Introduction
Good afternoon and thank you for being here today.
We had the pleasure of introducing two new candidates last week – Nicola Laboyrie standing for New Zealand First in Hamilton East, and Lee Smith standing for New Zealand First in Taranaki-King Country.
An interesting note on Lee Smith – her great, great, great, great grandmother, Pakewa, was one of the few women to sign the Treaty of Waitangi.
Today we are also confirming two candidates for electorates in this area – Kevin Stone who will be standing in Hamilton West, and Hon Casey Costello for Port Waikato.
2026 Election Campaign
We are now just under five months away from the election and a number of other parties will shortly begin their election campaigns releasing their policies – although there is some doubt about Labour releasing any substantive policy – last week they announced a public transport policy which included more “free” stuff.
It took two and a half years, a bonfire of useless old policy, a lame excuse to wait for the budget, and all Labour could come up with was ‘capping public transport costs’…but just for some people…just in some areas…just for some things.
Labour said public transport will only cost up to $20 a week then it’s free. Newsflash: nothing is ever “free”.
“Free” actually means taxpayers pay for it – because whether Labour understands it or not, money doesn’t grow on trees. And guess what. People who are riding on public transport are the taxpayers who are going to pay for it.
Labour’s big plan is to move $65m from the National Land Transport Fund to pay for it all. That automatically means something else that money was already allocated to will now not be paid for – or they have to either borrow more or tax you more.
They already said they want everyone to get three “free” doctor’s visits as well.
It’s starting to sound like an Oprah Winfrey episode where everyone gets free stuff handed out. You get one, you get one, everyone gets one!
Ladies and gentlemen, New Zealand First gets it, for most, the cost of living is the most serious issue.
Just in the last few months New Zealand First has already announced policies on breaking up the power companies, splitting the supermarket duopoly, establishing a competitive state owned bank – just three opening initiatives to meaningfully tackle the cost of living. And we are going to return royalties to the regions, create a KiwiSaver generation for newborns and increasing contributions, establishing a New Zealand Future Fund…and there are many more coming.
Those are what you call real policies that tackle the cost-of-living issues for kiwis and start to build a country we are all proud of.
But the point is there will be nothing new from any policy Labour announces – it will be tax more, spend more, and borrow more.
There should be no surprise from that – what substantive polices do you think they could seriously come up with? Just look at their front bench and the list of candidates they have just released.
They are the ‘who’s who, of the who’s that’.
They couldn’t make half a cabinet, which begs the question – who in the Green Party and Māori Party will they be needing to fill the gaps with?
What’s more, which policies of the Greens or Māori Party will they be forced to include in government? Defund the police? Death Tax? Wealth Tax? Entrench Te Tiriti and co-governance? Banning all gas fuelled vehicles by 2030? This is all madness.
As an example, if you saw the Green Party press release last week they confused a $500 million figure and stated it was a $500 billion figure. It’s about now that we should all be very concerned if they get anywhere near the Treasury benches.
Voters please pay attention to what a vote for Labour will mean for the future of our country.
And make no mistake, the Labour Party of today will openly welcome the Greens and Māori Party to the table.
What the Labour Party used to be is long gone. They are no longer the ‘Party of the Worker’. Quite the opposite.
The Labour Party has left working-class New Zealand a long time ago – it’s evident just how shallow and impotent they have become.
Labour is now fighting for the space on the woke far-left, instead of fighting for the workers, fighting for middle New Zealand.
Their focus now is on issues such as race, culture-wars, rainbow-wars, and Marxist ideals, and ignorantly joining both the Greens and Māori Party on the race to the bottom.
Ladies and gentlemen, our point to you is this.
Labour no longer represents the workers. They have totally forgotten what a worker even is or what a worker stands for. How many Labour leaders or front bench Labour members have ever had a real job? How many have ever run their own business? Almost none. And they want to represent you, the workers?
How many of them are career unionists? How many of them have graduated from student unions and then started working in the Labour Party taxpayer funded offices? Most of them. How would they know what a hard day’s work means?
The vast majority of left-wing shill union leadership these days are card carrying Labour members – the PSA union, Etu Union, the NZCTU – all have current members or even candidates standing for Labour. One of them is even sitting on the Labour Party policy development committee.
These unions represent just 15% of workers in New Zealand today, and are used as a political arm for the Labour Party.
