General Debates

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I observed a news report today that referred to a coward and a bully, and to his party as the home of fear, failure, and resentment. Who could that report be referring to? I cannot imagine who is being referred to. I can say, though, that the article was a response to the taxpayer-funded anti-immigration propaganda—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A member cannot hide behind the cowardly craven skirts of some other outside-of-Parliament article as some sort of excuse to offend the Standing Orders of this House. That is precisely what the Minister is doing. I know that she has not been here long, but she surely must know that. She should be asked now to withdraw and apologise for the inference that she has clearly made about someone being cowardly. I am sure that she is referring to one of her parliamentary colleagues.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): If that is what the member said, would the Minister withdraw and apologise.

Yes, the article was referring to Mr Peters. I withdraw and apologise.

It is propaganda because it is deliberately designed to mislead. It is propaganda because it is wrong. I believe in free speech, and we as members of Parliament can say a lot more in this House because here we have more free speech than most. That is one of the privileges of being here, yet I am not allowed to use words like “liar”, “cheat”, “fraudster”, “coward”, and “hypocrite” if referring to an individual member, which I am not doing at this moment.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member may not use those words. They may be appropriate to her, but they are not to me.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I do not need any assistance. The words are not acceptable in this House, because the implication is quite clear also. I ask the member to withdraw those words.

I withdraw. All members in this House are honourable members.

💬 Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have ruled twice against this Minister in barely a minute and a half. I suggest that if she does it once more, you should use your right to terminate her speech.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I do not need any assistance from the member in that direction.

There is a side of me that wants to ignore this pamphlet, because unwarranted publicity is something that this member is after. Publicity is what he is craving, and, to put it quite bluntly, he does not deserve it. I think it is important that we place on the record of the House the abhorrence that every other member of Parliament who does not belong to the New Zealand First Party feels about this disgraceful publication and about the fact that New Zealand First spent not one cent of its own money on it, but spent taxpayers’ money to put out this filthy, lying propaganda—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is three times in 3 minutes. Not only is the member incorrect about New Zealand First not putting money towards this pamphlet—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, that is a debating matter.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: —we are proud to, and we did—but the point is that she cannot use a tirade of epithets and give abuse and get away with it in the way she just has for the third time in less than 3 minutes.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I agree.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The right honourable member was correct in his first two points of order but not in the last one, because the last statement was not a statement about him. [Interruption] It was not—I was listening very carefully. It was about a pamphlet that she said contained lies. A pamphlet is not a member of Parliament, and I think one is entitled to say that it is a lying, filthy piece of propaganda, or whatever the phrase was, providing one is not referring to an MP.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for that, but I as Chair took the statement to be a reference to members of this House, particularly to Mr Peters and his party, and I ask the Minister to withdraw that.

I withdraw it. Every other right-thinking member of this House believes that it is abhorrent to put on the record false information, misleading information, designed to bring people into disrepute. This morning that member challenged me. He asked whether I upheld the rule of law, because I said I was sympathetic to some postal workers who did not want to place this offensive material in people’s letterboxes. I make the point that I do not agree that postal workers are the ones who can decide what we receive. I have never said that they can make that decision themselves. But the point that has been made is that posties generally take pride in their work. They take pride in being part of this country’s infrastructure, and they can take no pride in delivering what one commentator has described as a nasty little item like this. “Nasty” is the politest term I could describe it with. It contains distorted information. It ignores changes that this Government has implemented. It ignores the fact that those members opposite did nothing when they were in Government to resolve some of the problems they have identified. They have deliberately set about inciting racial hatred against all migrants to this country.

I want to read out one of the emails I have received today. It states “Dear Ms Dalziel, I am totally incensed by the latest report in our paper, the Press, concerning the circular that will be coming through the mail and the slur it will make against all immigrants. Myself and family arrived from England 9 years ago. I brought money and my skill, having been in business for 16 years previously and setting up a business here. It has certainly not been easy, and we had put up with enough prejudice during this time as it is without this lunatic inciting more.” He carries on—[Interruption]

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister knows full well—and Mr Prebble is wrong—that my photograph and signature are on that pamphlet, and that is why he is wrong—[Interruption] Well, the post office has not been delivering them, but it will. I guarantee it will. The Minister cannot use that phrase, quoting from someone who has purportedly written to her—and I do not know whether anyone has. But she cannot then hide behind that person’s comments, which would be unparliamentary if she were to use them.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I agree. Any quotations used must not be cast in unparliamentary language.

