Category: New Zealand First

Source: New Zealand First

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Charles Crofts ONZM (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūāhuriri) yesterday.

Charles’ made a tremendous contribution to New Zealand in service to his country, iwi and a wide range of organisations and causes.

He was dedicated to serving his communities, starting with 20 years’ service in the New Zealand army.

He was a tireless advocate for his iwi and operated with passion and commitment as a key member of the negotiation team involved in the historic 1997 Ngai Tahu Settlement.

Charles Crofts was a principled man who demonstrated an unwavering spirt of service.  This was evidenced by the decades for work for communities and on boards of various organisations in Canterbury and across Maoridom including being Chair of Koukourarata Rūnanga on Banks Peninsula and Kaumātua for the Christchurch City Council.

Our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Source: New Zealand First

New Zealand First Policy Announcement:

Law and Order

New Zealand First believes that keeping society safe should be the priority of law-and-order policies. Every New Zealander deserves to feel safe, secure, and have their person and property respected. That is why New Zealand First continues to fix the flaws in our justice system, while ensuring that victims of crime are prioritised over offenders.

The safety of our communities is the first responsibility of government and includes the capabilities and resourcing of our police. New Zealand First is the only party with the record of seriously boosting police force numbers with the necessary funding, training, and personnel to meet the challenges of our growing population.  That is why in our last time of government we targeted an increase of 1800 new frontline police.  That commitment in its maturity saw 2338 new police trained.

New Zealand First will:

• Commit to no less than 500 new frontline police in the first 18 months of government.
• Double the number of Youth Aid officers.
• Introduce minimum mandatory prison sentences for serious assaults police officers, corrections officers, and first responders.
• Review Police pay and condition in order to maintain police numbers and to reduce attrition.
• Adequately resource community policing including Māori and Pasifika wardens, and Neighbourhood Watch.
• Introduce a Youth Justice Demerit Points System to tackle youth crime.
• Review fleeing driver legislation and ensure adequate resourcing to curb the exponential increase in fleeing driver incidents.

Justice Courts and Corrections

New Zealand First will:

• Prioritise the principles of the Sentencing Act to focus on the needs of the victim and the community, and lastly the offender.
• Implement policies in our secondary education system to maximise driver licence qualifications amongst all young people and extend that provision for prisoners wishing to gain a licence while in prison. 
• Fund tattoo removal for rehabilitated gang members in prison – whilst assigning that cost back to that prisoner if they replace those tattoos with other gang associated tattoos.
• Increase the use of mandatory minimum sentences for serious violent and sexual offenders.
• Introduce a ‘degrees of murder’ regime that utilises ‘life for life’ for 1st Degree Murder.
• Remove community sentences or discounts (such as cultural reports) for violent offenders who are considered a threat to the community.
• Establish a ‘Gang only’ Prison to reduce recruitment of non-gang prisoners and fund an additional 1,000 corrections placements.
• Designate Gangs as ‘Terrorist Organisations’ under the Terrorism Suppression Act.
• Include gang membership as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
• Implement ‘prisoner-constructed prison portability units policy’ so that the costs of labour on such construction will be removed from the taxpayer to the prisoners themselves – as already happens in some overseas jurisdictions.
• Introduce harsher penalties for fleeing drivers.
• Review and work to increase the fines for lower-level crimes such as texting while driving and shoplifting.
• Introduce an enforcement law for dangerous littering.
• Introduce a ‘Youth Justice Demerits’ system to provide accountability and certainty of support for youth offenders, youth aid officers and law enforcement.
• Introduce a greater range of non-custodial sentences such as the confiscation of specific property, larger and long-term reparation, payments, and fines.
• Remove concurrent sentences for those who commit offences while on parole, on bail, or whilst in custody.
• Investigate the applicability of operational funding to equip corrections officers with body cameras and appropriate protective equipment.
• Provide consistency in legislation and replace the term ‘prison officer’ and ‘prison guard’ with ‘corrections officer’.
• Provide a minimum mandatory cumulative prison term for assaulting Corrections Officers
• Introduce Mental Health Response Units to adequately address Mental Health distress and life-threatening harm in the community.

