Estimates Debate — Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet

I rise to address page 1040 of the Estimates, volume II—vote Prime Minister and Cabinet. I wonder what value we are getting for the $7.104 million for the purchase of “free and frank advice”. After all, this is the money that pays for the idiots who make up the excuses the Prime Minister always makes when she gets into trouble. This $7 million is being spent on the people who “weren’t conscious”, to quote their Prime Minister—the people she blamed for the debacle over ancestral landscapes appearing in the resource management legislation.

These are the officials who were blamed for the Government’s reversal of its economic goal of achieving a place in the top half of the OECD by 2011. We spent $7 million on people who believed the Prime Minister when she said that that was what she wanted to achieve. We spent $7 million on people who wrote a foreword including that goal, which the Prime Minister signed but did not read. So why do we waste $7 million on people who sit around listening to what the Prime Minister says, when by now they should have learnt two things: first, she never really means it, and, secondly, if she is caught out, they get it in the neck?

💬 Simon Power: It’s someone else’s fault.

It is someone else’s fault. I ask the Prime Minister this question. Are these the people who advised her to tell the New Zealand public that her Government would confirm that title to the seabed and foreshore belonged with the Government? And are they the people who gave her advice today to sidestep exactly the same question? I think they probably are, and I think the blame will now be worn by them. People who work for hours and hours every day, providing high-quality “free and frank advice”, will now get it in the neck because the Prime Minister has backtracked on the most important commitment she has given to the New Zealand public in this term of Government and, probably, in the last term as well.

What advice has the Prime Minister had from these “free and frank” advisers that has made her change her mind about the seabed and the foreshore? Will we now hear from her that she never really said it in the first place? With the economic goal, she ended up saying: “Other people said it. We just adopted it.” Well, I am willing to take the credit; I think all the Opposition parties are willing to take the credit for saying that first, which the Prime Minister then picked up. Are we going to hear that she never really said it? Or will she say that officials lied to her, that they gave her only some of the papers, not all of the papers, and that that is why she made an undertaking to the public, which she has now backed down on and will not keep? Is that what she is going to say? Or is she going to say that no one was really “conscious” of the implications when that was agreed to and she made that remark to the public? It was all very careful. Are these the people who give the advice about the “Helenisms”—one-third truth, two-thirds spin? Actually, the Prime Minister of New Zealand has said only about two things on the seabed and the foreshore. She has been trying to be very careful. It is that vacuum of leadership that has made this issue so divisive.

Are these the people who advised her not to say anything about Māori issues or the treaty? Why are we paying $7 million for “free and frank advice” on the treaty, when the Prime Minister never says anything on it? She is the first Prime Minister in living memory to refuse to take up the challenge of speaking to New Zealand about treaty and Māori issues. Well, I think the $7 million for advice on the treaty consists of officials saying to the Prime Minister: “Don’t say anything, because it’s politically risky for you.” Every other Prime Minister in New Zealand has had that advice, but every other one has taken his or her own counsel that this matter matters so much to New Zealand that its leader must speak on behalf of the unity of the nation. But this Prime Minister does not. She has taken the advice that the best thing to do is to go around the country providing $90-a-plate dinners for as many people as can be invited for free, and then be offended when Māori expectations are raised. Did she get advice from officials that the Government’s habit of feeding Māori expectations on every matter in the civil service would mean that Māori did not expect anything from this Government over the foreshore claim? Of course she did not. She should have got that advice, from experienced civil servants who know their way around these issues because they have served successive Governments with “free and frank advice”.

I am asking the Prime Minister what advice on the treaty we are paying for. Just what advice on the seabed and the foreshore are we paying for, if the Prime Minister has so little to say about them? Or is it the case that officials know that they should serve up only what will be palatable? Is that the case? Is it actually “free and frank advice”? If that were the case, it would be quite exceptional in the civil service or in the wider community. Many people feel they cannot give this Government or this Prime Minister “free and frank advice”, because they are likely to get it in the neck if the advice is something that this Government or this Prime Minister does not like—and a trail of wrecked careers stands as proof of that.