The email continues: “That man—and I use this term loosely—should never be in the position he is. I will personally be getting advice about suing him for libel and defamation of character if a circular enters my post box.”

That is just one letter from an ordinary New Zealander who came to New Zealand 9 years ago. That is the impact that member is having on these people. I want to make a few points about this pamphlet. New Zealanders are not being squeezed out of their own country. They left in droves when that member was the Deputy Prime Minister. More New Zealanders than ever are coming back to this country, simply because they can see some hope and some future here. The past 4 years have seen an average of just over 40,000 migrants a year coming here, so hundreds of thousands of Third World immigrants could not have come here since Labour took office. The pamphlet is filled with lies and deceits.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister completed her speech with a further series of unparliamentary statements, then she sat down. She should be asked to withdraw and apologise. She has offended five times in 5 minutes. She should have been stopped, as my colleague Dail Jones suggested, if she intended to continue in the way she did. She must withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The Minister’s comments were directed to the member’s side of the House. There was so much noise that I did not actually hear them. Would the member please enlighten me.

I can only assume, when she referred to lies and other things, that she was looking in the mirror—so I will forget it.

Earlier this week this Labour-led Government announced its intention to extend the moratorium on marine licences for a further 9 months from March of next year. As we all know, statutory moratoriums are an admission of failure by any Government. They are a political failure, they reflect indecision, and they create uncertainty—and that is certainly what this decision has done to the New Zealand aquaculture industry.

In November 2001 this Government’s Minister of Fisheries, Pete Hodgson, promised new enabling legislation within 12 months, yet here we are 2 years later with a moratorium in place, and now the Government admits failure and announces it will extend the moratorium for a further 9 months until 31 December 2004. Nothing can be more uncertain for any sector than to be facing a moratorium where there is no decision, no framework, and no policy—having instead an inept Government that just cannot make up its mind and does not know what it wants to do. That is a disaster for any country.

In November 2001 the Minister described the existing legislation as outdated, over-complicated, and dysfunctional. Here we are 2 years later with it still in place, still dysfunctional, still outdated, and still over-complicated—and he has not done anything about it. That is a failure by him as a Minister. It is a failure by this Labour Government Cabinet to address the situation, and the country bears the consequences.

The Government promised all manner of things. We were promised a framework to enable greater benefit to be obtained from coastal space without undermining existing rights. It sounded great. We had a promise to create an environment whereby aquaculture could make a greater contribution to the New Zealand economy, and to clearly define to the public where marine farming would not occur. All of that has been promised, but none of it has been delivered.

I feel rather passionately supportive of the aquaculture industry. I actually held a warrant in 1990 as the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. I think I was the only Minister who has ever had a warrant for aquaculture. Mike Moore, the then Prime Minister, was very supportive of aquaculture, and was determined to get it up and going. He realised—[Interruption] What happened to Mike? A very good question, because that Labour Government understood what development and progress were all about, but, no, the Helen Clark brigade are now in power, and they do not like things like development, aquaculture, wealth creation, and prosperity—they do everything to close it down.

The aquaculture industry in New Zealand is under-rated. It is much bigger than most people realise. Few realise that last year mussels alone earned $186 million for this country. Mussels alone earned more than the wine industry did in Marlborough.

💬 Rodney Hide: Is that right?

Yes, mussels earned more in export dollars than the wine industry. That is not denigrating wine—Marlborough wine is splendid wine, but the mussel industry is even more successful. There is tremendous potential for sea cages with tuna, snapper, the caging of rock lobster, and paua—we have farming developments there with meat, shell, and pearls. The marine farming industry has identified that given the right environment it could be earning $2 billion for this country by 2020. What did this Government do when the industry is roaring to get going and wants a legislative framework so that it can expand and have that investment? It just increased and extended its moratoriums, because it does not know what to do. It has no idea—none whatsoever.

It blames the foreshore and seabed issue, but let us remind ourselves that that issue is of its own making. The Prime Minister and the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations came out after the Court of Appeal decisions and said that they asserted Crown ownership and would legislate if necessary. Then they immediately backed off that position—right from day 1—and they have been scurrying backwards ever since. Instead, they invented this nebulous concept of the “public domain” that no one owns. There are no property rights and there is no guidance. The moratorium is now in place, and the industry is suffering badly.