Source: New Zealand First

In last night’s leaders debate Labour Leader Chris Hipkins referred to a quote without giving any explanation of its content, which was about the ‘disease of co-governance’ that is perpetuated by the Māori elite, and he said it was racist.  Then, without even examining the content, National leader Christopher Luxon agreed with him that it was racist.

That is not showing experience.  Any experienced person would demand to know what the context was of the quote being talked about before getting sucked in.

Our Candidate Rob Ballantyne made those comments in a speech at a Rotary candidate meeting three weeks ago in Timaru.  The media (Stuff) was there, filmed it, wrote an article about the meeting, but never mentioned that so-called “outrageous, deplorable, and racist” quote in their article. 

Three days ago, I warned a senior journalist Jo Moir, Labour would soon begin its dirt campaign.  She reported it, and right on target last night, Hipkins began a dirt campaign against Winston Peters and New Zealand First.

These are the facts, Labour has trawled through everything me and my candidates have been saying, in this case from Ballantyne three weeks ago, used the quote in last night’s TV3 leaders debate, or circus whichever you prefer, then sent it to Tova O’Brien from Stuff, whose organization originally three weeks ago thought there was nothing in it and never reported on it – but then she wrote about it in an article at 930am this morning. 

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we first set out to deceive” – and politicians and media are clearly involved in this too. 

If the mainstream media had been reporting my speeches that have been packing halls for the last two years, they would know that Mr. Ballantyne’s comments about co-governance and the Māori elite come exactly from my speeches, and the media has been found out now for their concerted attack to shut us out of this campaign, and in an attempt to marginalize a critical party in the 2023 election.

An honest fourth estate is vital to democracy.  In the absence of it in New Zealand today, is one further reason, apart from co-governance, why our democracy is hanging by a thread.

The purpose of the 2023 election New Zealand First campaign is to fix this malignant development in our democracy – and our surge in popularity has given hundreds of thousands of voters and our Party the confidence to fix it, and we will.

Source: New Zealand First

When RNZ first began it was with the intention that there would be an honest and sole broadcaster in which the people of New Zealand could have confidence in what they were hearing was neutral, factual, and professional.

Sadly, that worthy reputation for a member of the fourth estate has long since vanished from RNZ and the lead up to this election is a classic example.

On Morning Report this morning Corin Dann asked the co-leader of the Green Party four times if the Greens would look at an arrangement with National to stop New Zealand First being in government.

He proposed a Memorandum of Understanding previously used on environmental purposes but now for a malignant personality attack on one political party and its leader – namely New Zealand First.

Such a line of questioning can have no legitimate broadcasting purpose, but an attempt to stop a political party entering government and to hold a corrupt bribed RNZ accountable.

And then later in the day, RNZ has just advertised their ‘First Up’ programme where the reporter was walking around the Botany Electorate and asking people if National should work with Winston Peters.  It is a promotion for an upcoming show. 

RNZ only had one man on the promotion clip and said that “he could not be trusted, was in it only for himself, and he flip flops”.  This is simply underhanded, dirty, nasty, media shenanigans from a taxpayer owned organization.

There was never any opportunity on either show for Winston Peters or New Zealand First to defend themselves. 

It is clear that RNZ has long been a deteriorating organization and dripping with bilious bias.

Source: New Zealand First

New Zealand First today is announcing a policy on adjusting the rules and restrictions around access to the Job Seeker Benefit.

New Zealand First’s policy is to introduce a capped time-period for any person to access the Job Seeker Benefit during their lifetime. 

Any individual will have the ability to access the Job Seeker Benefit as normal, however, for no more than a total of two years across their working lifetime.  If for any reason they need more financial assistance they will be expected to work in the community for their wage.

New Zealand First has always believed that the state should give people a hand-up during times of genuine financial hardship, however, such help should not turn into a long-term hand-out that has the potential to become an intergenerational issue.

New Zealand is never going to fill employment vacancies, or work our way out of our country’s debt, unless there is a seismic change in the attitude of particularly young people to engage in work.

This policy will strike the balance between ensuring struggling kiwis get the financial safety net when they need it, with a set of expectations on contribution to our country working our way to a much better future.