Source: New Zealand First
An Uncertain World
We are living through the most challenging international environment that New Zealand has faced in the past 80 years. Navigating chaotic conditions such as these requires experience.
And experience has never mattered more.
This is not a time for performative posturing and senseless virtue signalling. It’s a time for cool heads, rational judgements about what is possible, and an active diplomacy that listens, learns, and adapts to the chances when they present themselves.
That’s what we’ve done in the last three years.
It has been in stark contrast to the vacuum that was left by the Labour government in the preceding three years.
The chasm that was left in our international relationships was immense when we came into government, and the position Labour left New Zealand in, in the midst of such an unstable world and economically precarious position was potentially devastating.
The world is in a troubled state, the worst we can remember. And yet, having returned last week from the Pacific Islands Forum, we are hopeful, because our discussions were gripped by how our friends, like us, see opportunity amidst so much turmoil.
We haven’t needed lectures from others to act; no, we’ve been seizing chances to advance New Zealand’s economic and security relationships with energy ever since this term began. Our 80 plus overseas trips have not been to collect passport stamps, but to enhance existing agreements, or create new ones, whether in our region, the Pacific, or in Asia, South America, Europe and the Nordics.
In country after country, we have learned first-hand that they want to do more with us, they too see opportunity, and our job is to make the most of them.
That said, do not underestimate just how disruptive the geo-strategic environment is. It’s a hugely complex and challenging period we are facing. This places an enormous premium on experience, and through experience, good judgements that protect New Zealand’s vital interests.
We take the world as it is, not as some cloistered varsity lecturer or woke leftie wants it to be. The record shows that we have exercised sound judgement when it has mattered most.
With experience comes prudence, and with diplomacy comes opportunity, and that is why we are guardedly optimistic that New Zealand will emerge from the serious global disruptions in a strong position to exploit every opportunity that we create or that comes our way.
The State of the Economy
As for the state of the economy, well we all know the economy isn’t where it should be. We all know that, without having to be told because kiwis are struggling sometimes working two, even three jobs, just to make ends meet.
New Zealand First unlike the rest, has constantly said that it will take time to turn our economy around.
We have been open – and when other parties at the last election said that they could fix it within three years – we said that was a mistake. We knew the damage done to the economy by the previous Labour government couldn’t be undone in three years. We know it can be fixed – but it will take time. And we need to communicate that to New Zealanders, to ensure kiwis understand the challenge, and join us on the pathway to economic and social recovery.
We are making positive movements as an economy in such uncertain times. But we can, and must, do better.
Inflation is on the rise again, not nearly as bad as under Labour, but it is on the rise.
Interest rates are on the rise again, not nearly as bad as under Labour, but on the rise.
Our slow economic recovery has been set back by events in the Middle East. And yet, stability in the middle east is likely to be restored more quickly than New Zealand’s economic return to recovery.
And that’s because, our government inherited a disaster of massive overborrowing, and spending not on production, not on wealth creation, not on employment, and not on exports, but purely on consumption.
And we’re paying a massive price for that now.
We just had the COVID Inquiry showing the previous Labour government borrowed sixty billion dollars to deal with COVID, and yet they spent thirty billion of it on something else.
That is half of the sixty billion wasn’t spent on COVID. And you’re sitting in this audience and the mainstream media here today, and none of them have told you what the thirty billion was wasted on.
We have turned the economy around – there is growth, but not as much as we need.
The current economic climate and the realities of our situation just shows the sad thing about New Zealand over the past fifty years.
We went from being in the top three in the world to a non-competing economy.
Back then we had strong growth of over five percent a year, every year, and MPs who understood nationalism, who understood the national interest.
And then we had the neoliberal experiment of Labour’s Roger Douglas and then National’s Ruth Richardson and the rest has been a massive disaster.
We became the victim of a totally unfettered free market – straight out of the neoliberal economic Milton Freidman textbook.
The left and right, Labour then National, went on to sell our assets, privatise our country, open our borders to mass immigration, open our society to every wild-west simpleton ideology – an ideology that has been proven over the past forty years to be an abject failure and purveyor of misery and struggle.
Only one party leader and one party – New Zealand First – has never subscribed to that ideology.
New Zealand First began because we opposed that ideology.
We have always believed in economic nationalism – where we own our country’s assets, where we have targeted government intervention, where we give a hand up in times of need, where our country gives capitalism a human face.
Paris Accord
There have been a number of things that occurred over the past week when we have been overseas that need addressing.
Last week the Prime Minister said that the Paris Accord obligations were a ‘non-negotiable bottom line’. If that’s true, up to $22 billion of our hard-earned taxpayers’ money is going offshore.
It’s just common sense that instead of draining our money offshore, into foreign economies, we invest it looking after our own environment.
