Source: New Zealand First
An Uncertain World
We are living through a hugely complex and challenging period.
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
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 has constantly said that it will take time to turn our economy around.
We have been open about that – 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.
We are making some positive movements as an economy in such uncertain times. But we can, and must, do better.
But to do much better, we need many more New Zealand First MPs in parliament.
Many, many, more.
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 worsened overnight with the capture of the Red Sea port, thereby blocking Saudi Arabian Oil.
That said, 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 have told you what the thirty billion was wasted on.
We have turned the economy around – there is growth, but not nearly as much as we need.
The current economic climate and the reality 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 in 1984 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.
NZFirst Immigration Policy
How many times has New Zealand First been attacked for being xenophobic and racist, look around the world – it calls to mind the quote from The Mikado “the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own.”
We need smart immigration policies – where we shift the dial to a highly skilled critical workforce that our country needs, and provide real reasons for these kiwis to stay in New Zealand to rebuild our country together. A system that consistently provides the skills we need domestically, working alongside the education system which fills the skills we need in our industries.
We need a system that focusses on the needs of the employers, industry, and kiwi workers.
Smart, not more, immigration.
Ladies and gentlemen, it may come as a surprise to most, but over 30% of all current New Zealand residents were not even born in New Zealand. That’s approaching a third of all who live in New Zealand weren’t born here. Thirty years ago, in the 1990’s it was just 14%.
On that same upward trend, without smart immigration policies, in as little as just another 15 or 20 years that percentage will be approaching 50% of people living here not being born here. That’s your children and grandchildren’s generation.
It’s not just about the number of migrants coming into our country, it is about all of those young, trained, driven, smart, working-age kiwis that are leaving.
Under Labour’s 2023 final year, they let in 132,000 new migrants, net. There was a record number of people leaving New Zealand to go to Australia last year and apply to be citizens – the most concerning statistic is that half of those so-called New Zealand citizens who left, were not even born in New Zealand.
New Zealand is being used as a steppingstone into Australia. We take them in, train them, up-skill them, look after their families, and they then move to Australia or elsewhere. How is this an effective immigration policy?
Ladies and gentlemen, the fact is, in the past four years around 622,000 new migrants have come to this country, with a net number of 165,000. That increase in our population is almost the size of Hamilton over just four years. But the past is not the most concerning part. It is where we could be headed without a smart immigration policy and what that means for the future of our country.
Concerns are growing, as to some of the people who have come here who don’t salute our flag, don’t honour the values of our country, don’t respect the people living here, don’t respect the right to have our own religion and freedom of speech. These are values that we need to fight to protect. If you don’t want to sign up to those values, don’t come.
People around the world are fearful as to where their countries are going – just look at States in America, the UK, Ireland, Germany, and recently in Australia – and New Zealanders are no different. They are more acutely aware of the problem we’re dealing with here than the politicians are.
They have seen the international circumstances of careless immigration policies transforming cities, changing cultures, changing centuries of development and social life, and people feel at risk because of it.
We believe in a country called New Zealand, with one law, one people, one flag, and one set of values that our forebears fought and died for. And if we are the only party willing to stand in the way of globalist politicians and bureaucrats trying to take our country away, then so be it.
Immigration Policy
Two days ago New Zealand First announced a number of campaign policies that will make sweeping changes to current immigration laws.
Taxpayer owned TVNZ refuses to report anything we have said on this critical policy. Not one story or article.
New Zealand’s immigration system must serve New Zealand and New Zealanders.
For too long, governments have relied on immigration to drive headline economic growth and cheap labour.
The result has been greater pressure on housing, infrastructure and public services, increased competition for entry-level jobs, and declining public confidence that immigration is being managed in the national interest.
Population growth must not outpace our ability to build the country.
New Zealand First will substantially reduce non-essential immigration and restore the principle that immigration is a privilege, not a right.
New Zealand is more than an economy. It is a nation with its own history, institutions and way of life.
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 and identity.
This does not take away from the ability for migrants looking to move here, contribute, and help build our country from showing total commitment and patriotism for New Zealand by becoming a citizen.
In addition to the already announced policies of citizen’s only voting and citizen’s only NZ Super, New Zealand First will introduce the following policies in the next term of government:
· Birthright Citizenship – New Zealand First will update birthright citizenship requirements, so that only the children of citizens will be automatically entitled to New Zealand citizenship at birth.
· Asylum Seeker Changes – New Zealand First will reform the asylum seeker system, updating current settings so that they are fair, consistent, and fit for purpose. Protected person status will become temporary by design, subject to ongoing assessment.
o Any person who seeks asylum while in New Zealand on a working-class visa will be ineligible to do so.
o Asylum claimants will not be able to use the temporary work rights granted during the assessment period as a stepping stone to another visa.
