Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
14 JULY 2017
We’re Challenging You to an Immigration Debate
New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters is challenging a pro-immigration researcher to a debate.
“Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said on Radio New Zealand today that cutting immigration would cause an
economic slump,
“This was a thinly veiled attack on our immigration policy,” Mr Peters told a crowd in Thames today.
“Mr Kiernan said that New Zealand needed the ‘the skills’.
“He failed however to mention the 130,000 New Zealanders unemployed, or 92,000 young Kiwis without work, education or
training, or that to be considered employed you only need to work one hour a week.
“He also forgot to say that a further 100,000 New Zealanders are desperately seeking full-time work.
“Mr Kiernan cannot set out why mass immigration works. But we want to thank him for pathetically, though unwittingly,
admitting that record immigration is what is fuelling our GDP growth.
“My message to Mr Kiernan is that New Zealanders have had a gutsful of his line of economic madness.
“If he wants to get into politics, he should come out of his ivory tower and hit the road, like we have the last few
weeks, and see the impact National’s mass immigration policy is having on Kiwis trying to buy houses, find jobs, get
hospital treatment and even access education,” says Mr Peters.
ENDS