I am asking the Prime Minister to tell us what advice she has got on those issues, and how she has acted on them. I am asking her to tell us whether the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has advised her not to legislate to secure the Crown’s title to the seabed and the beaches. That is what she said she would do—unambiguously. That is unusual. Usually, these things are done very ambiguously, with a sort of slightly slippery statement in a press release then a background briefing about what it means, so that the Prime Minister does not have to take full responsibility for everything that is said, or so that the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Prime Minister, can get up here and say the press always gets it wrong. Every time we ask a question here, that is what he says; we cannot rely on the reported comments of the Government on anything, because the journalists are always wrong.

Are these the same people who advise the Prime Minister not to answer parliamentary questions? Someone is giving her that advice; if not, she must have thought of it herself. New Zealand has never had a Prime Minister less accountable to this Parliament. We saw that practice again today. Occasionally, I am sure, Prime Ministers have transferred questions they did not want to answer, but they knew that if they kept doing that, it would come to be seen as a sign of weakness. Because they could not keep doing it, they faced the music. This Prime Minister has made a habit and an art form of not answering questions in Parliament—firstly, by not accepting them, but instead ducking for cover and allocating them to other Ministers, so that they have to answer them; and, secondly, by the rigmarole we always have to go through, such as happened today. I asked the Prime Minister a direct question about whether she will legislate to secure Crown title to the beaches and the seabed. We got no answer. Apparently, it was good enough, a month ago, to tell a New Zealand Herald reporter that the Government would do that, but now that matter has to be kept secret from Parliament.

Did the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet give her that advice? Did it say to her: “Actually, you can’t meet that commitment. When you go to Parliament, don’t answer the question.”? I do not think it did. I think the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, has adopted that strategy all on her own. That strategy will fail her.

What a ridiculous speech and what a lot of puff and whistle about nothing! I am the chair of the Government Administration Committee, and I would like to read out the report back to the House: “The committee has considered the appropriations within its area of responsibility. It has no matters to raise in regard to … Prime Minister and Cabinet,”. I say to Mr English, and to the members of his team who are on that select committee, that we reported back that we had no matters to raise. Mr English, who purports to be a member of a political party, has not even bothered to read the committee’s report, which says there were no matters to raise. Nor did his members on the committee at that stage raise any matters when we reviewed this department and reported back that there were no matters to raise with the House.

So the speech made by Mr English, which went on for 10 minutes, was made up of just his imagination. That is what his political party is—a matter of imagination. The only member of that party who faces reality is Mr Maurice Williamson, who actually does look at some of the realities. But I am absolutely surprised that Bill English, given that he is supposed to be a mature politician—

💬 Darren Hughes: “Supposed” to be.

—I said “supposed to be”—and given that he has been a member of this House for a considerable time, can speak such puffery for 10 minutes about a report that stated there were no matters to raise.

💬 Darren Hughes: What about the National members on that committee?

Well, we had Pansy Wong on the committee, and then the membership seemed to move about, because various people replaced other people at that time.

💬 Darren Hughes: What did they say?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Come back to the subject.

I am talking about the report and the process of the select committee that produced this report, and that stated there were no matters to raise. It is very hard to talk about a report that states there were no matters to raise—unless, as Mr English did, one creates a whole lot of things out of one’s own imagination.

I can say, however, and I have looked at the Audit report, how very frugal the Prime Minister and Cabinet are. It has been reported by Audit that it is a very frugal, very canny, and very careful Prime Minister who runs the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. If anything, the department can be said to be a bit mean—the Prime Minister is so frugal in expenditure. We have noticed over a period of time that that expenditure and the appropriations have gone down, that the Prime Minister runs a very, very tight ship, and that she is very, very careful with the money for this department. I think Mr English has got the wrong department, or is reading the wrong report, or is making something up.

