Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens of Taranaki, thank you for enabling your mountain, Taranaki, to greet me this morning. Hopefully that reflects the brightness in the audience. 

Happy birthday to New Zealand First! 

Eighteenth of July, 1993, this party was born. It's auspicious that this speech and these thoughts on behalf of my leader and the party I belong to should be shared with you today, because a birthday, amongst other things, marks time. And the time that has passed since the establishment of the party, after the National Party sacked Winston Peters in the midst of “Ruthenasia”, the high tide mark of neoliberal thinking, and sadly that ghost, like Shakespeare, still haunts us in Parliament. 

Also, it marks a time of reflection, and there is a great need for us to reflect what is happening in your community, your economy, and your region here in Taranaki. You, along with other regions, have become the victims of short-term, shallow, virtue-signalling decisions, including Jacinda Ardern closing down the oil and gas industry. And I want to apologise for that. 

It should never have happened. It was a reflection of her conception of a nuclear moment, where she would make a decision to define the future direction of New Zealand. Instead, she has imperilled many of the families, many of the firms of this part of New Zealand, without providing an alternative vision, an alternative roadmap, or an alternative source of funding. 

You will not get that from New Zealand First, although I must say, I am that same politician who sadly stood next to Jacinda Ardern, with a look of horror, realising that this was going to worsen the prospects of Taranaki. 

So yes, we should reflect upon that and never forget it. It's also a time of connection when you celebrate a birthday, and we have become too disconnected in our regions from where decisions are being made. Decisions that have to be driven by what's happening in your household, what's happening in your community, what's happening in your region. 

No more theoretical models, no more visions that are driven by narrow economic criteria rather than the glue that connects you and I together as Kiwis. There are some interests, there are some values, there are some virtues that transcend ethnicity, that transcend any single segment of the community. If we do not uphold them, if we do not celebrate them folks, we run the risk of turning ourselves into the maelstrom like that’s happening in the United Kingdom, that's happening in other countries where segments of the single community are being pulled apart. Divisiveness, polarisation and hostility become the order of the day. New Zealand First is a nationalist party and we hate that type of thinking. 

Please bear in mind that a birthday is also a time to look to the future. The old labels of left and right, I put it to you today on behalf of our party, they no longer work. The new accent, emphasis, should be on security. 

What do you expect of your politicians? What is legitimate for you to expect from your politicians? Ensuring not only our military security, our social security, but our economic security? Without an accent on that type of security, I fear that our debates and our politics are going to disappear into an irrelevant contest of rhetoric, whether it's about co-governance, whether it's about climate, whether it's about pollution.  

Come back to the essential issue, if your economy does not generate on a consistent basis an economic surplus, you will not have the money to pay for the things that I have taken in my 65 years for granted as a proud member of our nation which is a key feature of the OECD rank of nations. Off this coast is a proxy for the debate that I want to directly address in front of Taranaki people. 

With the diminution of oil and gas, what are we as Kiwis going to do to boost our economic resilience if we do not use the resources that are part of our birthright? For those reasons, our leader put into our coalition agreement, that we would stand with those who don't see it as a bad thing to use the natural bounty of regional New Zealand. 

For those reasons, we did include the prospect of you having a new industry off the coast of Taranaki into a fast-track process, knowing there's no guarantee it will be permitted. But there's every guarantee that the decisions we made were based on economic rationalism, technology and science - not rhetoric designed to bully, not intimidatory tactics, not cancel culture. 

So yes, I am that awkward politician on behalf of New Zealand First that is prepared to stand up and say to this part of New Zealand, you are sitting in the midst of a virtual oasis of economic opportunity. 

There has to be a way of ensuring that these investments take place in a safe and stable way. But folks, if we're not going to take a risk to grow our economy after one cycle appears to be coming to a low ebb, the oil and gas industry, what other options do you have? 

I say to you, as the politician of the Provincial Growth Fund days, for my opponents from the different hapu, from elements in your own community, name me one other politician in the last five years who has put more money into this region through regional development than myself and my leader. We have the credibility to stand up for economic growth and for jobs. 

We're not saying that things are going to turn ugly, destructive out there in your marine environment. So don't try and guilt-trip Matua Shane Jones that just because we're supporting a process to see if an industry can be established, all of a sudden this host environment is going to be facing a lot of disruption for a period of time. What do you do, Taranaki people, every time you dredge your port? Where do you put all the dredgings? I'll tell you where you put them. You put them back into the host environment, otherwise known as the coastline of Taranaki.  

There is a great deal of global uncertainty, ladies and gentlemen. It's not my job to talk about the President of the United States of America. But the changes that are happening in that regard are inverting what you and I may have taken as gospel in terms of the rules governing trade, the rules governing discourse between nations. That's all up for debate. 

And a tiny nation like ours, five million odd people, we have to be very judicious in how we intervene, because on one level we have the strong heritage connections with the United States of America. I'm the boy from Awanui in the Far North whose dad was one of 17 brothers and sisters, but with hard work, a belief in education, support through my church, went all the way to Harvard University. So I understand the importance of that heritage and the connection with the United States of America. 