And New Zealand First is the only party that believes that.
We need to look at the illogical state of what the Paris Accord actually means. 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?
Here is what a lot of people don’t know. China built more than 50 large coal powered power plants just last year – that’s one a week. And what did the NZ Labour Party do? Ban coal. Closed Marsden Point.
What are the Greens doing? Screaming blue-murder that the world is going to end because New Zealand isn’t cutting our emissions enough. These MPs are on another planet.
The former longest serving Labour Party PM in the UK, Tony Blair, made a similar statement to New Zealand First’s about what the world needs to do on the Paris Accord. The world is catching on and we are going to get left behind in crippling debt and a swamp of regulations on our productive sector if we remain signed up to the Paris Agreement.
We are in the Heartland of agriculture today, the Waikato, and we need to stop this nonsense.
New Zealand First is saying we need to get out of the Paris Accord altogether.
Willie Jackson Co-Governance / Māori Apprenticeships
Willie Jackson again last week became the gift that just keeps on giving.
He continues to reveal with a megaphone all of the things that Labour are planning to do if they get back to power.
On Q&A last week he was asked if Labour was going to bring back co-governance.
Willie said “apparently co-governance scares people, so we might give it a new name”.
Whatever new name he wants to give it, it will still be:
Separatist.
Racist.
Apartheid.
Co-governance is the destruction of our democracy. That’s why New Zealand Fists opposes it.
Because we believe in one people, one flag, one country, one law for all.
He is announcing out loud what Labour are planning to do – reverting to type and going straight back to dividing this country by race.
They are on a patronising separatist race to the bottom along with the Greens, Te Pati Māori, and Opportunity Party.
Labour also announced separatist funding for apprenticeships to ensure young people get the skills and training they need to get a job.
But there is one catch – this policy only applies to Māori.
Why funding just for Māori who are struggling? Why not all struggling kiwis?
Our vision and values as a country should be based on need not race – the sooner we get rid of separatist thinking and work together as one people the sooner we will have a better future together as one people.
Janet Dickson
Last week the real estate agent Janet Dickson lost her licence for refusing to take a compulsory cultural tikanga and te Tiriti course..
This tikanga course has no relevance to Janet Dickson’s real estate job.
No one should lose their job for refusing to take a tikanga course that has no relevance to what their job is.
This course add-on does not help one real Māori obtain accommodation.
This is woke political and cultural correctness gone mad.
Māori Party Destructive Bottom Lines
And last week, the Labour Party’s coalition partner, the Māori Party, released a tax policy – they called a “bottom line”.
They want to introduce a wealth tax, a massive corporate tax, a stamp duty, a property speculation tax, and an offshore speculation tax.
New Zealand needs to become more productive and encourage New Zealanders to start businesses that employ people, rebuild industry, and make us wealthy again.
The Māori Party instead think the way to grow employers is by soaring business tax rate, making us uncompetitive with other countries in attracting investment.
This is both a jobs killer and a business killer.
And here’s the rub.
These wealth taxes don’t apply to Māori.
This is a policy for the taxpayer funded Māori elite, by the taxpayer funded Māori elite, from the taxpayer funded Māori elite.
We are the only party that has never done a deal with the separatist Māori Party and we never will.
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.
Opportunity Party’s Communist Consultants
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 when the leader of the Opportunity Party was asked how an old couple could afford a $20k land tax bill every year, she said “they will have to downsize their house to afford it”.
This is blisteringly ignorant. But it gets worse.
Because, the $20k per annum from an old couple on the pension is not going to infrastructure, health, education, fuel or food prices.
It will be used for a Universal Basic Income of $19,400 every year, for everyone, for life, even if they are not working.
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 old – 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.
And their constitution has the unelected board having the power to veto any caucus decision.
Their ‘redistribution of wealth’ and bludging tax policy doesn’t stack up.
And born in Fiji and immigrated to New Zealand, she says the country’s name should be called “Aotearoa New Zealand”.
And who wants to sit with them in Cabinet? The Labour Party.
Green Party Debt Machine
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 of taxpayers’ money.
If you’re a Māori, tell us honestly, what does that reflect about what the Greens think of you?
This is inverse racism of the worst sort. They think they can use a bribe to get your vote. This doesn’t reflect respect for you, but sheer contempt for who you are.
The Greens care more about a geopolitical war happening ten thousand miles away that they know nothing about, than 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 completely lost sight of what their party once stood for.
English Language
The Green Party MP Tamatha Paul said in parliament that English was a ‘bastard language’.
She should have been booted out of parliament for using that word for a start.
We are proud of our country’s history and our foundation English language – which is now an official language thanks to New Zealand First.