Today around New Zealand many dark clouds are gathering over our education horizon. I wish to describe three particular clouds today, in the hope of sounding some level of warning. The first is the school network reviews, or area reviews, that have been going on throughout this year, and I am told will go into next year as well. These have stunned whole communities—rural, as well as small town communities. Middle Earth New Zealand, in some sense, is under siege. The talk of school closures and amalgamations has rightly jolted people into calling public meetings, as their only and last response. The promised consultations have been compromised, in some people’s minds, by independent consultants who are being bankrolled by the Ministry of Education. A fait accompli attitude has descended upon a lot of communities around New Zealand. That has caused mistrust in many communities amongst parents and teachers. The Ministry of Education processes for managing change have, in its own words, been abysmal. The huge volume of emails, letters, and phone calls I have been getting shout out one message, which is: “Leave us alone if we are producing good educational outcomes.”

Second to that, and accompanying it, is the school housing reviews. These reviews, added to the school network reviews, are a further complication to what is happening. Heated conversations are being held around kitchen tables, in school staffrooms, in cowsheds, and in shearing sheds. Those conversations are about when non-core school housing will be sold, or when their rents will be raised to full market values, thereby impacting on rural regions in a very big way. The recruiting of new teachers will be more difficult than it already is in rural areas, I think, particularly for secondary schools that are looking for specialist teachers. Existing rural teachers also are facing the prospect of less, or even more expensive, housing, and therefore will consider either leaving or stopping teaching, in which case even more schools will close as classrooms have no teachers.

On top of that, another cloud is the review of the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act. This, in my mind, is none other than a plan by the ministry to access 324 special character schools to see whether it can close or amalgamate any of them. The Private Schools Conditional Integration Act was, as it states, a guarantee into perpetuity—a treaty, nonetheless. Does this Government want to unilaterally break, or demolish, this treaty? Would it do that for the Treaty of Waitangi? The Private Schools Conditional Integration Act is considered just as sacred. Certainly, United Future believes that some schools may need to close, but only if they are failing educationally or the numbers of pupils are so small that it is impossible to achieve good educational outcomes.

United Future is sounding a warning that our children, mums and dads, families, and communities are hurting and disturbed by the culmination of all these reviews on their horizons. This Christmas and New Year will be a very gloomy time for some communities. Does this Government want to have more educational egg on its face as a result? United Future calls upon Parliament to build an educational Middle Earth that, too, will capture the imagination of this world.

In August, Mr Ian Breeze, a general surgeon from Tauranga, was found guilty of professional misconduct on three charges regarding his care of Lionel Crowley, who died of multi-organ failure following bowel surgery, and the Health and Disability Commissioner has received six complaints about cases whereby patients have died. The director of proceedings urged the tribunal to find Mr Breeze guilty of disgraceful conduct. Doctors found guilty of disgraceful conduct in a professional respect are at risk of having their name removed from the Register of Medical Practitioners.

If that had happened, I would not need to be telling members about this case today. But it did not happen, and the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal chose to find Mr Breeze guilty of a lower charge of professional misconduct. The director of proceedings pointed to Mr Breeze’s serious shortcomings established in this case and suggested that public safety considerations warranted the imposition of conditions on Mr Breeze’s ability to practise medicine. The tribunal, however, resolved that in this instance Mr Breeze should be fined. The decision was based primarily on the ground that: “As far as the tribunal is aware, the events focused upon in this case are a one-off series of events.”

The first question is why the tribunal did not know about all the issues surrounding the competence of this doctor. Mr Breeze had name suppression until found guilty. We now have a case before the High Court, testing the validity of name suppression in such cases. One of the reasons is that this story is one of incompetence and cover-up. Today, I do not want to focus on a doctor who, to quote the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, “has now convinced himself about certain events which do not accord with the recollection of more reliable and objective witnesses, and who continues to justify his failure to personally assess and monitor his patients’ condition by attempting to shield himself behind others.”; instead, I want to concentrate on the system that allows this to happen.

