Peters Winning Speech: We Asked You To Send A Message And You Have

MIL OSI – Source: New Zealand First – Speech – We Asked You To Send A Message And You Have New Zealand First Leader and Northland by-election candidate, Rt HonWinston Peters Speech at Duke of Marlborough Hotel Russell 28th March,2015 WE ASKED YOU TO SEND A MESSAGE AND YOU HAVE [caption id="attachment_2529" align="alignleft" width="300"] New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.[/caption]We must thank the people of Northland who put aside their party preferences and came out to vote for Northland. We must thank all of those people within our party, and so many who are not members but who nevertheless have done all they possibly could to bring us home in front tonight. To all those people who gave us financial support to fund this campaign our sincere gratitude. To all those people who helped the campaign along the way with kindness and encouragement, thank you indeed. May I say to my opponents in this campaign you have not to despair you have our understanding and sympathy and no one should hold you accountable for past neglect and political abandonment. If they do, then they will show they have no understanding of the economic and social conditions of this electorate called Northland. We went along hundreds of country roads and to many hamlets to speak to those New Zealanders.whether on farms, in  small factories or in shops, to share their anxiety at the lack of sympathy there is in the corridors of power for their persona; and family situations. Whether it be a young Northlander looking for a job with decent wages or a farmer in a critical industry yet struggling to survive with high interest rates and a deeply damaging currency. In the Northland by-election New Zealand First took “the road less travelled”, or never travelled at all. We went to thousands of forgotten people and they have responded and that has made all the difference. What this means is that New Zealand First has put the voters of Northland first. In a real campaign devoid of stage managed spin laden platitudes this by-election was about what really maters to the voters of Northland. So we campaigned on the real state of jobs, poverty, education, housing, roads and infrastructure, businesses and primary product enterprises in Northland. We in Northland know we are not alone and there are many regions suffering from years of neglect and a lack of a genuine regional development policy. They have seen their regions being hollowed out while resources are poured in elsewhere. No one should underestimate how difficult this campaign was from the outside. Just four weeks ago when we knew we were ready we launched our campaign, 17,412 votes behind. We have to put aside our political differences up here if we are going to restore this province and this electorate to its rightful position in New Zealand That’s why we are here in Russell tonight, symbolic of where the power once lay in this country, with the full intention that hereafter, it will be restored. We made a commitment to you in this campaign that if you voted for us then there  would never be a future important economic and social issue in the corridors of power without they first turned and asked, “but what does Northland think?” We asked you to to send them a message, and you have – so resounding that they must now respond. –]]>