Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The leader of New Zealand First is claiming that there has been unmandated change during the last parliamentary term.
New Zealand First is rising in the polls and in the latest 1-News Verian poll was on 3 percent - though still short of the threshold to get into Parliament.
Leader Winston Peters continues to make an appearance in the preferred prime minster stakes sitting at 2 percent, the same as the Green Party's Chlöe Swarbrick.
NZ First is promising to adjust income tax brackets, establish a dedicated prison for gang members and oppose co-governance if it manages to get back into Parliament and be part of a new government.
Peters has launched his election campaign under the slogan "Let's take back our country".
"We are taking it back from those people who have taken so much off us," Peters told Morning Report.
"You can look at all those areas where there's been dramatic change, unmandated, never part of an election manifesto, the people of this country were never asked."
Peters said he takes issue with a dual health system, co-governance, and some subjects taught in schools.
"And if you point to it, you can look at a health system that's now dual, it's not one health system - for example if you're going to get hospital treatment or medical then there's a priority-based on race, you've got all sorts of co-governance measures coming in which was never part of the election campaign by any other party, you've got areas where there have been a dramatic change to the way this country runs and now you've got education where the sciences and biology and chemistry is not going to be taught, but sexuality and these sorts of, and gender issues are going to be."
Peters was referring to a draft curriculum which Education Minister Jan Tinetti clarified would include chemistry, physics, biology and other core science topics.
"The Ministry of Education, experts and the sector are working on a new curriculum and are testing different options - this is essentially a draft of a draft," Tinetti said in early July.
Lowering business tax, raising wages and rapidly doubling gross national product were among other policies announced by NZ First.
"We have countries that used to be way behind us and now way ahead of us doing what we used to do when we were the world leader," Peters said.
"This country was a world leader at a time when people in my audience [at the campaign launch] knew about and with exports going around the world 12,000 miles away."
New Zealand has stopped doing what it used to do, he said.
Peters said the party would assist businesses to add value and assist them to uptake IT to help with productivity issues, he said.
"This is by way of incentivisation," he said.
Asked why the party's dedicated gang prison policy was needed, Peters said, "Because we've got enormous recruitment going on now, young people influenced who should not be subject to recruitment of gang members and that's why I say there should be a dedicated gang prison and we don't need a new one - where that idea came from, from some reporter, I don't know - what we need is to ensure we don't have the contamination and recruitment of other people going to prison in this country."
Gangs would also be designated terrorist organisations and gang members would be offered a full-time job where they can take it up "or face the consequences", he said.
Asked if he had costed his policy, Peters said he was a former treasurer of the country and there was "a whole lot of waste going on" financially by the government.
Peters said he would not partner with the current Labour government.
He said after the last election his party learnt "that so much had been hidden by the Labour party that had shaken our hands and promised to keep faith with the coalition deal which I did, and have done in the past, when had learnt that they had done all those things behind our backs and did not deny them after the election we made it very clear that we would never go with this present bunch of Labour Party ever again in government".