It is a doctor’s ethical and moral responsibility to report a colleague who he or she feels is unwell or incompetent. I am a doctor, and I know that is our responsibility. But as the 2003 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of hospital chief executives and physicians showed, support for reporting and addressing preventable medical errors was lower in New Zealand at 64 percent, compared with the UK at 89 percent, the USA at 86 percent, Canada at 80 percent, and Australia at 76 percent. This is because doctors do not know what to do. Time and again as I have investigated this case, doctors told me they had talked about it but just did not know what to do. Although patients and their families now have an extremely clear line of reporting—that is, a written complaint to the hospital’s complaint system and then a complaint to the Health and Disability Commissioner—doctors and other health professionals who are concerned about a colleague’s ability still feel uncertain. Even the Minister of Health got it wrong in the House today. One does not report to the Health and Disability Commissioner but to the New Zealand Medical Council. The message is clear: it is a doctor’s responsibility to report. Then the Medical Council will undertake competency review. Doctors should not fear competency review, as this is not disciplinary action but a way to improve practice.

In 1994 a doctor at Tauranga Hospital documented 13 cases in which Mr Breeze had serious complications. In 1995 a surgical review was undertaken, I think, by Mr John Simpson. Mr Breeze spent 1 day in Auckland but then returned to practising independently, and this is when the trouble began again. If the public look at the Medical Council of New Zealand’s website, they will see that no restriction on Mr Breeze’s practice is listed. But on 16 December, 1999—the day before Mr Crowley’s operation—Mrs Mackey had been taken to theatre for removal of a cancerous polyp in the lower colon. It subsequently turned out that Mr Breeze had missed the tumour, and months later a second operation had to be performed. There was a recurrence at the stoma site, and the Accident Compensation Corporation accepted this as medical error. Mrs Mackey died of her secondary cancer a fairly short time later.

On 6 December, 2000 Mr Barry Baker was operated on for bowel cancer. A hemicolectomy was performed at Norfolk Hospital. Three days after surgery he complained of pain and distension in his stomach and was transferred to Tauranga Hospital’s intensive care unit. He went back to surgery, where an ileostomy was performed. Four days later a third operation was required. On 28 December he showed signs of multi-organ failure, and he died on 31 December. There is conflicting evidence about whether he had a perforated ulcer or a stomach rupture, but there was no coroner’s inquest into his death. When the cause of death is uncertain in someone who has had three operations in 1 month, I would have thought that would be mandatory.

As we approach the end of 2003 it is time to reflect on where we are as a country and where we are as a Government, and how far we have come. When I came into this House 10 years ago, unemployment under the National Government was 9.1 percent, Māori unemployment was 21.8 percent, and Pacific unemployment was 22.2 percent. Ten years on, under a Labour-Progressive Government, unemployment is 4.4 percent, the lowest level in 15 years. We are proud of that record. We are a Government that is proud of its achievements. It is time to reflect on the situation that we find ourselves in at the moment.

The Opposition is an important part of a democracy. Don Brash has had time to settle down into his position. “Settle down” is certainly the term I would use as well. Even the dead-cat bounce that we saw for a brief moment, which saw a quick rise in the polls, has moved on.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: Move on. That’s all over.

That is right. It is all over. It is all downhill now for Gerry Brownlee and Don Brash, because New Zealanders understand that under that party’s policies it is all downhill. The average New Zealander will see a declining standard of living, because Don Brash believes we are going to have to cut tax for the rich and take the extra taxes from the average New Zealander. He will sell our assets down the drain. He will sell them out and cut from under us the revenue-generation capacity we have built up. He has certainly reduced the expectations of National Party members. I will tell members a good story.

💬 Judith Collins: Oh.

Yes, it is a little sad. There is a little sigh from the National Party over there. I went down into the heart of National Party country—down into Southland—on Monday. Bill English has been down there for a while. He has more time to be down there now.

💬 Jill Pettis: Is he really down there?

He is on holiday down there. He does not seem to be working too hard. I would have expected the people down there in the heart of National Party country to have some real issues to take up with me. Well, I went to Queenstown. There was joyous celebration at the fishing industry conference about the way we are managing fisheries into the future. In spite of what Mr Shirley says, people in the industry know that our management of fisheries has been sound and sensible, and will lead us into the future. We are not going to rush into faulty aquaculture legislation. We will take our time and make sure that it allows us to continue with the growth we are realising at this moment.