Two days ago a Bog-Irish Band called “Kneecap” backed Tamatha Paul’s comments stating that the English language was a ‘colonisers’ bastard language’.
We are not going to sit by and be lectured by some bunch of low IQ weasels who have no idea about history, and even less of an idea about the woke cultural madness they foolishly promote – that goes for the hopeless TikTok politicians like Tamatha Paul too.
The fact is the Greens 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 at the Cabinet table with them? The Labour Party.
Old Labour Is Gone
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 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.
The Choice On The Right
This year we have been packing the halls around the country with ordinary hardworking kiwi battlers who see the only party talking common sense.
They all see what makes New Zealand First different from every other party.
We are the only socially conservative party.
We are the only nationalist party.
We are the only patriotic party – a word that is now so often criticised. We stand proud to be patriots of New Zealand.
What’s most important, is that we are the only party that can counter-balance the present spectrum of extremists in parliament.
And we have the vitally experienced team and the bold policies to back it up.
New Zealand First is not just running in another election this year, we are running to save our country economically and socially from extremists.
Some Announced Bold Policies
We have announced a policy to break up the power companies’ monopoly, and drive power prices down.
We have announced a policy to split the supermarket duopoly, and drive food prices down.
We have announced a policy to re-establish a competitive New Zealand owned state bank, to drive banking charges down.
We have announced a policy 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.
Above all, on Covid 19, we want to hold to account those politicians who were told not to give the second vaccine to 12-17 year olds, withheld that advice from parents and 311,000 young people, wrongly, got the second vaccine.
If this was a transparent democracy then how could Hipkins and Verrall still be in politics today.
We announced our KiwiSaver policy 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 we have announced a policy to ensure that by 2029 only citizens are allowed to vote in our country. We are going to fix one of the loosest electoral laws in the world.
We have announced a policy to have a referendum on the continued existence of the Māori Seats.
And to be independent from events like in the Strait of Hormuz, 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.
And we 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.
And while all the other parties argue about spending and taxation, New Zealand First is different.
We are talking about doubling our economy by 2050. Which is the only way we are going to be able to pay for the things that New Zealanders need.
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.
Campaign Announcement: Citizen Only Super
In recent years, some commentators have questioned the affordability of NZ Super.
Our NZ Superannuation scheme was designed to look after our seniors in their retirement.
Kiwis who left school sometimes at the age of fifteen or sixteen, worked two, sometimes three jobs, for forty or fifty years of their lives paying taxes – sometimes through the highest tax periods in our country’s history.
They deserve to be looked after in their retirement.
With our growing older population and the increasing costs of super on taxpayers, how is it fair that the tax burden of supporting seniors now goes to paying for the full retirement of someone who has migrated to our country and only lived and paid taxes for sometimes less than half of the time compared to those who have worked their whole lives here?
We are a fair society, and we should always strive to maintain that – it is what makes our country unique.
When NZ Super was established in 1977, it was not in the context of the immigration levels we currently have.
Over just the past twenty years, New Zealand has had a total net migration of around 650,000 people into our country, at an average of over 30,000 each year.
That means more people than the population of Christchurch have moved to New Zealand in the past twenty years.
And with that 650,000 migrants that has come with it a percentage tax burden just for NZ Super which is a ticking timebomb.
Under current settings, you don’t have to be a New Zealand citizen to gain full access to NZ Super payments.
In fact, you don’t even have to be a permanent resident. You only need to have a resident visa.
How have we come to a point of having no value or meaning of being a New Zealand Citizen?
Currently, someone who has lived in New Zealand for just twenty years, and only need to be in the country for five years after the age of fifty, can be eligible for full super payments.
That means they only have to be in New Zealand for one year out of every three after the age of fifty, and they can get the same full amount as someone who has worked their entire life paying taxes since they were fifteen years old.
How is that fair?
As the old saying goes – “generous to a fault”.
The annual superannuation bill for older migrants has hit a billion dollars.
In December 2025, the Crown paid $2 million a week to over 42,000 super annuitants who became resident in New Zealand aged 50 or older.
Annually, the total works out at over $1 billion.
That sum has more than doubled in the past 10 years – from $500 million in 2015, to $1 billion last year.
New Zealand First believes we need to instil some meaning and value back into being a Kiwi, and back into being a New Zealand Citizen.
Today we are announcing a campaign policy that only New Zealand citizens will be eligible for New Zealand Super.
This policy will have a grace period to take effect within the next three years.
If you want to get NZSuper then you need to sign up, be proud enough of New Zealand, and show full commitment to our country and become a citizen – our taxpayers should no longer continue to be used as a bottomless pit by some migrants to our country.
This is about economic fairness, and it is about putting New Zealanders first.
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.
Original source: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/09/06/winston-peters/