National 1987 television launch, Christchurch town hall Announcer: “Last Monday night, National’s leader, Jim Bolger, launched his party’s campaign in Hastings, effectively opening the 1987 election campaign. In the six days since he has barn-stormed up and down the country. He has already carried the ‘Let’s get New Zealand right message’ from Auckland to Wellington, from East Cape to Oamaru. This afternoon, Jim Bolger brought the same message to the people of Christchurch. To a spectacular rally in the Town Hall, which was packed to capacity. Lockwood Smith: “And today you can share the very special experience of the Yandall sisters.” Music: “Come one everybody, get your act together. We’re voting for Bolger. Hey, hey, we’re voting for Bolger. Yes, yes, we’re voting for Bolger. Hey, hey, we’re voting for Bolger.” Continues Lockwood Smith: “They’re very special ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the Yandall sisters.” Lockwood Smith: “First of all people, we respect Jim Bolger for his honesty, his decency, and above all his integrity.” “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome New Zealand’s next Prime Minister and his wife, Jim and Joan Bolger.” Jim Bolger: “Great to be with you and great to have the opportunity to renew my call to all New Zealanders to join me in a crusade to build a better New Zealand. Join me in that crusade to unite New Zealand, to elect an honest government, a government you can trust, ladies and gentlemen. Like the All Blacks yesterday, and the kiwi league team last Tuesday, let us unite and win for New Zealand. You know, we have seen two great rugby games, both showed great New Zealand spirit. In the case of the league team, to win against all the odds, all the odds. In the case of the All Blacks yesterday to come from behind and to win, and win well. Both teams, gave their all for New Zealand, and on August the 15th, New Zealanders can win by electing a new National government. This campaign will focus on the National party’s policies to build a better future. A future where people matter, where communities matter, a future that puts people first. Let us throw out the divisive policies of David Lange. Let us throw out the failed economic theories of Roger Douglas. Out! Our policies put a clear option in front of New Zealanders. Unlike Labour, there are no hidden agendas, no secret deals, just straight-forward honest policies in line with our commitment to a fair society. One week into the campaign. This election campaign I’m also going to focus on the leadership of David Lange. Because it is his leadership of the Labour government, his duplicity, his denial of his commitments, his breaking of his promises, his lies, that has brought New Zealand to the edge, to the breaking point. And I will not let him waddle along on the sideline, ignoring the debates. Because this election, he would, wouldn’t he, he’d love to waddle along on the sidelines, but this election is about David Lange’s credibility. And I forecast, that tomorrow his opening speech will be an army of pompous phrases, moving across the landscape, looking for an idea (laughter). That is what it will be. In 1984, in this Town Hall the same Mr Lange said that New Zealanders have had enough of election promises designed to be broken. Now he admits, while he stood here and made that commitment to the nation, that he had in his back pocket a secret agenda. He admits that his pledge to New Zealand was straight hypocrisy. My first commitment tonight, my first commitment tonight, is that National will repeal the superannuation surtax immediately we become the government. That is our first pledge. Then Lange got stuck into the sick by putting a charge on prescription costs, despite having denied any such intent. So, the sick can’t trust them either. We all remember his commitment on ANZUS. It has been at the core of our defence arrangement, ANZUS will survive he said. Yet on assuming office, David Lange single-handedly destroyed ANZUS, a single-handed effort. New Zealand has been cut adrift, we are out of the Western Alliance, we are out in the cold. And we have lost 90% of our security intelligence information because of it. David Lange, callously manipulated the genuine concerns of many New Zealanders about nuclear weapons, and he used that as a pretext to get New Zealand out of ANZUS. In this area the loony left of the Labour Party are running New Zealand’s foreign policy. The National Party spokesman says they always have, he is probably right, probably right. Mind you most of them are a bit that way, aren’t they? The National Party’s policy is clear, we will stay in the Western Alliance, we will return New Zealand to active membership of ANZUS, in the cause of peace we will go back in. The rugby union knows you can’t trust David Lange. He couldn’t make up his mind about whether New Zealanders should watch the World Cup or you shouldn’t. First he said no, then he said yes, what errant nonsense. You have every right to make up your own mind whether you are going to watch sport, or whether you are not. I was proud to be there. I was proud to be there to see them win the inaugural World Cup, and I was very proud to watch them do Aussie yesterday, I have to say. It is from achievements such as these and from other sports men and women everywhere that we build our sense of national pride, our identity as a nation, so let us now all get behind New