Shane Jones rolled into Thames on Saturday to a volatile reception from anti-mining locals, and an appreciative couple of hundred NZ First supporters who turned out to hear him speak at the Civic Centre.
He announced NZ First would campaign to withdraw from the Paris Agreement , the international treaty on climate change, saying “we’re not going to be told how many cows we can have in a paddock”
He spoke of how proud he was of his upbringing and how proud he is to be able to speak te reo Maori, and that more people should wake up early, give the kids breakfast and get them ready for school, and stop blaming so called Treaty breaches for everything that’s wrong in their lives.
We have to all pile in and take responsibility for our actions. We have to commit ourselves to New Zealand’s growth and development. This can be achieved by “unravelling the Green, Brown, and Red tape” which is holding the country back.
He thinks too many people on the Coromandel “fell in love with Jacinda Ardern”, and NZ First “Sees through the false religion of the Greens.”
He warned against falling for the hollow rhetoric of the Opportunity Party. Look at the policies. Labour have long since moved away from the traditional values of New Zealand and is now the woke party.
He denounced co-governance … “I will not have a Hapu having more power than elected representatives.” He wants to ensure that rules and regulations don’t ruin the wider Waikato area as a first rate food producer.
He is against any reform of local/regional councils without a mandate from the people affected by any decisions, so doesn’t want any changes before the next election.
He said NZ First wants to rein in power companies who are making vast profits, and want to expand our geo-thermal energy production.
New Zealanders need to grab the opportunities in front of us.
He urged Iwi to stop trying to reclaim everything they might think they have lost and instead rejuvenate and regenerate.
On immigration, Jones says NZ can’t afford indiscriminate, unfettered immigration, and is not interested in the Indian trade deal if it means replacing our population with immigrants.
On mining, it was a grave day when Jacinda closed refineries and stopped coal mining and oil and gas exploration. He mentioned the hypocrisy of NZ importing “a million tonnes of coal from Indonesia” (NZ has an estimated 16 Billion tonnes of coal in the ground).
The result of these Labour policies is higher energy costs for ordinary Kiwis, a loss of jobs for Kiwis, and the departure of some industries from NZ
He was asked about his stance on secondary tax and replied that this will be covered in NZ First’s economic manifesto to be released in three or four weeks time. He believes that people who work hard should be rewarded, not penalised by secondary tax.
In response to another question from the crowd, “There will be no expansion of data centres in NZ unless those who wish to build them also build their own power stations to run them.”
Places like Thames have been “hollowed out” by the Labour government , and “If we don’t find and extract the valuable minerals, then we surrender economic fortune to China.”
He said NZ was on the verge of signing deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars before Jacinda pulled the plug on mining and oil extraction, and it will be “A million years” before those affected investors would deal with NZ again. “We need a government which will not scare off investors with uncertainty about future development.”
“Mining creates economic activity apart from the actual worth of the minerals mined.”
Some attendees were heckled by protesters as they left the meeting, but it was pretty civilised and there was no trouble. There were several police there just in case!
