Speech: Peters - Campaign for the Regions Tour – Gore 9 Jul 2017
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Campaign for the Regions Tour –
Gore
James Cumming
Wing
29 Civic Ave,
Gore
4pm, 9th July, 2017
CLUTHA-SOUTHLAND GETTING RAW DEAL UNDER NATIONAL
IF YOU WANT TO
KNOW WHAT NZ FIRST THINKS THEN ASK ME NOT THE
MEDIA
Excerpts from speech
Of interest on TV One’s Q&A programme this morning was the repetitive talk about yours truly, Winston Peters, and New Zealand First - about what they do and not do and laying out numerous scenarios that have one common factor.
None of these journalists and commentators will have ever spoken to Winston Peters before they go to air or commit themselves to print.
In brief, these are unprofessional and gross misrepresentations.
The public is entitled to know how leaders and politicians think but they should not be reduced to getting their news by misrepresentations, distortions and alternative media facts.
If the public want to know what Winston Peters thinks all they have to do is contact me or come to one of my meetings.
If you don’t get the information about me and my party that way, then utterly ignore it for the bovine scatology it is.
Not to put
too fine a point on it, less than 80 days out from an
election, the public deserves much better than this.
A RAW DEAL
Gore and Clutha-Southland have hit the headlines and made the news for all the wrong reasons recently.
It must have come as a major disappointment for the people of this region.
In the aftermath of the Barclay Debacle a reporter went to Nightcaps to talk to the locals.
None of the locals had heard of Barclay ever coming to
Nightcaps.
Todd Barclay is a young man who made a big
mistake.
He made a big mistake over making secret recordings of a staff member and admitted in private to Bill English that he did.
Then to get him out of his own mess hush money was paid out from the Prime Minister’s fund.
Your previous electorate MP Prime Minister Bill English knew Mr Barclay had lied but he was involved in the cover-up with the pay-out and then he forgot all about it until he miraculously remembered after persistent questioning.
He has been shifty; he has been arrogant.
This unfortunately, is a disturbing trend of National.
You deserve better.
PEOPLE LET DOWN
We have been told by many people as we have travelled through the country on our Campaign for the Regions, that they feel let down.
And that National has no sound policies to progress all
of New Zealand.
People are beginning to understand that
now.
WEALTH SUCKED OUT
The wealth
is getting sucked out of our regions with little
payback.
Our assets and land are being sold off to
foreign buyers.
Regional roads and hospitals have
been under-funded.
And they’ve have turned their backs
on our young people.
We have more than 90,000 young
New Zealanders not in a job or training and National brings
in cheap labour from overseas.
They are just letting this
problem grow.
REVIVING
REGIONS
There is a need to get resources flowing
back to our regions – to revive our regions.
And New
Zealand First will do that.
You need more central
government funding for roads, infrastructure and
hospitals.
New Zealand First will make this happen.
GST BACK TO GORE/SOUTHLAND
The
government takes the wealth out of this region.
New
Zealand First says money taken out of here in GST has to
come back here.
The government took in total $1.5b in GST
from international visitors to New Zealand in the year to
March 2016, and $950m the year before.
Yet little has
gone to councils that desperately need money for toilets,
sewerage schemes and local road improvements to cope with
tourist numbers.
This has to end.
RESERVE BANK
To make Gore and Southland prosper the farming community and exporters must have an exchange rate that supports them.
Our Reserve Bank Act is out of
date.
We have an overvalued NZ dollar that has been a
bonanza for financial speculators and traders but not
exporters.
Despite the relatively small size of our
economy our dollar is one of the most heavily traded
international currencies
We need an exchange rate that
serves real economic goals like strong and growing regional
exports.
The Bank’s outdated focus on inflation must be
ditched.
FOREIGN LAND BUYERS
New
Zealand under the old parties has been a soft touch for
foreign buyers.
The wealth generated in regional NZ is
increasingly flowing into the pockets of overseas
owners.
The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) is a
facade - a token exercise intended to give the impression
that someone actually takes the national interest into
account before foreign buyers get the green light.
The
losses of land into foreign ownership are staggering 460,000
hectares alone last year.
The deals invariably get
the usual Overseas Investment Office rubber stamp.
There
is no requirement on foreign buyers to invest locally in
downstream production or new technology.
Under our policy
the rules would be strict - there would need to be clear,
unequivocal and quantifiable benefits to New Zealand before
foreign ownership was allowed.
ROYALTIES TO
THE REGIONS
NZ First has a
Royalties for the Regions Policy.
Under this policy, 25%
of royalties collected by the government from enterprises
such as mining, petroleum and water stay in the region of
origin.
As an example, the government collects over
$400 million in royalties.
Under our scheme over $100
million, year on year, would remain in the regions for
investment.
That money would help to regenerate
regional New Zealand.
It is demonstrably wrong that
companies like Coca Cola, Suntory Holdings, Oravida, Fiji
Water – can take our water for a pitiful token fee while
they make millions of dollars from it.
National says
no-one owns the water – so foreign companies can come in
and take it.
RED MEAT
A few months ago we saw the axe fall on Silver
Fern Farms’ meat plant at Fairton near
Ashburton.
Hundreds have been thrown out of work.
The
CEO of Silver Fern Farms said southern plants would not be
affected and were safe “for now.”
That means anything
can happen.
The fact is our red meat industry is in
crisis whether commentators realise it or not.
The
National government is leading this country along the road
of foreign ownership and the main highway leads to
China.
Did you not think it was strangely coincidental
that shortly after Shanghai Maling obtained a controlling
interest in Silver Fern Farms that the chilled lamb market
miraculously opened up in China?
There might be a
honeymoon period – but that soon quickly goes and the
harsh reality sets in.
We have a key export resource, red
meat, with all its added value potential, rapidly passing
into foreign ownership.
The same is happening to
dairying.
DAIRY – ADDED
VALUE
Dairy is our second biggest export earner
behind tourism and is a major player in the Clutha
economy.
You would think we would have total control of
this vitally important industry. We don’t.
We are
steadily losing the added-value of our dairy produce.
Synlait with China’s Bright Dairy as shareholder, is
now NZ’s largest manufacturer of finished Infant
Formula.
Last year China Animal Husbandry Group bought a
71.8 percent stake in Mataura Valley Milk.
About 50
per cent of what their new plant produces will be going to
China.
China Animal Husbandry Group (CAHB) president and
Mataura Valley Milk Chairman Xue Tingwu said the Infant
Formula market was expected to increase by 80 per cent
during the next 10 years.
And guess who is going to
get the added value of our milk on that one?
We say
handing over dominating control to Beijing or anywhere else
overseas, is economic madness.
New Zealand First
believes in economic nationalism and supporting our
farmers.
But we do not believe in handling over our
wealth, our assets, our resources to foreigners.
CONCLUSION
How long will Gore
and Southland be taken for granted?
You have had poor
representation.
Your area has been an economic powerhouse
for this country.
But you have received little
back.
You are taken for granted.
There must be a
change.
New Zealand First has policies which will
build a dynamic economy for our regions.
We will ensure
healthcare is available to those who want it and that roads
are adequately funded.
Young people can expect to be trained for careers and not left to rot on the dole.
We will not allow our greatest assets to fall into the hands of foreign owners who will turn New Zealanders into serfs in their own country.
Join us.
Let’s make New Zealand a better place for you and your families.
ENDS
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