Zealand to build a better country. There is no reason, there is no reason why New Zealand should fail as we’ve failed in the last three years. We have the people, the assets and the will to succeed, and National will provide the government and the leadership. What has happened in New Zealand is a scandal. Remember Ann Hercus, my old friend Vinegar Lil, and her shopping basket. With her shopping basket she was so worried about prices in 1984. Well, the cost of that shopping basket has gone up by up to 66% in three years, so on wonder she lost her trolley when she went into the beehive. National will lower food prices by taking GST off basic food items. Family is the most natural and basic unit in society. It is more than just a social or economic unit. The family is a community where love and solidarity can flourish. It is uniquely suited to teaching and transmitting those cultural, ethical, social, spiritual and religious values essential for the development and well-being of its members and of society. When family life breaks down, society suffers the consequences. Because we are genuine about dealing with the violence, which is creating so much fear and anxiety, we are committed to protecting and nurturing family life to give all New Zealanders a fair start and a fair go. One of the, one of the first steps is to recognize how central is the role of the mother is to the stability of the family. In the rush, in the rush, to recognize success only in money terms, we tend to overlook the invaluable work being done by mothers in the home. Caring for children, which are this nation’s greatest asset, so today, so today I want to pay a tribute to mothers everywhere for their tremendous contribution they make to our society. Farmers, and their families were the first group to be savaged by the Labour government. Lange and Douglas have a clear contempt for farmers. For three years, they have watched farm families crumple under debt and high interest rates. For three years, Labour did little but criticize support for agriculture, and now, three weeks before the election, they have done this remarkable complete U-turn to try and gain votes. Farmers won’t be fooled Mr Lange. They will never trust Labour once again, never. We want the land farmed by families not huge state corporations. We don’t want corporate farming. And we want the land farmed by New Zealanders, not by overseas investors or by foreign owners. Our labour market policy will speed up the reform in industrial practice to improve efficiency everywhere. We will give New Zealand workers the opportunity to work with their employers, rather than constantly being in a battle against them. And we’ll do something else, we’ll do something else that the Labour Party refused to do: we will give free men and women everywhere the right to join or not to join a trade union. We will return to voluntary unionism. Roger Douglas has constantly said his number one priority was to get inflation down. And on that count, he is a total disaster. After three years of Rogernomics, New Zealand has its highest inflation rate ever in our history Mr Douglas. Your number one priority, you said, was to bring it down, and we’ve ended up with the highest rate in our history. What an abject lesson of failure. Eighteen-point nine percent. He did too, Lange said he’d not only resign he’d post himself as High Commissioner to London if it went over sixteen percent. But Mr Lange has got problems because I’m not going to post him to London. He’ll end up as the backbench member from Mangere because the party that he leads now will sack him as well. Annual inflation increase, after three years of Labour, of 18.9%; the highest since we started to record the statistics 75 years ago at the end of the First World War. The only reason New Zealand has rampant inflation is the economic policies of the Minister of Finance. The buck stops with him. No-one else. He can’t blame anyone else. You know the miracle, the first miracle recorded in the New Testament, was that the wedding feast at Cana where Christ turned water into wine. The miracle of Rogernomics has been to turn wine into water, prosperity into recession. National’s policies will put life back into our economy, they will give opportunities to businesses and hope to all New Zealanders. Our economic policies will give New Zealanders the same opportunities as other citizens of the developed world. We must achieve their inflation rates of three to four percent. The average mortgage rates of the OECD is around ten or twelve percent. We must achieve that also. There is no reason why we New Zealanders should be crucified, like no other developed nation, with the horrendous interest rates and the horrendous inflation of Roger Douglas’s management. The painful lesson of the last three years is that it takes more than witty remarks to run a county, more than witty remarks. The next secret agenda is out. Simon Walker, member of the Labour Party policy committee, his document outlined the secret agenda of the next Lange government, if we ever have the misfortune to have one. Simon says, Labour will introduce an assets or capital gains tax. Labour’s militant socialists have long wanted such as tax, and Roger Douglas doesn’t deny it. He can’t, he put it in his own book, he said it is a good idea, and he can’t walk away from it now. We are totally opposed to a capital gains tax, not only will we not impose