I also understand that you and I are dependent on the trade that we enjoy every week, every month, every year, with China. For those reasons, I cannot think of a better person than the leader of New Zealand First to be navigating those shoals of uncertainty as our Foreign Affairs Minister. 

When we confront this era of uncertainty, when we see the unintended consequences of tariffs, when we think about the ongoing militarisation of our little part of paradise in the Pacific, what does it mean that you and I should think about? What does it mean that you and I should prioritise? What does it mean that New Zealand ought to do better? 

Well, number one, we must snap out of complacency. Complacency has driven a culture where it is so easy and expected today that authorities never let you do what you want, never. We, in response to this enveloped fog of negativity, decided that we, as New Zealand First, would campaign and bring forward a fast-track, one-stop-shop piece of legislation. 

Now I know it offended a lot of people. Forty-odd thousand marched down Queen Street. But we didn't back down. We didn't do it to pit you, me, my kids, your grandchildren against each other. We made a deliberate choice. 

New Zealand is at such a pivotal point. We cannot afford any longer to go through these protracted processes where investors, homeowners, developers, farmers are marooned. And unless you've got big pockets, you never seem to be able to pay the price or meet the demands of the bureaucracy. 

But what feeds that? I'll tell you what New Zealand First believes feeds that. A sense of complacency and a sense of smugness that the rest of the world is going to take care of our problems for us. The rest of the world is in a race to boost its own security. 

China has got the drop in many respects on you and I as Kiwis. Twenty, twenty-five years ago, they'd begun tying up all of the rare earth minerals of the world. Then they'd begun investing in a very shrewd way in the processing of those minerals to the point that they virtually control the very minerals that are needed for the technology and the other pieces of equipment associated with the climate change journey. 

But then the climate change protesters say to me, don't touch Mother Earth. Don't do anything with the vanadium and the titanium off the coast of Taranaki. I say, okay, to affect what end? Because we need to protect ourselves, safeguard ourselves. 

How can you be protected if you're totally dependent on foreign countries at a time where there's gross uncertainty? For those reasons, New Zealand First regards the laws, the rules that we are developing as being essential for our security. Now, let's just think realistically about this. How can you be a secure nation if you cannot afford your power bill? Why have you and I tolerated a power system where the water is free, despite the best efforts of Ngai Tahu to put a tax on it? And by the way, New Zealand First believes you and I own the water. 

No hapu, no marae, no corporate owns the water. It's a common resource of us too. But how long have you and I sat back, watched the escalation of power prices, heard the stories of firms closing down, firms struggling to meet their power prices, watched in your own community de-industrialisation, engineering firms slowing down, talent leaving your community? This particular problem defeated Helen Clark, John Key, Jacinda Ardern. 

Mark my words. If these gentailers and power companies cannot provide adequate levels of power at an affordable rate, they should be fined $2 million a day. They already face an energy conservation period of time that's declared by the Electricity Authority, which I have dubbed on your behalf, the chocolate teapot. 

It is these types of sharp, very awkward, jarring interventions that will bring this new cast of corporate leader to heel. The forward pricing speculative curves show that our power prices are going to go up and up. At the very least, New Zealand First wants those gentailers who are now the most powerful entities after the Aussie banks in New Zealand. 

Number one, broken up. 

Number two, regulated. 

And number three, required to disclose to you and I every single transaction that they are doing, so that just as you go from one bank to another, you know what your competitors are offering. 

No more gentailers threatening customers. This “if you talk about what we're offering to you, to another gentailer, we will cancel summarily your contract, or we will issue legal proceedings against you”. Those types of tactics belong in the Mafia. That's bullying, that's thuggery, and they've met their match in New Zealand First. We are up for the fight. 

There is one small matter, however. I need your support to convince my two fellow parties. Please don't trust in this fairy dream of neoliberal politics, that the market will deliver whilst firms are closing down, investors are leaving New Zealand, and garden-variety Kiwis and their children struggle to keep warm because they can't even meet the escalating costs of power. 

No issue of an economic character, ladies and gentlemen here in Taranaki, is of more burning importance to our party than that. If we do not get the changes we want, and the configuration of the current government, then we will campaign relentlessly.  There is no point keeping this power market that is impoverishing our nation. That might work in the world of Gordon Gekko, it's not going to work in the world of Shane Jones and Winston Peters. 

Yes, the oil and gas industry is going through a low dip. Yes, New Zealand First did announce and does support having a special economic zone around your Taranaki port to re-energise that area, attract new investment with bespoke tax rates, with clear, permissive planning authority for that part of your district. If industry clusters, if sites of industrial importance are easily hijacked, easily held ransom by negative, narrow concerns, your areas, my region, your industries will not advance. The current structure of the power sector is off to the knackers yard. 

I've said also that your port should be given a specific status with its own planning authority, its own taxation rates to reboot this part of your economy now that we are seeing an ebb in oil and gas, despite the $200 million that has been made available. 

Did you know that we have a thing called the Cullen Fund, the NZ superannuation fund? 

