“We’ve got to make sure that Kaikohe’s law and order was enhanced very, very quickly,” Peters said.
“I didn’t want to talk about it, but I had talked about this to another foreign country on this matter, and they are still talking about it.”
Winston Peters gave a wide-ranging speech during a public meeting in Orewa on Sunday. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Peters said the conversation with the foreign country began seven years ago and claimed the country was still mulling it over.
Asked why Kaikohe’s crime level influenced whether an airport should be built, Peters said: “Well, no one’s coming unless they know it’s a peaceful society.”
Kaikohe is less than a 30-minute drive from the airport in Kerikeri.
Asked whether there would be enough traffic to the region to sustain two airports so close, Peters replied: “That wasn’t the purpose of why they were opening the airport.
“That’s all I’m going to say. I’ll tell you sometime after the election.”
Peters suggests prisoners could reduce sentences by working in forests
Elsewhere during his final public meeting of the election campaign, he said NZ First was going to make “dramatic” changes to taxes, saying that New Zealand used to be a “standout economy”.
When people talk about driving wages down, “I cry for the country”, he said.
Speaking about Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick wanting to be Finance Minister, Peters said she has good points, “but that doesn’t cut it”.
“What’s your record on running an economy?” he asked of her.
Regarding Act’s policy on bootcamps, he said it had some merit, but it had “gone far too far and far too expensive”.
He said the “clean-cut way” of dealing with prisoners would be to reduce sentences by taking them out into forests six days a week and doing some work.
“Make sure that we don’t spend $200,000 a prisoner every darn year, get some of our money back, and there’s a whole lot of white-collared criminals.
“Why throw them behind bars? Make them do a whole lot of darn physical work, do something for the other taxpayer. Clean up the dirty rivers, clean up the dirty streams, clean up the environment.”
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