Winston Peters: “Adding Real Export Value – Use It or Lose It”

NZ First Party

Democracy

As we each day draw closer to the election, New Zealanders are beginning to focus more on political parties and the policies they stand for.

It is true that we all get to exercise our democratic right every three years, but the reality is that we only exercise that right on one day every thirty-six months.

That means the electoral choice on that one day is critical. It is important for New Zealanders to understand the values, principles, and character of the party they choose to vote for on Election Day.

However, what’ s different this time is, that if New Zealanders as a country make the wrong choice in November, it will put New Zealand on a pathway from which we may never recover.

There are countless examples in other countries where the wrong choice has taken the country from being a leader, straight to the third world.

For those voters thinking of changing the government, we suggest they carefully look at the four parties on the left, have a good look at their track record, then view the list of changes they want to make to New Zealand, and then ask this question – are these changes possible without inflicting irreversible harm on New Zealand.

Later in this speech we will be talking about our polices, but first, lets look at the other side.

And we mean all four of the parties on the left because they will all be needed to form a government.

It is not just a vote for Labour, or just a vote for the Greens, or just a vote for the Māori Party, or just a vote for the Opportunity Party.

They will all be needed to form a four-headed government combination the type we have never seen in this country’s history.

Because within these four groups are communists, separatists and worse still they are all globalists. Which is a sure fire toxic concoction to turn our country into the Venezuela or Myanmar of the South Pacific.

That is not an exaggeration.

We cannot be more serious in our warning that those parties of the left would destroy the New Zealand we know. Our values, our character, our economy, and our society.

In an interview last week, Ryan Bridge asked the Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi why the Māori Seats are needed when this current government has the highest number of Māori in Cabinet on record – that’s even more Māori in Cabinet than when Labour and the Greens were in power.

Do you know what Rawiri said?

“They may have whakapapa Māori, but they’re not kaupapa Māori based MPs.”

You know what that means don’t you? That Rawiri thinks that you’re the wrong kind of Māori if you don’t agree with what Rawiri thinks.

Here is someone leading a party that purports to ‘represent Māori interests’ in our country, yet only received three percent of the vote – out of a claimed seventeen percent population of Māori in New Zealand. That means less than one in eight Māori even voted for the Māori Party, so who do they represent exactly?

What is worse, is the Māori Party are now actively campaigning against people giving their party vote to the Māori Party.

They are wanting to manipulate the Māori vote by telling people to party vote for some other party on the left.

This is after giving everyone a lecture for decades on the importance of an independent Māori vote, and why other Māori MPs are not Māori enough.

All they have done is treat Māori with disdain, turn up to parliament once a month, and do a haka now and again in the House.

And who wants to sit with them at Cabinet with their extremist views? The Labour Party.

Another party the Labour Party wants to work with is the shiny new Opportunity Party.

The Opportunity Party wants homeowners to pay 1.75% of your home’s land value every year, that’s on top of your local rates.

Now you will have to pay an annual rent to the government.

And what did the leader of the Opportunity Party say when questioned about a couple on the pension, who worked hard and saved all their lives, bought a house for their future and their children’s future, who would now, under Opportunity Party, face a $20k land tax bill every year? She said, yes, they will have to downsize their house to afford it.

This is blisteringly ignorant. But it gets worse.

Because, do you know what that money would be used for?

The $20k for an old couple on the pension? Infrastructure? Health? Education? Fuel security? Or food prices? No.

The $20k of land tax taken from the old couple, will be used to give everyone in New Zealand, working or not, a Universal Basic Income of $19,400 a year – for free, for life, even if you’re doing nothing.

Opportunity Party calls this ‘fairness’.

New Zealand First calls it ‘communism’.

The question is, what are you as the voter, going to call it?

The Opportunity Party also wants to raise the youth court age to twenty-five years of age – however, when they were questioned on that, they quickly deleted the 25 year court age from their website and then said they haven’t figured out the new court age yet.

Something Opportunity also changed, only when they were found out, was that their constitution that stated the unelected board could veto caucus decisions. The leader, on television, revealed that she didn’t even know there was such a provision.

Their ‘redistribution of wealth’ and bludging tax policy doesn’t stack up, their ridiculous view on law and order doesn’t stack up, and their policy to intrench Te Tiriti into law along with a Māori Upper House in parliament is worse than the Māori Party’s racist policies.