Money is contributed on a regular basis by the Government to that fund. That fund, that mandate, its authority, must be altered immediately so that money is poured into our own infrastructure, our own productivity to enrich your lives, the lives of my children and our grandchildren, the days are over where those particular funds are managed by the masters of the universe who don't seem to feel any gravitational pull to the expectations of New Zealanders, the community or the government. 

Rather than flit around on the Wall Street share markets that are being disfigured as I speak by a change in politics in America, that fund of many billions of dollars should progressively be directed to meet the costs of upgrading not only our power system, our roading, our bridges, our hospitals, every key element that you and I have come to expect as a defining feature of living in a modern, prosperous nation state. That is why at the moment, those funds are more valuable to upgrading our nation rather than sitting in accounts in the United States of America or in other places. 

Now I know for a lot of accountants and similar people this will sound like a rather jarring discordant thing to say. Folks, we are at a pivotal point in our country. Look around, the percentage of export revenue that has been earned, which is where we get a lot of our wealth from, is diminishing. We have relied on immigration to such an extent that it has kept the economy buoyant. We need to come back, ensure that we don't tolerate the “no” culture, we do have the ability to use our resources, use our mining, use every other feature that our forefathers not only relied upon but bequeathed to us in the quality of life we had. 

And if we don't change that mindset, which is what New Zealand First is endeavouring to do, then we are condemning ourselves to an inexorable slip on the road to economic, if not ruin, then hardship. We are never going to stand for that. And with your support in areas like Taranaki, we want to reverse the fortunes of this area. 

But we're not going to reverse the fortunes of this area if every authority, every bureaucrat or every loud, discordant protester seems to have more power and influence than garden-variety members of the community. I stand against that. I stand against the shrill, moral hypocrisy and moral hysteria of climate change. You really think by paying yet more taxes under the rubric of climate, you're going to change the weather in Africa or the Amazon? What a joke!  

It's a very risky, challenging thing to take on some of these established beliefs. But no one's asked you, do you know how much the climate change journey is going to cost you? And please don't tell me, “Shane Jones, don't be dismissive of climate change because there's been bad floods”. Sorry folks, if you want to control floods, if you want to control water, by all means, let's build stock banks. Let's be smarter about how we reinforce our capacity to sustain our communities. But please don't tell me I'm going to have to close down the economy under climate change to stop flooding. 

The final point I want to make is that next year, you have a clear choice. You may not agree with everything that we've been doing in this particular government. But just ask yourselves, do you really think your interests are better served by Te Pāti Māori, the Green Party, or the Labour Party? No. Go home and talk amongst your coffee groups or at the local RSA or at the local pub. It's a pretty simple equation. 

By all means, increase your expectations as to what other things this political party ought to be doing on your behalf. But know this from me. This political party believes that the iwi should always be in Kiwi. 

This political party believes, yes, the Treaty of Waitangi is our foundation document. In 2040, we will reach the point of 200 years, incredibly young as a nation state. But it is not a charter. It is not a creed for indigenous sovereignty or any polarisation or any splittism in the New Zealand community. New Zealand First is antagonistic against that. 

I don't want to go down into the weeds and seeds. You follow the media, you can see what we're endeavouring to do to roll back this spread, which I would say to you, those of you who know me, you know I come from Awanui-Kaitaia like Winston. Winston is a mixture of the Scottish and the Māori. Shane Jones is a mixture of the Welsh, the Croatian and the Māori. We know who we are. We're comfortable in our own skin. We were brought up to embrace, affirm and celebrate the broad array of people that made up our community. We will never, ever tolerate, support, collaborate, ever with The Māori Party. Never.  

What you should be looking for in myself, my leader, my colleagues, is a contest of ideas. I went to St. Stephen's School, dispatched by the Anglican Church and the forlorn belief of my grandmother that I would become an Anglican minister. Those of you who have studied my political career, you can see I was ill-suited for that role. But we learnt a lot of sayings at that school with our padre and our teachers. And one was a famous Māori saying: “be hard on the idea, be soft on the personality”. When people attack our leader, our party, or indeed the personality, that is what brings us out in a very vigorous, belligerent way. But we're up for debating any idea. 

And the idea I leave you here today with is that nothing should trump security. The security of your economy, the security of your community, the security of our nation. 

The way to do that is to support a party that, number one, is bold. You have to admit folks, it's pretty bold to have taken $3 billion from the Provincial Growth Fund and begin addressing historic deficits around the regions. A host in your own region here. 

Secondly, a party with imagination. The imagination associated with what Winston Peters has already announced at our last meeting, the creation of a $100 billion fund comprising assets from in the government, infusion of Cullen Fund/Superannuation money, to build something that is profound so that it can change the trajectory, lay down a new platform for growth. 

And thirdly, a party with experience. Now I know that it's become a bit of a blood sport to dismiss those of us born in the 1950s like my good self. In fact, there's a certain man born in 1945 who says to me, “but Shane, you're just a child.” We're of that generation. We're of the influences that made you who you are, us who we are. 

Those are the foundation influences of New Zealand First. It is a patriotic, nationalistic party, and it's a party that believes no sliver making up the composite whole of the nation should triumph or transcend or hold to ransom the fortunes and the direction of our nation. 

That's why we are called New Zealand First. 

Thank you very much.