· Permanent Resident and Citizenship Qualifying Period Adjustments – New Zealand First will double the required period to qualify for citizenship from five years to a minimum of ten years. The qualifying period for permanent residence will be extended from two to five years.
· Citizenship and Permanent Residence Application Fees – New Zealand First will increase the cost of applying for New Zealand citizenship and permanent residence to reflect its value and to better fund the wider immigration system.
· Welfare Stand-Down Period – New Zealand First will implement a 10-year welfare stand-down period for all visa holders, meaning non-citizens will be ineligible for jobseeker, accommodation supplement, or any other benefits during their first 10 years in New Zealand.
· Broadened Ability to Deport – New Zealand First will widen the criteria for deportation liability to cover any offence for which imprisonment is available as a sentence – with automatic deportation for those found guilty of violent or sexual crimes, found guilty of fraud, participating in an organised criminal group, money laundering, aiding and abetting under the Immigration Act, or migrant exploitation.
· Resident Visa Cap Referendum – New Zealand First will hold a referendum on the introduction of a legislated annual cap on the number of resident visas issued each year. Included in the Resident Visa Cap Referendum will be:
o A resident visa cap of 20,000 per year.
o Linking immigration settings directly to infrastructure capacity.
o Requiring major population growth to occur only where infrastructure already exists or is fully funded and scheduled for delivery.
o Stopping councils being forced to adapt to central government planning where local infrastructure cannot support it.
o Development of a 30-year Population Plan to coordinate immigration, housing and infrastructure planning.
· Social Housing for Citizens First – New Zealand First will ensure that social housing will be made available to citizens first and foremost.
· Chronic Overstayers – New Zealand First will implement a 24-month amnesty for overstayers to self-deport with no restrictions on applications to return.
o Any overstayer found past the clemency period has lapsed will be deported and permanently ineligible to apply for any visa in the future.
o In recognition of our commitment to our enduring Pacific relations, we will allow for a 24-month clemency period to facilitate any Pacific overstayer to apply to remain in the country legally on a valid visa. This will apply only to overstayers of Pacific origin.
· Student Visa Holders – New Zealand First will ensure student visa holders intending to transition to another visa will be required to leave before reapplying for another visa from abroad.
· Removal of Automatic Work Rights for Student Visa Holders – New Zealand First will remove the automatic work rights for international students and stop our kiwi jobs being taken by foreign students.
o Export education was designed to allow foreign students to come here, their economy pay for their education, and go back. It was not designed to allow them to take jobs off kiwis, have our economy pay for their education, and then to use the visa to move on to residence or work.
o It will be mandatory for any international student who wants to work in New Zealand while they study to apply under strict conditions to work. First and foremost, those job opportunities cannot be taken from New Zealanders looking for work.
· Immigration Ministerial Portfolio – It is imperative that a New Zealand First Minister holds the Immigration portfolio when part of the next coalition government to ensure the oversight, control and reform of the immigration system.
You have the right to determine the future size and character of your country.
This set of polices is about taking back control of our country and valuing our unique citizenship the way it should be.
New Zealand First since our formation has been warning about mass immigration being used as a crutch for the economy and failing workforce planning for our own people.
In 2017 when we became part of the government immigration was dramatically cut back. In 2021, when we were no longer part of the government, the governments feet came totally off the brakes, and Labour governing with the Greens began approving 213,000 migrant visas in just 18 months.
Following Covid in 2022, the immigration department loosely approved nearly every application for residency in New Zealand.
And when Labour was unleashing these hundreds of thousands of new immigrants on New Zealand, the National Party and the Act Party said absolutely nothing.
As it says in the good book – “By their deeds you will know them”.
We need immigration to New Zealand. It has been an essential part of our history. But this should be smart controlled immigration policy – bringing in immigrants who we need, not who need us.
It will always bring the inevitable naval gazing by the other parties who would rather fill gaps in our economy and workforce with migrants, than train and maintain kiwis, and protect the “kiwi dream”.
The ‘kiwi dream’ belongs to kiwis who have worked hard for our country, invested time, sweat, pride, and belongs to the generations who share in our country’s history. It is not for just anybody around the world who decides to come to our great country for five minutes and claim what we have built just for their convenience.
Ladies and gentlemen, for decades you have heard other politicians gloating perversely that “diversity is a strength”.
You’ve heard them all say it.
And its false.
Because unity is a strength, not diversity. Diversity is weakness and disunity.
