Below is the full text of a speech NZ First leader Winston Peters gave at his party's election campaign launch at the weekend.
KEY POINTS:
Ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us for the opening of our election campaign.
President George Groombridge, the NZ First Board, Party officials and workers.
To all those candidates who have taken time away from campaigning to be here today - thank you.
Thank you to Brett Wallace and John Rowles, the voice of a legend, but now back to the reality of the world we live in.
We are not here to promise you heaven on earth. We will leave that to the other parties who will tell you about the utopia that will come if you give them your vote.
We are going to tell it like it is.
Our campaign slogan is clear - we are asking for your vote so we can protect and save your New Zealand.
And when we talk about protecting your New Zealand we are referring to your way of life, your safety and security, your savings, and we must work together to save your homes, your jobs and your communities.
Protecting and saving all New Zealanders because we are all in this together.
The world has become a very scary place - and not because of any battle in a far off land.
The fight is raging in the money markets, the banking systems, the housing markets, the investment companies and the vultures are gathering to pick over the corpses of the casualties.
This is a crunch election.
In the NZ Herald, October 2, John Key says "he just doesn't fit with the standards and principles we have".
With the NZ Herald and John Key, we couldn't agree more - our standards are not that low.
1. We've never asked parliamentary questions to gain personal financial advantage. We've never tried to squeeze answers out of ministers on railways whilst trading rail shares for profit.
And Mr Key don't tell us that those were the only shares you traded as an MP back then or that your idea of a blind trust has anything but 20/20 vision which a sycophantic media has thus far let you get away with.
2. We've never been charged with assault of an old man and then got our party to pay the legal fees, then never declared it.
Our standards are not that low
3. We have never denied meeting with million-dollar political donors from a secret religious sect, and then admitted it, only after there were photographs of the event.
Our standards are not that low.
4. We've never wanted to lead a party that covered up hundreds of millions of dollars of tax evasion, and then expelled the MP that did everything to expose it.
Our standards are not that low.
5. We've never agreed to shield and shelter those that bankrupted New Zealand's largest bank - the BNZ, bailed them out twice, and then took donations from those crooks.
Our standards are not that low.
6. We've never said we never knew whether our party had a meeting with Lord Ashcroft, and in the next question suddenly remembered a party member had met Lord Ashcroft, and it was me, the Party Leader, not three years ago - just last night.
Our standards are not that low.
7. We've never told an MP that if he went quietly we would make him High Commissioner to London - the MP being the leader you were about to depose.
Our standards are not that low.
8. We've never had an advisor, as MP who secretly had the taxpayer bail out his failed company for 3.5 million dollars, and then promise him the job of Foreign Affairs Minister.
Our standards are not that low.
9. We've never judged someone guilty of unknowingly getting donations to a legal fund which left him out of pocket, and then promised a place in a National Party cabinet, as you've done with your own Nick Smith MP. What did Winston Peters do that was different to Nick Smith?
Mr Key, that hypocritical standard is not one we aspire to.
10. We've never had millions of dollars in a secret trust and then attacked another political party with trust funding over 15 years averaging a mere $13,000 per annum. That Mr Key, and your puppet canary, is the act of a raging hypocrite.
Our standards are not that low.
But now
Neither Labour nor National offer a coherent strategy to steer us through the troubled times ahead.
These are the parties that brought you the free trade deal with China.
You know when we opposed it, there were some who criticised us.
Well where are the critics now.
This deal is already as sour as the milk in their baby food products.
These are the parties that fill your supermarket shelves with food processed elsewhere.
In New Zealand we grow and produce the best food in the world.
It's a great pity that we don't always eat it ourselves but apparently, in the name of free trade and globalisation, it is better to eat food produced with slave labour from some polluted factory in a far off country.
This is the sort of political madness that we have been fighting against for decades.
It is a harsh world and you don't need a crystal ball to see economic storm clouds ahead.
Whoever leads the government in the next Parliament will face tough conditions and tough decisions. The global economy is on a knife edge and because of the obsession with globalisation there are risks that we will be sucked in by reckless and inexperienced politicians.
It is important to always remember that the crisis facing the western world has been caused by greed, shonky business practices and merchant bankers.
One of them even wants to be prime minister of this country.
And he is being heavily promoted by the foreign owned media and his friends among the finance barons waiting to loot our remaining assets.