I moved down to Lumsden, another part of Bill English country. What are they talking about there? Are they preaching doom and gloom? No, they are struggling with the issues of growth. They are appreciative of the efforts of this Government in the area of rural health—assisting general practitioners with rural rostering and locum support schemes, and the development of primary health-care organisations, which they know will support rural practitioners up and down the country.

They were praising us for Project Probe, the ability for school rural communities to connect with the world. That was in Lumsden, in the heart of Bill English territory. Maybe their view is a little different from that of Don Brash. That would not surprise me. I went to Te Anau. I thought, look, here is a more isolated community in the heart of Bill English territory, and perhaps these people have issues with the Government.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I’ve been everywhere, man!

I say to Mr Brownlee that they have not. They are singing our praises also, because they have growth in tourism, with better infrastructure in place supporting their schools, their medical centres, and their general practitioners.

This Government has done amazing things in rural New Zealand. It is not traditionally seen as the heartland of Labour support, but if we can go into Bill English heartland territory and be praised for the initiatives of this Government, I feel sorry for the National Party as it struggles around the urban centres of this country.

Even in Mr Gerry Brownlee’s own electorate of Fendalton they voted for Labour, because they knew we can drive growth in this economy that means real wealth creation. As we approach 10 years on from 1993, when I came into this House, this Government has turned round this economy and is starting to develop real New Zealand pride.

This afternoon I want to talk about an issue that should concern the whole House and should be above petty party politics. It is the issue of the secrecy of the Family Court and what is actually going on in the Family Court. I am one of the few people in Parliament who have at any time practised in the Family Court—I think my colleague Dail Jones would probably be the only other person who has—so I would like to talk from experience and also from the position of being a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee.

At the moment the committee is hearing about the Care of Children Bill. The submissions on the bill are concerned primarily with two things. One is same-sex parents and the other is the secrecy in the Family Court. At the moment, about 10,000 New Zealand families are separating every year. The Family Court has gone from being solely about trying to resolve disputes, to being used to rark up disputes. Legal aid is being abused. I speak from the position of having at one stage been on the Auckland District Law Society’s legal aid subcommittee for family law, so I do know from experience that legal aid is being absolutely abused. Domestic violence legislation is being abused, the Guardianship Act is being abused—and it is being abused because that is the way to string out the other side, and it is being done with the aid of taxpayers’ money. Every year $32 million is being spent by the taxpayers of New Zealand on family legal aid.

Most disputes about family law have nothing to do with family law; they are about family relationships. Most disputes are quite clear, in law. Most matrimonial property issues are quite clear, yet the court is being used in that way. Worse than that, children are being used in that way. In addition to that, the secrecy in the Family Court that allows it to happen, and allows it to be seen, also stops people speaking about it. Just last week in the select committee a submitter gave evidence to us that when he was in the Family Court he spoke to the judge and said he wanted to come to the select committee to give evidence on the Care of Children Bill. He was warned by the judge that if he did so he could well face prosecution. That was an instance of the Family Court thinking it was above Parliament.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Breach of privilege.

It is a breach of privilege—absolutely. What that is doing is usurping Parliament’s position in this country. It is actually usurping the democracy of this country. I happen to know that Family Court judge, and I am sure that, as a very decent person, he thought he was doing the right thing. But he was wrong, and a major point of this speech is that the Family Court has become so intertwined with itself—so utterly incestuous; so totally without any shred of light getting in, any media attention, or anyone else’s attention—that it thinks it is above the law. And that is not good enough.

I was thinking of naming the judge in Parliament today; however, I have decided that because the matter is still in front of the court—as it probably will be for the next 15 years, because that is the nature of Family Court proceedings; they tend to go on for ever and ever—I will, in fact, write to the Chief Justice. I prefer to do that, rather than write to the Principal Family Court Judge, and I will point out what is going on.

It is about time that we as a Parliament dealt with this matter, and it is about time we stopped having little arguments between ourselves and looked at this as a major issue. The Family Court should be a court of law that deals with legal issues, and deals with them quickly and fairly. At the moment we have affidavits upon affidavits going into court, everyone wasting their time, taxpayers wasting their time, and family relationships destroyed beyond any—any—hope of resurrection, and it is being done with taxpayers’ money. Mostly, it is about legal aid.

