With New Zealand’s general election due on 23 September, immigration reduction party, New Zealand First, remains in the box seat to hold the balance of power and become the kingmaker that decides the next New Zealand Government.
Wednesday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll revealed that New Zealand First is on track to become the third biggest party in parliament. From Interest.co.nz:
Wednesday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll showed Labour up nine points to 33.1%. Ardern’s preferred Prime Minister rating was up nearly 18 points to 26.3%. The poll 1,000 – 750 phone and 250 online – has a margin of error of about 3%.
In contrast, National was down slightly to 44.4%, its lowest in this poll in 10 years. Bill English’s preferred PM ranking was up nearly two points to 27.7%.
New Zealand First would be the third biggest party in Parliament, overtaking the Greens, on this poll. This came as the Winston Peters-led party’s support did not drop as much as the Greens’. NZF polled down 3.8 points at 9.2%; The Greens down 4.7 points at 8.3%…
The poll would give National and current support partners ACT, UF and Maori 59 seats in a 121-seat Parliament, and the Labour-Greens block 51 seats. Support from NZF would allow both to get over the line.
The key driver behind the rise of New Zealand First is its opposition to the National Government’s mass immigration program. Back in May, leader Winston Peters delivered a stirring speech against the population ponzi, claiming it is providing “the facade of prosperity” and eroding the nation’s capital base:
Mass immigration fired economic growth has a huge price to it…
There are still nearly 140,000 people without jobs.
The government trumpets a nominal annual rate of GDP growth of around 3% – but the bulk of that is from a 2% annual population growth. Our GDP less 2% from mass net immigration is well towards the bottom and not the top of the OECD as the government frequently, falsely claims.
What is happening is that the massive immigration influx is distorting all the economic indicators – and creating a very flattering but totally misleading impression that NZ is an economic success…
Put simply, rapid population growth has not been matched by adequate funding across a whole spectrum of services…
It has been doing this living off New Zealand’s capital built by previous generations.
Living off capital is not a sound principle for either an individual or a nation.
At best it’s a short-term fix.
When it is applied as a country’s policy it is courting disaster.
A country’s capital is both physical and human.
It includes the existing stock of housing, schools, hospitals, roading and other infrastructure that has been built up over decades…
The government has shamelessly used spin to propagate the myth, that somehow New Zealand can absorb a staggering influx of over 70,000 net immigrants a year – at no cost!
Someone bears those costs– and it’s ordinary Kiwis!
At the recent Masters Games in Auckland the locals were asked to endure the extra stress of 29,000 visiting sporting veterans on motorways, transport and accommodation.
Well Auckland has been taking far bigger numbers than that every year recently. And they aren’t going home after 10 days.
As NZ First has long pointed out we are adding a city the size of Rotorua or New Plymouth every year.
Think of what that entails in terms of extra:
• Housing
• Education facilities
• Health facilities
• Infrastructure, such as road and rail..So that’s a Rotorua every year with all its components and none of that has been properly planned and properly funded under National.
They won’t even acknowledge the massive costs that are being imposed through population growth.
In their make-believe world immigration is a free good – a gift.
They have turned a blind eye to the downside of immigration and trumpet how well the economy has grown…
The fact is, massive immigration is neo-liberal, globalist voodoo.
It is an attack on those who believe in the nation state.
Reduced to its worst it tells so many New Zealanders that you are actually better off even though you don’t feel like it.
There is a touchingly arrogant elitism in their approach. But the blunt reality is that we will spend the next 15 years trying to fund the infrastructure deficit that their policies have created.
And on Wednesday, Peters appeared on the Bolt Report whereby he argued that New Zealand’s economic and social infrastructure is in “strife as a consequence of the demand for inflated immigration figures” (watch below).
I suspect New Zealand First’s opposition to mass immigration will resonate with many Kiwis come polling day – particularly those locked-out of the housing market, stuck in insecure and low paying jobs, and/or sick and tired of being stuck in traffic.
Given New Zealand has a mixed-member proportional representation electoral system, this means New Zealand First could gain many seats at the 23 September General Election and, in the process, become the kingmaker that decides which major party takes office.
