables while living in rented flats.
We have to provide a future for New Zealanders within New Zealand.
We can’t keep exporting our young talent.
We have to follow in the footsteps of the people who built this country on sound economic and social principles – not the experimentalists perpetually in pursuit of the “silver bullet”.
If we are to survive – we have no other choice.
ENDS
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