For these overseas interests, people voting in a general election are an inconvenience.
The media and the vested interests have already decided who should form the next government.
They made this decision three years ago - but we stood in the way.
That is why they have moved heaven and earth to get rid of us over the past three months.
The media say this will be a dirty campaign. They should know.
You have been bombarded with media messages that New Zealand First is evil and in cahoots with the devil.
We have endured months of innuendo over all sorts of matters. National wanting to claim it's hands are clean, gave over the "dirt" to the canary in the yellow jacket, giving him endless National Party questions in the House.
National's other trick was get its network of commentators and bloggers to pedal its brand of political smut on the airwaves, the internet, hoping to attract naive journalists.
National's main men for this underhand practice are people like Mathew Hooton. A discredited nobody from the 'Hollow Men'. He pops up on Radio NZ, on TV, newspapers, on the internet, as a right wing commentator. ' The twit claims he's independent. He's not. He used to work for the National Party and still does via his consulting firm.
Having grown tired of labelling NZ First as 'charlatans' he has recently called us "Nazis". That is offensive at so many levels and he, like so many others, are an odious presence in NZ politics.
The National Party should come clean and tell us what it pays Hooton to do their dirty work and our public broadcaster, Radio NZ should be ashamed it gives this man a vehicle for his anthem of hate.
What did the media say again - this was going to be a dirty campaign. They should know they're in the thick of it.
To be fair they are not all biased - some like Chris Trotter and Tom Frewen from the NBR have provided balanced and fair accounts of recent events and should be applauded for it.
Well, we have made mistakes, all parties do.
But we give you this assurance. Nobody has profited by one dollar and every cent donated ended up in the right place.
No fraud will be found because there is none. And NZ First paid its GST.
We were targeted because we're protecting something precious for you in this election.
And that is your right to choose the next government.
We have this simple old fashioned belief in the democratic process - that voters elect governments - not outsiders.
Our position is clear - we will wait until the votes are counted and then work with whoever you tell us to.
We are not saying who we will go with, or won't go with.
We will do as you say. And we will not allow the process to be subverted.
The media are now promoting the idea of government by the National party and the Maori party.
Apparently they have been acting like they are very good friends and this friendship is tipped to blossom into a full blown partnership.
What a mix!
Merchant bankers and Maori separatists.
One lot will be trying to sell the country out from under us - while the other will be setting up a separate state.
National has never recanted its policies of the nineties and the Maori Party is committed to separate development. Listen to its president Whata Winiata.
We in New Zealand First are different.
Over the past three years we have acted in your best interests.
We've delivered:
* Increased superannuation and more coming with the new tax cuts.
* Three rises in the minimum wage to $12 an hour. A worker on the minimum wage is now an extra $80 better off per 40 hour week.
* 1000 more frontline police staff and 250 support staff.
* More than half a billion dollars extra into eldercare.
* The SuperGold Card with free off-peak travel on public transport.
* Higher subsidies for hearing aids.
* Increased funding for Maori wardens in Budgets 2007 and 2008.
* Progressive Treaty settlements ask for example Ngati Porou and the C.N.I. Tribes.
* A major overhaul of Immigration legislation.
* A review of ACC funding for physiotherapy services.
* Tax and other financial changes to save the racing industry.
* A review of casual employment, business tax cuts, no carbon taxes and the end of Labour's politically correct social engineering agenda.
But there is a lot more to be done over the next three years.
We are going to set up a New Zealand Fund to buy back some of the strategic assets flogged off to foreign interests.
This ensures that New Zealand investors keep their money and their profits right here.
We will protect your investments and savings by providing a government guarantee to approved financial institutions like Kiwibank and the Taranaki Savings Bank.
We're going to guarantee deposits up to $100,000 in NZ owned banks.
And we are going to stop the threat to NZ home owners and businesses from usurious interest rates that threaten the sell up and loss to so many. There's no excuse for interest rates to be more than twice the inflation rate, and credit card rates over 6 times the inflation rate.
It's foreign, voodoo economics whilst other parties stand back wringing their hands calling it "market" forces.
That is bull dust. New Zealand First is going to use the States credit and loan facilities to drive interest rates dramatically down. We will stop this vacuuming of over $4 billion per year profit to foreign owned banks. We'll start looking after our own people first.
