Extracts from an address by Rt Hon Winston Peters to a public meeting, East Coast Bays Council Area Office, Community Board Room, Glen Road, Browns Bay at 3pm , Thursday 30th September,1999.

Theme: “ NZ FIRST WILL DRIVE A TOUGH COALITION BARGAIN”

New Zealand First will be driving a hard bargain on behalf of thousands of New Zealanders on the 28th November – the day after the General Election.

The Leader, Rt Hon Winston Peters, told a public meeting in North Harbour today that his coalition demands will expose the “cruel hoax” being played on voters by Labour and National and their political appendages.

“Until now, many commentators have fallen for the pretense that there are coalitions in Parliament going into this election, and that this is good for voters.

“For that situation to be credible, voters need to know what these coalition policies are – but, in truth, there are none upon which there is agreement.

“It is yet another political exercise in deception which voters are intelligently starting to see through.

“Look at the Alliance. Jim Anderton is promising Heaven on Earth for people at a cost of billions of dollars, knowing full well that he will never have to honour his promises.

“Labour, which is becoming more like National every day, will not let the Alliance spend one cent on its election promises if, heaven forbid, they manage to scrape together enough seats to form a coalition.

“If you look at the Alliance policies of abolishing student fees, free health, giving cash handouts of billions of dollars to all its potential supporters, then study Labour’s reaction, you will see that the Alliance manifesto is destined for Michael Cullen’s waste paper basket.

“There is a fundamental problem of dishonesty with this coalition grouping. Labour and the Alliance got back into bed together a long time ago, but neither will explain their JOINT coalition position on any issue because they don’t have one.

“These people keep saying that voters should wait until after the election. That is a bit rich coming from a Labour party which promised economic and social justice in 1984, then turned the country upside down in a mad monetarist experiment.

“Labour is relying on voters having short memories while the Alliance is relying on handouts and promises of huge spending to buy votes.

“If these parties had the slightest scrap of integrity they would tell the people where they are coming from, but they will not.”

Mr Peters explained that National and ACT were no better, and that many New Zealanders should be “shivering in their beds” at the thought of a Government formed by Jenny Shipley and Richard Prebble.

“Mr Prebble has said that he wants to be Treasuer and Deputy-Prime Minister. If that happened we’d have to rush the Army home from East Timor to guard our few remaining State assets.

“Muriel Newman wants to be Minister of Social Welfare. We would be back to the days of sweated labour, people starving in the streets, and workhouses.

“ACT has no social conscience. Its MPs are the political pawns of big business. What deal has National done behind the scenes to placate its coalition partner?

“Once again, just like Labour and the Alliance, National and ACT are refusing to divulge their JOINT plans. Voters are rightly very suspicious.

“Again, there is no agreement between Mrs Shipley and Mr Prebble on any issue, other than their mutual lack of concern for ordinary folk. Like the Labour Alliance bloc, the National Act axis is a “Clayton’s coalition”.

“We all know that Mrs Shipley and Mr Prebble want to slash social spending so that their big business mates pay even less tax than they do now.

“Health and education will be the first services cut, then pensioners will be thrown to the wolves. We know that National has plans to cut superannuation even further because they commissioned Treasury to do a study on it after the coalition ended.”

Mr Peters said that it should be perfectly clear now to the electorate why New Zealand First will not do deals with other parties before the General Election, and will let voters decide who should be in Parliament.

“Over the next few weeks we will release a number of essential policies to implement after the election.

“These policies will be clearly spelt out so that every voter in New Zealand will understand what New Zealand First stands for, and so will these other political groupings.

“We will produce our plans for coalition talks on Sunday 28th November, and we will not be swept aside or absorbed like the political groupies with National and Labour.

“We will get action on creating jobs, improving health and education services and restoring pensions.

“Voters know that we will be as hard as nails when we start talking to these other parties,” said Mr Peters.

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