This is not the first time that the Government Administration Committee has looked at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, looked at the frugality of the Prime Minister, and seen that she has been very, very careful about what is spent by this department. I would like to congratulate the Prime Minister on running a very tight ship, and to congratulate the department on being very careful. As I have said, and Pansy Wong will verify this because Pansy Wong is an accountant and, I believe, a very careful person with money, the Opposition members on that committee had no matters to raise. So I congratulate the Prime Minister on the estimates and on continuing, in her usual fashion, to run the country in the same way that she runs the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet—that is, in a very frugal and careful way.

Speaking to page 1040 of volume II of the Estimates for 2003, I want to tell the last speaker that we in New Zealand First were not on the Government Administration Committee, but if we were, we would have had a lot of issues to raise—particularly about a department that is engaged in spin and duplicity. I want to know who those people are who occupy so much of the Prime Minister’s time and the taxpayers’ expenditure compared with, for example, truly frugal administrations run by people like Kirk and Muldoon. For every person they had, she has about 10.

But, most important, the difference is those gentlemen and Prime Ministers, when they were required to, came down to the House and spoke for their administrations, whereas we have a Prime Minister who is all spin, all image, but cannot front in this House—like no other Prime Minister I have ever seen. When have we seen a Prime Minister too scared to turn up and face the music? She ducks out, and gets junior Ministers to speak about the portfolio that she is in charge of.

She was asked these questions, which are very simple questions. What does “leeway” mean? She cannot tell us. On the question of collective Cabinet responsibility, she cannot even tell us, fundamentally, what that means. Who in her department advised her how to answer that question? These are people who advise her at a cost of $7.104 million, and that is just the known cost; the rest, of course, is hidden somewhere else. There is a whole raft of people, like the “Burns unit”. What do they do? Well, they are meant to speak to provincial New Zealand. What does that unit cost? The Government has all these people it is hiding. The Prime Minister was asked a simple question, and I want to know who advised her not to answer it. She was asked: “Does the Prime Minister believe in same-sex marriage?”. That is a pretty simple question. What would her department do on that question? Would it need to have a whole review? Would it need to spend weeks and weeks studying the policy, in order to tell the Prime Minister to answer as follows: “I don’t understand the question.”?

It is no use the Prime Minister muttering to the man in the Chair, because, frankly, we are going to have it out in the open. Say it louder! If the Prime Minister cannot hack the job that she is required to portray herself every day as being equipped for, by coming down here and answering questions, she should just say so. She should let us all know, because then we will vote for a significant reduction in her vote of $7.1 million, because, clearly, it is a waste of money. If she cannot hack fronting the public stage in this Parliament, and ensuring that New Zealand has an accountable democracy, she should just say so. Then we will carve back the vote commensurate with the lack of sound advice that she is getting. If she cannot, for example, tell us how Tariana Turia can make a statement on the issue of the Supreme Court and the Privy Council that is totally contradictory to the statements of everybody else in Cabinet, then perhaps we could constrain her vote back to being what it should be for an absentee Prime Minister.

Talk about frugality—does she love travel! She cannot wait to go to places like—

💬 Simon Power: The Air Force had to buy two new aircraft for her.

That is right. It did.

💬 Jill Pettis: You’re just jealous because you’ve got no friends.

Well, if she is offering friendship—no thanks! I know that misery loves company but I cannot help the member.

I ask the Prime Minister this question: why will she not answer parliamentary questions? Why is she always—[Interruption] No, no, there are people up there who, when they get a question from the rest of Parliament’s parties, are meant to spend the next 4 hours providing the Prime Minister with an answer. Do members know what answer they provide her with? It is: “Duck it, Prime Minister. Give it to some junior.” So why on earth are we spending all this money on these people, who do not even know, for example, how to answer fundamental questions? Why can she not tell us, for example, who these people are who are being paid so much money every day to ensure that she does not front up and does not do her job? Where in the Western World does one see a Prime Minister like this one?

