Don’s Campaign Launch Speech
Don’s full speech is after the link. I’m now heading back to Wellington, hoping to get in around midnight so nothing more until tomorrow.
Don Brash
National Party Leader
21 August 2005
A new government and a new direction
Address to the Official 2005 Campaign Opening, Sky City Convention Centre, Auckland
My fellow New Zealanders.
147 years ago, my great-great-grandfather William Brash came to these shores.
Along with thousands of others, he came because he saw this as a land of opportunity, a place where he and his family could get ahead.
Some, especially those with Maori heritage, will have roots even further in our past, but for all of us, the notion of New Zealand as a land of opportunity features in our reasons for being here.
We owe a huge debt to those who, over many decades, came to this land as pioneers, and laid the foundations of the wonderful country we enjoy today.
I cannot help but ask myself how my great-great- grandfather, and the many thousands of other pioneers who worked so hard, endured such adversity, and took such risks, would feel, were they able to see the direction the country in which they had invested so much hope has taken in recent years.
A country which tolerates nearly 300,000 working-age people being paid a benefit to stay at home, while businesses are crying out for staff.
A country which releases violent criminals to be recycled through the police files and the courts after serving only a third of their sentences, with some of the worst offenders being paid compensation for their hurt feelings.
A country in which meaningful grades and reports have been disappearing from our schools, with large numbers of young people leaving school unable to read or write or count.
A country in which an unhealthy alliance between the extremists and the politically correct has seen the emergence of two different standards of citizenship, depending upon your ethnicity.
A country in which middle income folk are told by their government that they are the new rich, destined to pay 39 cents in tax on the top dollars of their income, plus a further 12