In a speech last weekend by Mr Prebble, the leader of the ACT party, in reference to the trouble of his colleague Ms Deborah Coddington, he said we should not blame a member of Parliament for the actions of a spouse. On that point—and it is a rare occasion—I agree with Mr Prebble. However, in relation to Ms Coddington and the fiasco with Alister Taylor and his so-called publishing companies, the issue is not Mr Taylor and his financial manoeuvrings; the issue is Deborah Coddington, who for over 20 years was a director/shareholder of, and had an intimate association with, various companies that we know did not deliver the goods to people—ordinary Kiwis in both New Zealand and Australia. In fact, they were ripped off.

The issue in this House is Ms Coddington’s responsibilities. It is she who should be called to account for her time as a director, a shareholder, and an owner who had oversight of the financial activities of those companies. Her personal relationship with a co-director does not make her claims of lack of knowledge credible, but her responsibilities as a director and a shareholder are her own responsibilities.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have a sustained attack here by Mr Cosgrove. My question is: how does that compare with a parliamentary staffer of that member, who travelled under a false name to get free air travel—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): That is not a point of order.

In fact, Ms Coddington in the New Zealand Herald acknowledged she had knowledge that bills were not paid, and that books were not published and delivered to people who had paid for them. In the New Zealand Herald of 22 and 23 November she said: “I wasn’t sure what the future would hold. The law and general practice recognises that a director of a company has two courses of action if he or she disapproves of the manner in which a company is being run—change the way it is run, or resign. I tried to change the way Alister did business, but I couldn’t, so I resigned.” She goes on: “I wasn’t sure if there was any value in the company when I transferred the shares to my daughter, on behalf of my four children, but if there was to be any future benefit, I wanted my children to have the chance of some benefit.”

She is saying there that she admits she had knowledge of all the commercial activities of those companies. At various times she was a director, a shareholder, and an owner. She says she was aware of the activities. She resigned, and, because the rorting was going to go on, she thought: “Hey! If there’s a profit to be made in it, I’ll let my kids take that profit.”

This is the person who is ACT’s spokesperson on consumer affairs and the Fair Trading Act. She resigned only when she thought it was politically expedient to do so—only before she became a member of Parliament. But the facts are that as a director she presided over the rorting of creditors.

Mr Prebble also said in his speech that he pledged his support for Ms Coddington. Mr Prebble in his speech said the matter was just a “storm in a teacup”. Well, I ask the taxpayers of New Zealand, and the Inland Revenue Department, whether it is a storm in a teacup when there is a $27,000 GST default debt to that department owed by Roger Jamieson Ltd, between April 1998 and April 2000. Is that a storm in a teacup when, I am advised, there were only two shareholders—one of whom was Ms Coddington at the time? I do not think that Graham Sawyer, who is owed monies as a former employee in a company of those two individuals, Mr Taylor and Ms Coddington, and who won a claim against them in a New South Wales court, thinks that it is a storm in a teacup—and he still has not been paid. I do not think that Mr Bernard Moore, who was also an employee of those individuals, who won a court case for unpaid wages in a New Zealand court, and who has not received a dollar, sees that as a storm in a teacup.

For 20 years the bodies and businesses of people and creditors, and unpaid debts, have been littered around this country. I say that it is not good enough for Ms Coddington to say that because she transferred her shares, she then had amnesia—she being an award-winning investigative journalist in New Zealand, who has received awards for “excellence in financial journalism” and for the “best crime and justice feature”.

I ask her today what the total debts were when she transferred her shares from the companies of Mr Taylor and herself. I ask her today to tell us who paid for those paedophile indexes. Were they paid for on the back of publications where monies were received from other people, but those people never received the books—or did she pay? If she did pay, there is an easy way to clear the decks. She should show us the cheque butts, show us the bank statements, and show us the invoices.

She should produce them, because she is a member of the ACT party that demanded absolute scrutiny from Donna Awatere Huata, but never demanded it from Ms Coddington. All we ask for is some answers to those questions, but all we get is silence. I say to that member over there that in terms of impersonating people, I know that Mr Hide for years has attempted to impersonate a tall, thin, good-looking bloke with hair, integrity, and honesty, but he has failed, to date.

That was a very angry speech from the member for Waimakariri— suddenly, the paragon of virtue, the man who now wants to know what is on the cheque butts. Well, we could ask him whose name was on the ticket. When he is prepared to answer that, we might start to take him seriously.