New Zealand owned banks with Government support can cut both mortgage and credit rates to save New Zealand families, and New Zealand First intends to do just that.
We have seen what greed can do to international financial markets and to ours back home as well.
And whilst we are at it, why are government and local body accounts with foreign banks, so they can clip the ticket on every transaction. Those accounts should be in a New Zealand owned bank where our economy gets the profits.
Can't you hear the squeals already as financial and political Quislings rush to defend the right of their foreign friends to go on screwing you and the government. We will send them a message. We've had enough.
We are going to protect your homes and your streets by banning gangs and mounting a war against crime.
For those who want to break the crime habit we will help them with rehabilitation programmes.
The legislation is ready, we have the extra police and they will get whatever powers needed to put the criminals away - until they are too old to commit crimes.
And here we have a message for Maori.
Keep what is best in our culture and keep striving to improve our health, our education and employment opportunities.
Maori have been here a thousand years.
And we are being let down by the individuals who show a face of Maori that is alien to a proud people.
To these individuals we say:
Stop disgracing your proud heritage and your culture.
Real Maori men do not beat up women and children.
They do not feed drugs to young people.
They do not hang out in gangs that prey on the weak and defenceless.
They do not sell their teenage sisters and girlfriends into prostitution.
And the Maori women we know nurture and protect their young. They do not mistreat them.
Our plan to protect your New Zealand means protecting you from the worst of the worldwide credit crunch.
Our New Zealand economy is according to Treasury in recession already.
Unlike other parties New Zealand First is convinced that we should be bracing ourselves to face serious economic challenges.
That is why NZ First's economic policy is designed to make our economy more resilient - more robust - more capable of withstanding external shocks.
The major elements of that strategy are clear and easy to grasp and they include.
* A tax package that is practical, achievable and fiscally prudent. An annual tax free threshold of $5,200 and GST reduced to 10 per cent.
* Protecting our labour market and we will put a stop to the importation of cheap labour and allow real wages to improve.
* Setting up the New Zealand Fund designed to give all New Zealanders an opportunity to invest in our infrastructure and buy back of foreign owned strategic assets.
* Applying strict controls over further foreign takeovers of New Zealand assets.
* A real plan to drive down interest rates.
* Introducing measures to promote export growth and dramatically raise New Zealand's game in this key area
* We will protect the 300,000 plus manufacturing jobs in New Zealand at risk. We will take a hard look at our trade agreements to ensure New Zealand's interests are not being undermined.
* We will remain vigilant in protecting New Zealand's economic interests in the face of National and Labour's globalisation.
As we said at the outset, we are not here to pour election promises over you.
This election is time for a reality check.
If you think that Labour or National are going to give you paradise on earth, you're doomed to disappointment.
Just think - after decades of National and Labour governments you are living in a country with scores of imported cultures, some with no respect for normal human values.
Not so long ago we were a country with community values and traditions that we were taught to respect.
We cared about each other.
We had fought in two World Wars and our soldiers returned from the horrors of these battlefields determined to protect their people and their democratic values.
We can't turn the clock back - but we can learn from our mistakes and move on as an independent and inventive nation - or sink into a mire of mediocrity.
We are no longer a colony. We are not a branch office of Australia. We ask God to Defend New Zealand not to advance Australia!
We are our own people and it is time for us to stand up for our rights but also remember our responsibilities.
Sometimes we can be forgiven for believing that this country is made up of groups of warring factions with every group demanding their share of an ever diminishing pile of assets.
We are like a squabbling family and if we don't get our way we won't play.
We've been taught not to compete and that boys and girls are exactly the same.
We've been told that it is not important to win, and that it's good to hug a tree.
We say that it is time to get real again and remember our ancestors - Maori and non-Maori who came from across the world in leaky boats to make this country we live in.
They had to fight for their survival and most of the time they fought together.
It's time to renew that spirit and to protect and save the New Zealand that we believe in - to put New Zealand and New Zealanders first.
We must protect and save your New Zealand seniors - first.
We must protect and save your New Zealand communities - first
And we must protect and save your New Zealand jobs, houses, incomes and assets - first
Give us your party vote on election day and we will protect and save your New Zealand.
It's time to answer the clarion call of our ancestors: to bear ourselves:
"Not like the seagull tossing and turning it's head at every wave.
But like the rock, steadfast, against the surging sea".
