Young Nats Will Secure Youth Vote In '99

Prime Minister Jenny Shipley today predicted that National would secure the majority of the youth vote in 1999.

Mrs Shipley spoke to the Young Nationals at their annual policy conference in Wellington today. It is the first time a Leader of the National Party has spoken to the Young Nationals conference in a decade.

"National has a great story to tell, and our prospects for 1999 and beyond are strong. We have a leadership that understands and is willing to engage with young New Zealanders. You represent a party with a backbone and a heart.

"National will deliver real prosperity and a deep sense of security for young New Zealanders based on policies that will deliver.

"National stands for rewarding ambition and imagination, freedom from restrictions and regulation, focusing first on creating wealth before it can be shared.

"The choice is clear: control versus freedom; the past or the future. National is a party with ideas, and a party for the future.

"The responsibility falls on your shoulders to spell out the clear choice young voters have at this election. National and the Young Nats must warn young people of the perils of a return to the old ways of the socialist 70s.

"You are protectors of New Zealand's future.

"We can either go back to old mindset of state control that limits New Zealanders, or move forward with positive leadership that challenges and rewards people.

"The Young Nats have traditionally been the vanguards of change within National, and ripe ground for future young leaders. This year you must continue to earn that label.

"Many of your generation will not remember the actions of the unions in the past that held employers to ransom, crippled our nation's productivity and ground the country to a halt.

"Your generation did not live through the dark ages of state intervention when it took six weeks to connect a telephone, bars closed before it got dark, and shops were closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Your generation was not crippled by punishing levels of tax.

"Remind your generation that it happened. Remind your generation that the Labour-Alliance bloc want to take New Zealanders back there. Young voters must not allow a bunch of academics and disaffected politicians who've never held down real jobs to tell them how to run their lives.

"Your challenge this year is to remind young voters of the stark choice this election and to support National," said Mrs Shipley.