The mainstream media promoted Opportunity Party campaign is falling apart everyday – just ask the Labour Party leader Helen Clark.

But who wants to sit across from them in Cabinet? The Labour Party.

As for the Green Party, they have proven themselves to be the nutbars they always were.

The Greens want an $88 billion debt increase, and have a new policy bribe to give $2.4 billion to Marae – without any oversight or audit.

If you’re a Māori in this room today, tell us honestly, what does that reflect about what they think of you?

This is inverse racism of the worst sort. They think they can use a bribe to get your vote. Does that reflect respect for you or sheer contempt?

The Greens care more about a geopolitical war happening ten thousand miles away that they know nothing about, than they do about what is happening in their own country.

The are obsessed with race, gender, pronouns, and protests, performative politics, virtue signalling, and woke cancel culture, and they have lost sight of what their party once stood for.

They are no longer worried about the environment like Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons once were – they have turned into a bunch of weirdo globalists who like to sanctimoniously lecture people – while wearing costumes from some other country.

And who wants to sit across the Cabinet table with them? The Labour Party.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the stark truth. The Labour Party that you once knew, perhaps even supported, is no more.

That party is gone. All of these polices and parties they are willing to support are proof of that.

Can you imagine Helen Clark or Michael Cullen, or Bob Tizard or Peter Frazer signing up to this?

These parties on the left are not people who see New Zealand as one people, one country, one flag, one law, or who believe in fundamental kiwi values like hard work, ambition, and personal responsibility.

These are people who believe in a separatist society, and who want to borrow, tax, and spend – but have zero economic credentials, or even vision, to deliver growth.

Chris Hipkins and Labour are willing to work with parties like Opportunity, Greens, and the Māori Party because Labour care more about the number of seats that will give them power, rather than the danger of who it is they will share power with.

Ladies and gentlemen, part of New Zealand First’s mission is to keep these dangerous lefties out of power.

NZ First will not let Waikato farmers be buried by “Plan Change 1”

This week New Zealand First has made our position clear that the Waikato Regional Council’s “Plan Change 1” must be paused before it becomes a bureaucratic death sentence for farmers and growers across the region.

“Plan Change 1” is a 14-year-old regulatory mess, dragged out by the old RMA, and now threatening to strangle the very people who feed this country.

These rules were designed under a planning system the Government is already replacing. It is absurd to force Waikato farmers into costly consents, gold-plated farm plans, and layers of compliance just as Parliament is moving to scrap the very framework that created this mess.

More than 4500 farms across the Waikato and Waipā catchments could be affected, with hundreds facing the prospect of needing resource consent simply to continue existing farming operations.

That is not environmental management. That is economic vandalism.

New Zealand First will not stand by while regional bureaucrats and courtroom processes make it harder to grow vegetables, milk cows, produce food, and keep rural communities alive.

We are in a cost-of-living crisis. And the last thing New Zealand needs is a planning regime that pushes food prices up.

New Zealand First is calling for PC1 implementation to be paused until the replacement RMA system is in place, existing lawful farming operations are protected, and any future freshwater rules are subject to a primary production viability test.

Cleaner rivers do not come from bankrupting farmers. They come from practical, workable rules that recognise the work already being done on-farm.

And we are not going to allow, PC1, to continue to be the tool for Treaty of Waitangi claims that were not there when the Tainui settlement happened in the 1990s.

New Zealand First’s position is common sense. We must protect productive land, protect food production, and stop the bureaucratic war on farmers.

“Use it or Lose it” Dairy Policy

This week we also announced another policy.

New Zealand First is proposing changes to the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act 2001 to incentivise investment in value-added dairy manufacturing in New Zealand.

The ‘use it or lose it’ policy would give qualifying manufacturers investing in new value-added dairy production access to up to 500 million litres of Fonterra milk per year for ten years, by lifting existing regulatory settings tenfold from 50 million litres at present.

As you know Fonterra recently flogged off a number of well-known brand-names to Lactalis France.

That means Anchor, Mainland, Kapiti, and more were sold off and now all of that added value to milk products is going to some other country, not ours.

How ignorantly economically counterproductive to your own economy can you be?