Yet the media continue to use them as some sort of authority for comments about workers or government policy. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
But these aren’t the trade unions of yesteryear, that used to represent the blue collar tradies or kiwi battlers, these unions today are full of representatives who have soft hands, walk around in comfortable shoes, and care more about their own political ambitions than the workers themselves.
That’s who the unions represent, and that’s who the New Zealand Labour Party is today.
India Free Trade Agreement
In the 2023 Election campaign, the National Party leader promised a free trade agreement with India within the next three years.
That promise was meant to radiate business experience, combined with an ambition for future economic growth for New Zealand as a result of such a deal.
Staring the business world in the face was the promise to do this deal in three years. Notwithstanding that appalling strategic mistake, not one businessman or woman, questioned the National Party leader on his naive commitment.
It’s like going to play a game of poker, where just to make sure you can’t win, you show your opponents your cards.
And that blistering lack of professional response in our business world exists to this day. To the extent where after only 21 months, Mr Luxon announced he had a FTA with India, and 11 months before the three years were up, not one business leader said ‘hang on a moment, there is something wrong here, lets read the fine print and find out what it means, for New Zealand workers, businesses, and our economy going forward’.
And there in Parliament all these political parties have been saying what on this matter?
Apart from naive support, virtually nothing. Just like the business world did – when they put out a joint letter of support before they even read the agreement.
And you’re asking yourself, how are we going to take back control with business and political leadership like that?
Paris Accord and UNDRIP Clause
What’s worse, there is mention of the Paris Accord in the FTA, which was signed up to by John Key and Paula Bennett in 2015. Who put that in? Because India certainly didn’t ask for it.
There is also a clause in this free trade agreement that confirms New Zealand’s recognition of UNDRIP – the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People.
This is the same UNDRIP that started the He Puapua report, remember that? And the He Puapua report was the start of the co-governance cancer that has since pervaded our country.
That clause is directly contrary to the coalition agreement between National and New Zealand First, which specifically disowns any UNDRIP adherence or recognition. So why is it in the FTA? And more importantly, why have the two other government parties, National and Act, signed up to it?
When the Act Party leader asked how he could support such a provision, he said he did not know about it, and further when he raised it with the Minister for Trade, was assured that it did not exist.
And yet, Gary Judd KC, who has written work for the Act Party, has called this clause in the FTA agreement “a Constitutional Trojan Horse – “advancing change through political stealth.”
So, there you have it, you have the UNDRIP provision in the FTA, which India did not ask for because they never signed up to it at the UN, and two of the three political party leaders claiming no knowledge of it.
So to recap, you have a government that is signed up to not support UNDRIP, and yet one party goes to India and writes support for UNDRIP into a trade deal, and then returns to New Zealand and shrugs off all legitimate inquiry saying “there is nothing to see here”.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is just one more rotten cog in a hopeless Ferris wheel of optimism.
The free trade deal is a monotony of mistakes and coverups.
The Unbalanced FTA
The FTA lacks symmetry, lacks balance, or any sense of equal proportion of sharing benefit between two nations.
Why do we say that? Here are some examples.
We remove tariffs on Indian goods on day one. India keeps exclusions, phase outs, quotas, and price thresholds into the distant future.
So we give India a clean concession, and we get back a mixed package.
There is no progress for our dairy products at all.
Apples, kiwifruit, honey, albumins are quota limited – wine remains subject to high residual tariffs. What does that mean, if not huge commercial constraints against success.
Apples, kiwifruit and honey access is linked to “economic cooperation action plans”. What the hell does that mean? It means market access can become dependent on ‘government to government’ delivery, not business or export performance.
SPS and sustainable development are not subject to normal disputes settlement. And what does that mean?
It means, New Zealand exporters have no strong remedies if they come up against regulatory barriers.
New Zealand commits to temporary migratory entry settings and a working holiday scheme. Again, what does that mean? It means New Zealand makes domestic concessions right now, but have to wait for trade gains sometime in the future – if ever.
And here is the real clanger, New Zealand is required to promote outward investment into India of $32 billion over the next 15 years.
When we are desperate in this country for investment, where we have a $200 billion infrastructure deficit, we are now going to spend the next 15 years promoting those billions of dollars of investment into a foreign country.