one, we’ll do something much better. We intend to abolish death duties and gift duties instead. We are not going to impose a new one. We are not going to impose a new one we are going to take a couple of the old ones off. We are going to stop taxing people when they are dead. Not a bad idea I reckon. But Simon says something more. Labour will increase GST from 10 to 15 percent. And that I assure you is going to happen, they are working on it at this very moment. And 15 percent GST would again put up the price of food and essential commodities, and push inflation even higher. It would be a further blow to New Zealand families. Ours is a totally positive approach. That positive commitment is also reflected in our education policy. We propose to reform education from the ground up. We are going to insist on standards. We won’t cheat our young citizens by giving them worthless certificates which state they have achieved adequate results even when they score as low as sixteen out of a hundred. We will reinforce our positive education policy by doing away with paying people, especially young people, to do nothing. We’ll do away with that. Our commitment is to do away with the indignity of unemployment and to provide worthwhile opportunities instead. We intend to create jobs, not destroy them. Our policy again is positive. We intend to provide work, not the dole, work not the dole. I want to tell you tonight of the concern that I have for both this country and for our people. Everyone acknowledges that we are a nation in turmoil. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. A recent study showed one million New Zealanders now live in poverty. Almost one third of our nation classed as poor, at a time when more new millionaires were created this year than in the history of New Zealand. The money movers may marvel at Rogernomics, but it has denied the dignity of work to many of us and our families. The uncontrolled pace of change has thrown tens of thousands onto the scrap heap and Labour doesn’t care a damn. David Lange, on this platform, three years ago, said his first priority was employment. That was his first priority, he said. Yet on Thursday, came the news that we now have the highest level of registered unemployment since the depression of the 1930s. So, like his Minister of Finance, he has failed. Nearly 120,000 New Zealanders are now looking for work. That is the equivalent of the full-time workforce of Palmerston North, Tauranga, Rotorua, Napier, New Plymouth and Hastings combined, all being out of work under David Lange’s policies. And despite the current disaster, the worst is yet to come. Because in a rare moment of honesty, a rare moment of candour, the Labour Party admitted in their budget, that they expect unemployment to rise by a further 23% this year. This year, Labour cannot deny the obvious economic and social costs of the unemployment they have created. No wonder there is trouble in the land. Property has no value to those who have none, and who cannot get a job to save for a stake in their own country. And this is reflected in the fact that so many people now disregard the law. They take it into their own hands, they cheat, they intimidate, they steal, they rob, they beat, they rape, and they murder. The victim is soon forgotten. The criminals, if they are caught by our overworked police, then they are soon released, soon released. Our commitment to law and order is to enact a victim’s rights act so that the victim has rights as well as the criminal. Now in the winter of 1987, three years after the election of David Lange, New Zealand has the highest inflation rate ever recorded in our country’s history. The highest registered unemployed for fifty years. A massive decline in investment in productive industry. Our farmers and our manufacturers are being forced to the wall. One million New Zealanders are living in poverty. And our education system is failing our young people. Wherever he looks, David Lange sees failure. After three years his excuses have run out, his time has run out, and he must go. He must go. I will return New Zealand politics to the basis of honesty, integrity, openness and trust. We do not come to this election with a list of extravagant promises, but with policies that will lead New Zealand to a great future. Together, let’s give the world another taste of kiwi guts. We can and we will pull New Zealand back from the brink of economic and social disaster. Then I reissue, I reissue my call, after that poll, to you to join me, and join other New Zealanders in a crusade that will sweep this country from the north to the south, from east to west, a crusade that will elect a fair and a honest government on the 15th of August. Together we can make it all work. Together we can make it all happen. Together we can get New Zealand right on the 15th of August. Thank you, thank you very much. Music: God of Nations at Thy feet, In the bonds of love we meet, Hear our voices, we entreat, God defend our free land. Guard Pacific's triple star From the shafts of strife and war, Make her praises heard afar, God defend New Zealand. Men of every creed and race, Gather here before Thy face, Asking Thee to bless this place, God defend our free land. From dissension, envy, hate, And corruption guard our state, Make our country good and great, God defend New Zealand. Announcer: On August 15 let’s get New Zealand right. Vote National.