Fonterra was created, by Parliament, and by statutory monopoly, to build a dairy co-operative of extraordinary scale to sell milk and dairy products, and Parliament has the right and the responsibility to ensure the policy is to turn our milk into the maximum possible value for New Zealand jobs, wages, skills, exports, and wealth.

The legislation currently allows independent processors to access up to 50 million litres of milk per season, but this is too low to incentivise manufacturing of substantial scale, so we will lift it tenfold to 500 million litres.

The current regime can help investors start, but it is specifically designed not to help them reach industrial scale, and that is not appropriate now that Fonterra has sold its own consumer products to another company in another country.

The current rules obstruct future investors in added value. That must change.

We are changing the rules, but for those who wish to use the new rules, they must use the rule change now, or lose the benefit.

To qualify, you need to establish a dairy product manufacturing base in New Zealand, majority owned by New Zealanders, marketing ‘New Zealand dairy’ to the world.

Milk would not be subsidised. Manufacturers would pay the farm gate milk price plus efficient collection and delivery costs.

Fonterra and farmers would be paid as usual, but we wish to give certainty to new investment in the dairy market to diversify, secure New Zealand jobs, and add value to New Zealand milk.

We are giving certainty for any business willing to manufacture dairy products in New Zealand.

We want industry in New Zealand. If investors want to invest more in higher-value manufacturing, then our economic settings should welcome them.

Build the factories. Build the brands. Take New Zealand dairy products to the world.

Experience Matters Most

New Zealand First started our long campaign in March this year and we have been packing the halls around the country every week delivering the message to thousands of kiwis that we are focussed on two things – bold policies our country needs for a real change, and the fight for ordinary hard working kiwis against the establishment, the elites, and the status quo.

Experience and leadership has never mattered more.

We need leaders of the next government to say the things that people are thinking without fear or favour – even the things that might be unpopular.

New Zealand needs strong leadership who are not afraid to be strong on important issues.

And we don’t need weak leaders who don’t understand New Zealand values.

We can’t go on allowing the two old parties to tinker round the edges of big issues, and do nothing but manage the decline of our country.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have already announced a number of bold policies this year.

It is what we need for real change to drive down the cost of living, secure a better future for kiwis, and reinforce who we are as New Zealanders.

Announced Bold Policies

We have announced practical, logical and workable policies to break up the power companies’ monopoly, and drive power prices down.

We have announced practical, logical and workable policies to split the supermarket duopoly, and drive food prices down.

We have announced practical, logical, and workable polices to re-establish a competitive New Zealand owned state bank, to drive banking charges down.

We have announced polices to return mining royalties, created in the regions, back to the regions.

We have announced establishing a proper transparent inquiry into those who were injured by the Covid 19 vaccine – so we can find out exactly what happened, who was responsible, and publicly hold them to account.

And we are going to further inquire into how over 311,000 twelve to seventeen year olds got the second vaccine when the then Prime Minister Ardern, and two Ministers in charge Hipkins and Verrill, were advised not to.

Ladies and gentlemen, the fact that this is not headlining in the mainstream media or in parliament is testimony to how the establishment, media and political, almost completely conformed to the “podium of truth”.

The reason why you aren’t seeing any headlines is that both the media and politicians are exposed to their wanton compliance and obedience in how they mislead the public of New Zealand – this is a conspiracy.

We are going to expose the cover-up on this issue by the other political parties and the establishment who all signed a document not to talk to the protesters.

We announced our KiwiSaver policy of making it compulsory with automatic $1000 sign-up at birth. It means the day a baby is born it gets $1000 in its account to start saving.

We have announced our policy is to establish a $100 billion Future Fund that will invest in a thirty-year infrastructure plan for our country. And that’s where we are going to get the money to build the projects that we promise in our country.

We have also announced that we will pull out of the failing Paris Agreement that is senselessly hamstringing our economy.

New Zealand has one of the loosest electoral laws in the world, and that is why we have announced a policy to ensure that by 2029 only citizens are allowed to vote in our country.

At our Campaign Launch, we announced a policy to invest $1billion to start exploring our gas and oil reserves in our deep-sea basins so we can own and export our own oil and gas – we need to be independent from events like in the Strait of Hormuz.

We also have announced the ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ that will support New Zealand citizens raising their first three children, through the first three years of their lives – $5000 per child for each of the three years.