The choice is in your hands, not retail globalist politicians.
Labour’s Mass Immigration Policy
Around three hours after New Zealand First announced our immigration policies on Friday, Labour decided to release theirs.
Except Labour was what you would expect – a bunch of empty words that want to sound like they are talking about immigration, but do exactly what they have always done – tinkered around the edges with a sprinkling of crazy global citizenship policies thrown in.
And by the way, Labour’s Twyford – he of the 100,000 KiwiBuild Homes, except there weren’t even 1000, had the temerity on the news on Friday night to accuse New Zealand First policies as being “racist” – this from the guy who created Labour’s immigration policy in 2017 by searching for ‘Chinese sounding names’ in the Auckland home owners register. Remember that?
Twyford said “Immigration should be planned around what New Zealand needs, and it should be managed in a way that’s fair to everyone here and everyone who comes,” – he must think New Zealanders are stupid, this is coming from the party that in 2023, alone, let in an extra 132,000 net new migrants.
An astonishing number. There is no person on the planet who thinks this type of number can be managed by our infrastructure.
They did it to disguise their failing economy and artificially boost demand. They had no care whatsoever for the long-term effect it would have on our country.
Labour is the party of mass immigration.
What is most concerning with what they announced, is that they said they would “set up a citizenship pathway for children born in New Zealand, and reviewing parent visa, health, and English-language rules”.
In other words, they want someone who has been here for five minutes to be able to have a child who will automatically become a citizen – which will give the immigrant parents the right to stay.
This is pure lunacy. They are treating our citizenship like it means nothing. They are saying our citizenship is just a spreadsheet exercise and box that needs to be ticked.
We in New Zealand First believe our citizenship is a privilege, not a right, and not just part of some bureaucratic machinery.
Waitangi Tribunal / Greens Grocers
There have been policy announcements from other parties over the past week.
Greens Grocers
The Greens new policy of Nationalising Private Supermarkets is textbook communism by stealth.
The Greens have gone full Soviet-style. The waiting queues will be kilometres long – just look at how it turned out in places like Venezuela.
The Green Party has literally stated that their government would “pass new laws forcing Woolworths and Foodstuffs to sell 120 existing stores and two major distribution centres” into public ownership.
And on dependant calculations their buying those shops for a quarter of their market value.
This is forcing private companies to sell their businesses to the government – it is not only nuts, it is the definition of communism.
The Greens are economic illiterates – this from Chloe who wants to be the Minister of Finance.
Chris Hipkins is waking up in cold sweats even before the election.
Waitangi Tribunal
The Waitangi Tribunal is currently operating as a grievance make-work scheme and way out of scope of its original purpose when it was established.
Does it need to be abolished? Yes.
The Act Party also announced that it would abolish the Waitangi Tribunal once all settlements are completed.
But unfortunately the Act Party’s announcement comes straight out of Jim Bolger’s speech circa 1990 – where he said it will be wound up by 2014 once all settlements were completed. Remember that? “Once completed” means “sometime never”.
Sadly, the Act Party policy is the same illusion that Bolger had and doesn’t deal with the Tribunal.
New Zealand First’s plan is to deal with the Waitangi Tribunal once and for all – and we will be announcing this policy shortly.
Willie Jackson Co-Governance / Māori Apprenticeships
Labour’s Willie Jackson on Q&A was asked if Labour was going to bring back co-governance.
Willie said yes, but “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 First opposes it.
Because we believe in one people, one flag, one country, one law for all.
That is why we announced a policy to abolish the unelected Independent Māori Statutory Board.
Labour is on a patronising separatist race to the bottom along with the Greens, Te Pati Māori, and Opportunity Party.
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.
Māori Party Destructive Bottom Lines
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.
This is both a jobs killer and a business killer.
But guess what, surprise surprise, 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.
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 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.
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’.
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.
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 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.
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?
Some Announced Bold Policies
We have announced a policy to break up the power companies, splitting the supermarket duopoly, creating a truly competitive New Zealand owned bank.
We have announced a policy to return mining royalties back to the regions.
We announced our KiwiSaver policy with automatic $1000 sign-up at birth, we will 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 only citizens are allowed to vote in our country.
We will pull out of the Paris Accord.
We are going to have a referendum on the Maori seats, invest $1billion to find and extract our own oil and gas in our deep sea basins, 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.
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.
Covid Inquiry into Vaccine Injuries
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.
Why did 311,000 12-17 year olds get a second vaccination when Labour’s Hipkins and Verrall were told not to give it to them?
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.
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.
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/2026/09/13/winston-peters-2/