We know when the Labour Party is in trouble: its members come into this House, stop talking about themselves, and talk about everybody else. Was it not fascinating to hear Lianne Dalziel threaten to take Mr Peters to court for defamation? And is that not typical of how the current Government works? When it gets a little bit hot under the collar in a policy sense, it quietly slides someone into court. Whether it is Winston Peters, Nick Smith, or Shane Ardern, it just quietly slides the person into court. I want to make some comments about that in a few minutes.

It was also very interesting today to hear Damien O’Connor talk about his trip to Queenstown, where he talked about fisheries legislation. Everyone knows that Queenstown is not exactly the fishing capital of the world. He then went to Lumsden, he said, and then he was off down to Te Anau. A lovely little trip! It is a darn shame he did not go to his own electorate. If he went to his own electorate and started talking about the great advances that New Zealand has made under a Labour Government he would be laughed off the West Coast.

He is a member who will be in trouble in his seat in 2005, if the Government is able to hold on as long as that. All of those great promises about the $120 million for the West Coast and all the other industries that were to be set up on the West Coast have come to nothing. Why? Because it has a member who does not give a tuppenny about the seat he represents. We now have a build-up of a picture of the Labour Party in trouble—a very vicious Labour Party at that. Harry Duynhoven breaks the law, and the Government used every tool available to make his illegal action legal. Nick Smith gets himself in a position where he is out defending his constituents, and even though the Government is going to change the law to make what he did lawful, he is slung through the courts, and his family is put through the stress of having to put up with that. Labour Party members sit over there and smugly laugh. They are nasty people who have very little care for ordinary New Zealanders.

When it comes to that speech from Lianne Dalziel, once again we get a bit of an insight into why Shane Ardern is before the courts at the present time. Even though we have the prosecuting sergeant agreeing with the judge that it was a frivolous case, and that it should not go ahead—then having to stand up and take the great embarrassment of saying that he had been instructed on high to carry on.

💬 Simon Power: By whom?

Well, instructed from where? Was he instructed by the scurrying Gerry Cunneen, who was whimpering between the Prime Minister’s office and George Hawkins’ office, across to police headquarters to give them the message from Helen Clark to go ahead and put the boot in? Is that what happened? I cannot believe for a moment that the Commissioner of Police can be comfortable with the position the Prime Minister has clearly put him in. It is not the first time is it?

Opposition members: No.

Oh no! Helen Clark can go out and make herself into one of the country’s most prominent art forgers and say that it is just of no account, therefore the prosecution should be dropped, and it is. But Mr Ardern takes a little ride up the steps of Parliament on a tractor—less than half the distance that Bob Tizard, a Labour Party member, took on a tractor up the steps of Parliament—and somehow, because the Prime Minister decrees that he has acted in a reckless manner, he finds himself up before the courts. The courts do not want it, the system does not want it, the police do not want it, but Helen Clark wants it, so it happens. That sort of nasty approach is what will unstick the Labour Government.

Increasingly New Zealanders will come to understand that the Government does not care about them. We had the classic today—John Tamihere. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for an extension of time. These people have some messages they need to hear.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought. No.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table a document from Meltzer Mason Heath of June 2003, which is the receiver’s final report of the state of affairs of Roger Jamieson Ltd, listing a default payment of $26,975.03.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table travel documents from 1991, showing parliamentary staff of Mr Clayton Cosgrove travelling under false names.

Documents not tabled.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to follow the deputy leader of the National Party, and welcome to those ranks, I say to Mr Brownlee. Thank goodness that the party has a rambunctious and jolly heart there. It certainly needs to be latching on to something with a bit of colour, after the leadership coup that has seen the Opposition fall in the polls to a worse state than when Bill English was the leader. It must be desperate for the Opposition to see this traction slipping away—a bit like Shane Ardern going backwards down the parliamentary steps. But we in the Labour Party have had a fabulous party this week. We have had 10 years of solid leadership from Helen Clark. It is a wonderful thing that we have celebrated with pink jelly and chain-mail cloaks decorated with feathers. We have had a party that the country of New Zealand has joined in with. We did not see Don Brash rushing down the red carpet in The Lord of the Rings parade.

💬 Government Member: He wasn’t there.