💬 Darren Hughes: As good as this.

Oh yes, I know she has very malleable media. Where in the Western World would one see a Prime Minister—Canada, the UK, Australia, or anywhere else that is a democracy—who is not prepared to front up? I have seen Blair, for example, go down to the English Parliament and, on questions without notice, he answers the whole lot. Of course, that is the man whom she attacked before and during the Iraq war.

💬 Dail Jones: What did she do last week?

Last week she went across there—

💬 Simon Power: Another kiss.

The second kiss—yes.

💬 Dail Jones: Face to face.

Face to face, she said—what was it? She said she trusts his sincerity. One day he cannot be trusted, but off she goes, of course, wasting the public’s money, as the Prime Minister, supported by prime ministerial staff, to a democratic union sort of conference that is based on ideology. How parochial is that? Imagine if I said that I wanted to go to a conference comprised of sane, rational, sound, practical parties, and that I wanted the taxpayers’ money! She just abuses the taxpayers’ money. She goes to see her leftist and middle-ish friends, and somehow that is OK. No other Prime Minister has done that, ever, but for Helen Clark it is OK.

But my point is simply this: when it comes to it, she cannot hack the job in its most principal, important form.

💬 Darren Hughes: This is the man who went to Australia for the Bledisloe Cup.

How could I have gone to Australia for the Bledisloe Cup when it has not been held yet? [Interruption] How can I go to the Bledisloe Cup when the game has not been held? Not only do those members deal in duplicity and spin but they plain do not tell the truth. The game is next week, so how could I have gone?

💬 Darren Hughes: Last year.

There is the young fellow—what is his name? Damien Hughes?

💬 Peter Brown: Darren Hughes.

Oh—Darren Hughes. He had a predecessor, Judy Keall, and he is going to spend a long time trying to match her ability. He is going to spend a long time here trying to demonstrate that he is up to the job. I want to tell Darren Hughes this: shouting in the House, showing one’s ignorance, is not a way to progress up the political ladder—

💬 Darren Hughes: It worked for you.

—and take it from somebody who knows! I want to ask the Prime Minister this: why did she say, for example—and who told her to say it—that if the Democrat candidate at the last presidential election, Al Gore, had succeeded, there would not have been a war? Why did she say that? Do we have to put up with a prime ministerial department led by a Prime Minister whose understanding of history is so cursory as to be a waste of time? Worst of all is the saying of it—it is not so bad that she thinks it; it is the saying of it.

In the next breath she says: “We’re going to piggyback Australia in a free-trade agreement.” I say: “Don’t make me laugh! Don’t make the poor New Zealand exporter cry with such naive and stupid statements!”. Which person in her department told her to say that? What does the Prime Minister’s department say about, for example, the dollar rising by over 30 percent in 1 year flat—by this chart? What does her department say about that? Exports are down; they have been damaged severely by a Prime Minister who is too scared to show some leadership and some direction. This is terrible. The dollar has risen by over 30 percent from September until now, and she and her Minister of Finance fail to take action.

But they say, according to the Labour Party back bench, that she is a good Prime Minister! Oh no, she is not. I will make this bet with those guys right now. At the next election, this Labour Government is going to be out on its ear. The economy is changing as we speak. The American economy is in a situation of deflation, and it is very severe. But, more important, on the fiddling, socially odd, strange, and, dare I say, queer issues, those members are going to go down—big time. They may not like it, but, frankly, we on this side have had a gutsful of that Government over there foisting its weird, silly, gender-bending ways on the New Zealand people. I want to know how many gender benders there are in the Cabinet structure. How many gender benders are there in the Cabinet structure who let people like Chris Carter and the other guy from Christchurch let loose with some of the most evil, vile legislation this country has ever seen?