Winston Peters: $150bn debt shows Govt failure

Winston Peters.

New Zealand First has always had a clear vision for this country - that all New Zealanders should receive a good education, housing, health facilities and most of all the chance to have good paying jobs.

We stand for keeping our state assets in New Zealand's control.

It was our policy to give free healthcare for under-6s, and to all primary school children. We have been the one party in New Zealand to defend the rights of superannuitants. We believe there should be one law for all New Zealanders, irrespective of ethnic background. We have never believed in separatism.

We have always stood for an economic prescription of responsible capitalism, not the reactionary right-wing naivety which has passed for policy these last three decades.

We support a mixed economy and oppose National's blind, free-market ideology that promotes private interests dominating the provision of public services.

John Key claimed this week that what is happening in Auckland is a sign of success for business - so the crisis for housing, transport, hospitals, affordability, are all signs of success. Together with the growing number of dispossessed and deprived they are all, according to Mr Key, a sign of success.

Which begs the question, which planet is this man on? Obviously one in a galaxy that no one can see and surrounded by a lot of gas.

With respect to Auckland's housing crisis alone, as one economic commentator says, Auckland house prices will double again by late 2020. If they continue to rise at their current rate, "the median price will be almost $2 million".

What is the real reason for the National Government's failure to halt the wholesale transfer of land, housing, businesses, and other property to foreign ownership? Is it simply their ignorance, negligence or something much more sinister?

Is it their agenda to put foreign interests before those of New Zealanders?

NZ First has been at the forefront of those demanding action on foreign ownership.

We have called for strident action on foreign ownership unlike any other political party. Others might be joining the argument now but where were they when the signs were emerging that pointed to the current disaster? Not one of them has got a consistent record on these issues. We have, and tens of thousands of New Zealanders are rapidly coming to our view.

A vast amount of New Zealand's productive assets are now in foreign ownership. Our sharemarket has gone from less than a quarter foreign-owned to virtually the reverse. By some estimates, foreign ownership is already more than 10 per cent of New Zealand's farming and forestry land. The National Government has shown no willingness to collect accurate data.

And about 95 per cent of our banking system is overseas-owned.

A large part of our energy and electricity sector is now in foreign ownership. Last November the sale of Vector's gas transmission and distribution assets outside Auckland for $950 million to an Australian investment group, First State Funds, was announced.

As a diversion, the Government likes to boast that New Zealand has now passed the milestone of 3 million tourists. What it does not mention is that over the past year, 12 major New Zealand hotels have changed hands.

According to reputable real-estate sources, about half of the hotels sold went to foreign buyers.

So while tourist numbers are soaring, foreigners are buying up existing hotels, which does nothing to add to the supply of hotels.

Just swapping owners does not create new accommodation; it just means the profits from the tourist boom go overseas. Given the amount of tourism infrastructure owned offshore, the money from many tourists will get back home before they do.

This month, the land under Wellington's Museum Art Hotel was sold to a Chinese investor.

And the list of foreign-owned assets goes on and on - vineyards, waste management, hospital catering (Compass), meat exporting, carparks, suburban rail services in Auckland and Wellington, and all types of housing and commercial property.

By this time you will be asking, where is all this leading? Well, it is not going to deliver long-term prosperity for New Zealanders - it is taking us in the other direction, to a place called poverty. A place where many New Zealanders are likely to be second-class citizens and tenants in their own country.

A large proportion of New Zealand's wealth is now being siphoned offshore every year in the form of profits, dividends, fees and other payments. And that tsunami of money flowing out every year accounts for nearly all of New Zealand's chronic balance of payments deficit - running at nearly $8 billion in the year to the end of 2015.

Unless we start to address the foreign ownership issue there is simply no way to tackle New Zealand's massive external debt, now about $150 billion. That is a number our government never mentions - because it reveals their utter failure to rebalance the New Zealand economy on to a long-term sustainable basis.

- Winston Peters is the leader of NZ First and the MP for Northland. This is an edited extract from a speech he gave at a public meeting in Pukekohe, Auckland yesterday.

- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz