Winston Peters has announced New Zealand First will campaign on buying back the BNZ bank and making KiwiSaver enrolment compulsory at birth.
The NZ First leader’s appearance at Trusts Arena in West Auckland today comes as he surges in the polls and closes in on National leader Christopher Luxon in the preferred Prime Minister ranking, months out from November’s election.
Under the NZ First policy, there will be an automatic, immediate Crown KiwiSaver contribution of $1000 for New Zealand citizens only.
“This will be the start of the nest egg for something that we will call the ‘KiwiSaver Generation’,” Peters said. “It makes plain common sense.”
Peters said another NZ First policy would aim to merge BNZ with Kiwibank to form the National Bank of New Zealand. This would create real competition, Peters said.
The bank would be a fully Crown-owned, commercially run bank with the scale to compete with ANZ, ASB and Westpac, Peters said.
BNZ currently generated more than $1.5 billion in annual cash earnings so “it won’t take long for us to pay it off, will it”, Peters said.
“This is not nationalisation, this is ... taking back our country.”
Peters called West Auckland the home of “traditional hard-working Kiwi battlers” as he announced former National MP Alfred Ngaro will be standing for NZ First in the Glendene electorate.
Although his party dropped one percentage point to 14% in the latest Talbot Mills Research survey, Peters has continued to rise in the preferred Prime Minister rankings, reaching 17%, only three points behind National’s Luxon, who is on 20%.
Peters has touched on familiar NZ First election issues today, reminding the audience: “We demanded in our coalition agreement that super [New Zealand Superannuation] won’t be touched – this will never change while New Zealand First has a say in New Zealand politics.”
Cost of living was also cited as “the number one issue for many voters”, he said.
“Power bills are through the roof, food prices at supermarkets are at some of the highest levels ... And what we see from other parties is the beginning of what their default answer is when times get tough – sell our assets, open immigration and attack superannuation.”
Peters also attacked the possible sale of public assets.
In a letter of expectation to Kiwibank’s owner, Kiwi Group Capital (KGC), Minister for State Owned Enterprises Simeon Brown directed KGC to “work on alternative growth scenarios for Kiwibank”.
“They all see our assets, that our forebears built over the centuries, as a balance-sheet item that can be hocked off to satisfy the Reserve Bank,” Peters said today.
“And now they want to go and privatise it ... these people are neo-liberal twits.
He stressed “no Government with New Zealand First will be selling our assets .... will touch our senior annuation ... no means testing”.
Peters’ office recently released emails to the Herald showing Luxon wanted to shift the Government’s position to show “explicit public support” for the US-led war in Iran, days after it broke out.
These emails showed Luxon was talked out of this position by Peters and staff in Peters’ office. The release of the email under the Official Information Act to the Herald prompted Luxon to hold crisis talks with the NZ First leader in the Beehive.
A spokesman for Luxon responded to the Herald, after the meeting, saying the emails “mischaracterise the PM’s position”.
Peters’ speech comes only days before the release of the Government’s Budget. Last week, Peters revealed what he called a “Budget leak” while speaking with Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive and confirmed the fees-free university scheme would be scrapped.
NZ First recently announced former All Blacks captain Taine Randell as a candidate in the election. Randell will stand in the Tukituki electorate.
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.