Are you now seeing why New Zealand First has been against this deal since we were belatedly given the fine details?
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all seeking export led domestic value creation. And how will we do that whilst we are providing $32 billion to India over the next 15 years.
We are speaking in a part of the country that has solidly voted national for decades. Well, has the party you voted for ever explained what they are doing here?
Anyone looking at the fine print and details of this agreement will instantly see yesterday or tradition, but what they will not be seeing is a deal that is future proofed, which is extraordinary due to who we are dealing with.
Why do we say that? It is 2026, and in this FTA, there is no standalone digital trade, or e-commerce chapter apparent in the table of contents. Services exclude government procurement.
What’s of major concern here, is a large part of New Zealand’s increase in exports to India is expected to be New Zealand’s exports diverted from other markets, rather than entirely new export growth.
What is even more crazy, is that under this deal New Zealand can export apples to India for two months in a year – the two months that this country doesn’t even produce apples. So which horticulture expert thought this was a great idea?
The people of this country on the India FTA have been the victims of flimflam, serious exaggeration, and even worse, outright misinformation.
But here is their best expectation, in cold hard facts – this deal of which the Prime Minister has made so much, alongside obsequious business leaders, is expected to lift our GDP by the staggering amount of 0.1%, or a tenth of one percent – by 2050.
Right about now, do you think we are all a victim of a load of horse manure from this FTA?
Free Migration Deal
The National, Act, and Labour Parties have signed up to this deal knowing this is more a Free Migration Deal, not a Free Trade Deal.
Under this deal, not only will there be five thousand work visas issued at any one time, but under current law those visa holders can bring in their families – that five thousand now turns into twenty or twenty-five thousand.
All the other political parties deny that. So how can it be that Prime Minister Modi, Trade Minster Goyal, India’s Foreign Office, and its Communication Ministry, all have the opposite view to all those other New Zealand political parties?
Then there are the uncapped students that will be allowed to enter our country to study. These uncapped number of students, under this agreement, have a guaranteed right to work twenty hours a week, up to twenty-five hours, in addition to a right to work for three years post-graduation.
If you are all sitting there and thinking about whose jobs those visa holders and students will be taking in this time of high unemployment, your right – and National, Act, and Labour all need to answer your concern.
Our country currently has a high number of unemployed youth – and yet these parties support this FTA that will guarantee an increase in an uncapped number of foreign students taking your kids jobs.
How can any of them and the mainstream media reconcile that?
No free trade deal in the history of New Zealand has included immigration as a condition. Never. So why are National, Act, and Labour allowing this to occur?
Ladies and gentlemen, the simple answer is none of these parties are focussed on a country called New Zealand. New Zealand First is the only true nationalist party that cares about our country, and puts our country and our people first. The others sadly are all a bunch of globalists.
Paris Accord
Last year in our State of the Nation speech held in Christchurch, we questioned the logic of the Paris Accord the National Party signed up to in 2015.
Last week the Prime Minister said that National will be doing its best to honour those Paris obligations. If that’s true, up to $22 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’ money is going offshore.
They say that New Zealand will never send billions of dollars overseas, but if that’s true, why are we remaining signed up to the Paris Accord? Why don’t they answer that question after explaining their $32 billion to India?
It’s just common sense that instead of draining our money offshore, into foreign economies, we invest it in looking after our own environment.
And New Zealand First is the only party that believes that.
Let’s look at the facts. Around sixty percent of the worlds CO2 emissions come from four countries – China, United States, Russia, and India. New Zealand’s emissions amount to only around 0.17%.
Why are we making a rod for our own backs, punishing our farmers and our taxpayers and our economy, when China or the US could sneeze and produce more CO2 overnight than we do in a year?
How is that solving the “global climate problems”? And just a week ago, the former longest serving Labour Party PM in the UK, Tony Blair, made a similar statement. The world is catching on and we are going to get left behind in crippling debt and a quagmire of regulations on our productive sector if we remain signed up to the Paris Agreement.
We need to stop this nonsense – so why have National, Act and Labour all signed up to this free trade agreement with this clause in it?
New Zealand First is saying we need to get out of the Paris Accord altogether – and we will campaign on this issue in this election.
If other parties have just signed up to the FTA with the Paris Accord in it, they cant then turn around and say they now share New Zealand First’s view.
