Peters pitches to the provinces
Students and the regions would get big wins if NZ First gets its way after the election, with party leader Winston Peters promising to ‘‘repopulate the provinces’’.
Peters made various policy announcements while launching the party’s election campaign in Palmerston North on Sunday.
One of the biggest was a commitment to pumping tax revenue into local councils from two areas: tourism and water royalties.
He said all GST earned from tourists would be returned to the region where the money was spent.
‘‘They come to your province to be tourists and you supply everything.
‘‘With computerisation, we can see where they spend that money.
‘‘We are going to make sure you get your share back.’’
He committed to putting royalties on bottled water exports, citing the case of Otakiri Springs in the Bay of Plenty.
It has a consent to take 750,000 litres of water a day and only needs to pay $2003 a year for that, he said.
The royalty would be different, depending on if the water was sold in New Zealand or overseas.
Peters said at least 25 per cent of any royalties would go back to the region where the water came from.
That money would help pay for upgrades to roads, toilet facilities and other infrastructure, which Peters said were desperately needed.
‘‘These people [in the regions] create the greatest share of wealth in the country and they’re not getting their fair share of it.
‘‘My plan, our plan, intends to return that wealth to them, rather than have a bunch of shinnyderriered people around the bureaucracy and elsewhere making a fortune without any regard to who creates the wealth in the first place.
‘‘In a nutshell, you’re going to get back the wealth you create in full measure.’’
Peters would not say how much money would go back to the regions, saying he would give more information before the election.
He also dangled a carrot to students wanting to get rid of their loans faster.
A student who studied for five years would have their student loan wiped if they stayed and worked in New Zealand for five years after graduating, he said.
‘‘We are going to deal to student debt because it’s getting worse and worse. It’s just impossible for young people.’’
But students who committed to high-demand jobs in provinces would have their loans wiped faster.
Peters said those jobs could include doctors, police and teachers.
‘‘If you leave for your OE, sorry, we are not going to finance that. We want to repopulate provincial New Zealand.’’
He did not make clear if students would have to repay their student loans during their time in New Zealand before the five years is up.
Peters said regional New Zealand had been forgotten by the other political parties. ‘‘Only one party stands for the regions, spends any time in the regions, holds public meetings in the regions. It’ll make all the difference this campaign.’’
Employers who took on people on the Jobseeker benefit would get that benefit money paid to them as a subsidy, he said.
There would also be tax deductions for small businesses’ new assets costing less than $20,000 and professional expenses.