Winston Peters: Doing as they're told

Winston Peters.

Failure to advance a free trade agreement did not stop the entourage of journalists accompanying the Prime Minister from publishing propaganda that he and his government wanted as headline grabbers.

Instead of headlines saying: 'Still no trade deal signed', we had the likes of 'New Zealand's as close as it's ever got to a free trade deal with India'.

This went on to say 'a free trade deal between New Zealand and India is more on track than ever before,' 'Key confident about trade talks.' One line went: 'While a free trade agreement hasn't been signed and sealed in New Delhi this week, Key has got New Zealand closer to it happening than ever before'.

New Zealand has supported China. From that you can assume those free trade talks with India will keep on going until New Zealand defies China and backs India.

As a result, Chinese nationals can immigrate here in their thousands and speculate on housing and buy land.

China can drive our infant formula exporters out of business, and they can take over our biggest meat exporter, Silver Fern Farms.

But when Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners visited Wellington for a planned meeting with the government, that was not OK with Beijing. The meeting was cancelled.

When Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee commented in China on the disputed South China Sea, he got rapped over the knuckles by China.

When New Zealand moved to speak out about China dumping their low-quality steel and plumbing products in this country, that wasn't OK with Beijing either.

Chinese commerce authorities approached Zespri and Fonterra, warning that New Zealand could face barriers to trade if the steel dumping allegation was pursued.

So the Key government backed off. The trend is clear. New Zealand will not upset China. That will influence any chances New Zealand has of building a stronger trade relationship with India.

While in India, Mr Key said 29,000 Indian students were currently enrolled to study in New Zealand and that they were receiving a world-class education. This is laughable.

Indian students come to New Zealand as their third or fourth choice country, and mostly attend poor-quality courses in low-standard accommodation under lowly-qualified tutors.

An Indian agent told New Zealand First that only a few private training enterprises had good infrastructure and standards.

The students come mainly to gain residency in New Zealand, not to study, and an added incentive is that they can work here, which has led to rampant exploitation.

Instead of facts, the New Zealand public are given propaganda that John Key spoon-feeds to the New Zealand media - who travel with the PM on his 'personal' RNZAF flight - and they merely recycle it.