Ladies and gentlemen, on this issue you know you have had enough hypocrisy from them already.
Gene Technology Bill
An important issue that we want to touch on briefly, is the Gene Tech Bill that is currently being contemplated by the government.
New Zealand First has stated previously there are provisions in our Coalition Agreement with National that highlight our supporting, or otherwise, of any genetic modification liberalisation legislation is dependent on certain safeguards, protections, and risk mitigation.
We are not currently satisfied with the provisions, and we will not be supporting this legislation as it stands. It is becoming clear to us that this legislation will not be put forward this term and it will become an election issue. New Zealand First is against the liberalisation of genetic engineering when there are no adequate safeguards put in place to protect our people and our environment.
We have built our country’s export and economic reputation on our GE-Free label, and we will not sacrifice or risk that for other party’s political agendas.
War on Woke
Yesterday there was a protest in Auckland down Queen Street full of lefty weirdos who were protesting about New Zealand First’s bill to define in law what a man and woman is.
This bill is not about being anti-anyone or anti-anything. As we have always stated, the government has no place in the nation’s bedrooms – may a thousand blossoms bloom. But these people who were protesting are so egotistical that they think this bill is about them and is just an attack on the LGBTQI+ community.
They are so egotistical they couldn’t even figure out which flag to fly – is it Palestine, rainbow, or the Māori flag – because they had all three.
They seriously believe the universe just revolves around them. Their egos are only matched by their learning difficulties.
This bill is about protecting women and girls’ rights, freedoms, and safety. Not about what people decide to do with their private lives.
For us to have to legislate this basic biological reality shows how much the ‘woke mind virus’ has infected our society.
It is astounding that legislation like this is even needed – but that is how woke our country, and most of the western world has become.
This bill is about ensuring we as a country focus on the facts of biology and protect the term ‘woman’ in law.
New Zealand First is the only party that campaigned on keeping men out of women’s sports, keeping men out of women’s and girl’s changing rooms, and we have received two petitions to protect the term ‘woman’ in legislation.
We were told at the time, by politicians and many in the mainstream media, that we were going down a ‘rabbit hole’ and ‘on another planet’.
Really? Look at recent events, both internationally and in New Zealand, the pendulum is swinging back towards common sense and is proving us right, which begs the question, which planet are the rest of them on?
We are fighting back the cancerous social engineering being pushed in society by a woke minority.
But this issue is just one in a heap of concerning elements and the underlying creep of woke social engineering.
This leftist group-think, condoned by too many on the right, has been mostly hidden from society in the way it has implanted itself in New Zealand, in education, health, government departments, and universities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need common sense brought back to our country.
We cannot underestimate the nature and importance of the war on woke.
It is not only things like DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in our public sector, but also in our education system.
New Zealand First set out in the election to get rid of the ‘Relationship, and Sexual Education’ guidelines in our schools – we have done that.
We campaigned on ensuring the pathway of separatism and cultural Marxism was stopped with the likes of He Puapua and co-governance – we are doing that.
We campaigned on ensuring we have fairness in women’s sports – that men cannot compete against women and girls – we have done that.
We campaigned to stop the use of Puberty Blockers for children – we have done that.
We may have won many battles, but the war is yet to be won.
We will continue to be the voice of common sense and at the forefront of the war on woke on behalf of you and every other concerned New Zealander.
Our message to the bureaucracy and any other political party pursuing such policies is simple. Do you want to be part of the solution or do you want to remain part of the problem?
If their choice is the latter – to be part of the problem – then our response is – “get out of the way”.
Conclusion
New Zealand First has been on a mission.
To fight for ordinary hardworking kiwis who just want a country we are proud of.
A country that provides opportunity for you and your families.
A country that gives you hope for a better future.
We must not lose sight of how far we have come on this long road to recovery.
It hasn’t been easy, but the things in life worth doing are never easy.
We must always choose the harder, right path…over the easy, wrong path.
It is what will build the character of our country. It is what will build a country we are all proud of.
We must never forget that challenge.
We must never give up what our forebears fought and died for.
We must never stop believing in ourselves or our mission.
We must never stop believing in New Zealand.
That is our vision and our mission.
We are asking you – to keep hope alive, to give us the tools, so we can finish the job.
To protect and to save our great country New Zealand.