Value of Citizenship

New Zealand needs to start viewing our citizenship as most other countries around the world do – as a privilege that comes with special and unique rights.

This does not take away from migrants the ability to move here and help build our country, from showing total commitment and patriotism for New Zealand by becoming a citizen.

We have massively allowed so many of our standards to drop.

Even the most basic of privileges and rights in any country like voting has in our country become more like an expectation for anyone, rather than a unique right for New Zealanders.

Ladies and gentlemen, why do so many ‘apologetic globalists’ act shocked and dismayed that a political party is wanting to ensure that citizenship actually mean something?

There is a difference in this election. Kiwis are looking at what parties are offering as their values and principles in these uncertain times.

NZFirst Party of Conservatism, Patriotism, Nationalism

We signed a coalition agreement to govern with stability and experience three years ago – and we have kept our word.

New Zealand First brings what is too often missing in politics – experience and common sense.

New Zealand First brings a commitment to New Zealand industry, to manufacturing, to jobs right here for our own people.

New Zealand First brings commonsense to immigration policy – where we allow in people that we need, not people who need us.

We believe in infrastructure before population growth, not afterwards, and infrastructure focused on fixing what’s broken, not flash upgrades and vanity projects.

New Zealand First brings traditional kiwi conservative values – where hard work should be rewarded, where job security and home ownership underpins a stable family life.

We want a country where young people aren’t worried about their family’s future, or where they see better opportunities overseas.

We are the party of social conservatism, patriotism, and nationalism. Those values are what it means to be a Kiwi – and New Zealand First is proud to not only stand by those values, but to fight for them.

We must be focussed on what New Zealanders gave us a mandate to do – turning this country around with policies and values that will give our country a better future – driving down the cost of living, cost of food, cost of power, cost of fuel, and turning this economy around – and doing it all with stability and experience.

We in 2023 inherited an economic nightmare. But not enough government members of parliament understood that.

This pivotal election voters want to hear a clear and unified message – that we are going to win, and take New Zealand back to being a leading economy again.

Challenging the Status Quo

The greatest threat to this blind ideology, to social elitism, and to the status quo, is New Zealand First.

And the country we are defending is called New Zealand – it’s in our party’s name.

We fight for the hardworking blue-collar Kiwi battler, who just wants the chance to help build a country they are proud of.

In this election, we have a rare chance to change the shape of parliament for the better, and in doing so, to reshape our country the way you want it.

We are asking you to make a choice with our future generations in mind.

Take back control from the Wellington bubble.

Take back control from those who choose to be CV politicians, where they are here one day, “no more gas in the tank”, and are gone the next – taking with them a rolodex of international jobs, speaking circuits, or book tours, looking back over their shoulder at New Zealand’s decline – which they caused.

New Zealand First, from our launch thirty-three years ago, has been battling that elitist status quo. No one can deny that. On issue after issue that needed public exposure, the rest remain silent. When others wouldn’t raise a finger, we have raised the roof.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, we are all here because we love our country, and we are proud of it.

True democracy is a rare flower in the history of humanity.

Down thousands of years living in democracy with freedom is a historical rarity.

We have inherited a free country that our forebears fought and died for, and it’s our job to preserve it.

But only if we are proud of what we have inherited can we come together and move forward to shape the vision of our country’s future.

We live in a country that, at its core, traditional New Zealand values once saw us amongst the world’s leaders – hard work, fair pay, valuing our citizenship, building a sense of community, and knowing who we are as kiwis.

We must remember, New Zealand is the beneficiary of Western values, democracy, and the rule of law. And the advancement and enhancement of those principles have only occurred in those societies that have united together as one people – and who celebrate their nationhood instead of perpetuating division.

There is a lot of uncertainty around the world and at home, but we must keep hope alive that, with hard work and perseverance, tomorrow will be better.

New Zealand First is nationalist, patriotic, and socially conservative values that we fight for.

It hasn’t been easy – but things in life worth doing never are.

We must never forget that challenge.

We must never stop believing in New Zealand.

That is our vision and that is our mission.

To protect, to save, and to restore New Zealand’s place at the top of the world.

By putting New Zealand and New Zealanders first.

We are asking you to join us – and Party Vote New Zealand First.

/Public Release. View in full here.