Financiers, foreign investors and Whanau Ora were all grist for Winston Peters' campaign mill when it swung through Wanganui yesterday.
The NZ First Party leader told an overwhelmingly aged audience of about 150 people that New Zealand needed leadership from a Government prepared to rein in the power of the financial market.
"Wanganui's economy is not being helped by a kiwi dollar that's going through the roof. And none of the insurers, brokers, the bankers and financial paper-shufflers in Auckland are going to help either."
Mr Peters said the September general election would be about who the economy should benefit - the country as a whole or a select few.
He said there was a strain on the country's infrastructure and it was already showing in areas such as regionalisation of health services.
"It can't be called Good Health Wanganui any more because the hospital is under-funded and under-resourced," he said.
Mr Peters' most strident remarks were directed at the financiers and especially what he said were their efforts to hijack the NZ Super scheme.
"How many times have you heard them say the country can't afford the scheme in its current form?
"They say the scheme is in crisis.
"There is no crisis."
He said efforts by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to lift the retirement age across the Tasman to 70 "will be the death knell for that government".
"NZ First's policy is to preserve the entitlement of New Zealanders to retire and receive NZ Super as it is now, with eligibility at 65 years and as a universal non-contributory, publicly-funded pension scheme with no means testing.
"At 4.8 per cent of GDP, NZ Super is affordable and there is no reason why that should change, provided some sensible changes are made concerning immigrants and overseas pensions," Mr Peters said.
"Labour wants to put up the retirement age to 67 so they've fallen for the same duplicitous arguments of the financiers."
He railed against foreign ownership of productive assets including prime agricultural land "and the National Government has aided and promoted this takeover".
"We are not against foreign investment. But what we are against is the wholesale takeover of our land, houses, factories and jobs. And that is what foreign ownership is," he said.
He said one his party's policies was the KiwiFund - essentially a Government-owned KiwiSaver provider - to encourage savings that he says would support the buying back of those assets and infrastructure.
"We'll also stop non-citizens and non-residents from buying New Zealand houses."
He also took a swipe at Whanau Ora, saying no one was benefiting from it.
"People in this country should get support based on need, not on race. Maori want decent education, health and First World wages. That's what everybody wants, so the Government needs to do that rather than promoting any form of separate development," he said.
Mr Peters said it made no sense for industries such as fishing and forestry to be run for the benefit of economies other than New Zealand's.
"Why do we have to compete with China for our own logs? You use your resources for your own people first."
He earned applause when he said development focus needed to shift away from Auckland and to provincial centres like Wanganui.
But he said for that to happen, the Government has to get a regional development policy together "but it hasn't got one". And the regions need to receive tax incentives for their contributions to the economy, he said.