No, where was he? He was not even given an opportunity to speak. Poor Don Brash, with his love of Abba—he really is out of sync with the rest of New Zealand Inc. But here we are, and that crusty style of the new leadership, that dry, brittle, crusty, leadership is something that does not make us cringe here in Government. It reminds us of those 10 dreadful years when the members opposite were in Government; years built on greed and self-aspiration, with no sense of community and no sense of togetherness. We do not want to go back there. I know that New Zealand is with us here.

I want to focus on our wonderful partnerships with industry and local government that were so ably demonstrated this week with The Lord of the Rings. What an industry that is! And what a Government this is! It put its hand on its heart when it came into Government and invested $145 million into the film industry in this country—something the Opposition did not even think to do in 9 years—and now we are reaping the benefit. We saw it with Kerry Prendergast standing there with a beautiful red stole on—very appropriately—next to our wonderful leader in her fantastically fashion-designed dress, which the country noticed and was breathtaken by. She looked wonderful, did she not? Her cloak was designed by Weta studios. We work with industry. It is absolutely fantastic that Francis Hooper of World—and the Opposition would know about World, the fashion icon in this country; another industry on the map—said she should wear her wonderful outfit to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. We at our celebration on Tuesday certainly applauded the beautiful serene leadership in our party. We are not wrought by the division and splits that the Opposition has to face.

This is a Government that, through the film industry, is putting New Zealand Inc on the map. We should be congratulating Barry Osborne for his fantastic Lord of the Rings, which we all enjoyed. Even the Opposition enjoyed it. What did we see there? We saw Viggo Mortensen wearing a shirt designed by a Wellington art student. We saw Orlando Bloom wearing a T-shirt that said: “I love New Zealand”. That is the sort of industry that we are inspiring, telling our stories on the international stage. We have had more coverage from this week—in Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom—than from any money that this Government could put into Tourism New Zealand, and it has come from The Lord of the Rings alone. The Opposition members talk about the Government having no idea of industry, but we know that there is economic analysis that indicates we will make $250 million for our investment in that film. And we have more. We have Whale Rider riding the crest of the wave internationally now, putting New Zealand on the map. Our films are winning awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and that is absolutely the most exciting thing. That investment in the film industry will put New Zealand on the map, and, as a country, we are all very proud of it. We do not want to go back to those horrible years when unemployment was at 9.1 percent. Now it is down to 4.4 percent.

Does anybody know who this person is on this Labour credit card? I have been here a long time and I have never seen that person in my life. This week New Zealand First distributed a pamphlet on immigration, and it has probably had the greatest success of any political tract since the Great Depression. I want to thank the great publicity from some Government stooges and an Auckland postman for the fact that New Zealanders are finally learning the facts about this Government’s disastrous immigration policies. We have been swamped this week with responses, and I am sure that Labour wants to hear some of them. These are from immigrants. One of them states: “Brilliant, New Zealand First. You will be getting my vote, along with at least 50 of my group which feel the same way.” Another immigrant writes: “I am an older New Zealander and it has been many years since I have voted, but I am aghast at our situation in all respects. Great brochure.” A further one, this one from a Chinese gentleman, states: “I found your leaflet a breath of fresh air”—

💬 Hon Damien O'Connor: Just three?

No, these are just at random. One wrote: “We need more people to speak out”, and another one wrote: “Thanks New Zealand First for highlighting the problem with immigration”. A further person wrote: “Thank you for having the guts to stand up and say what most of us working taxpayer Kiwis are thinking. New Zealand, with the blessing of Helen Clark, is becoming the dumping ground for the world’s unwanted. I am sick of struggling to make ends meet, and it makes me feel really mad when I have to pay health insurance to be sure I get treatment when I need it when my tax money is paying for non - New Zealanders to go on dialysis treatment and the like.” Another immigrant writes: “Immigration policy needs a severe audit. If we keep piling Third World immigrants”—his words, not mine—“we will end up in a Third World country. It is no use bringing in uneducated and unskilled workers. Every new immigrant”—says this new immigrant—“must have a job offer before coming here, and should be monitored by immigration officials. They must contribute to the economy before getting Government support.” The writer of that letter, one more immigrant himself, understands immigration issues better than the entire Labour caucus. This must be the most stupid Labour caucus in New Zealand’s political history. It brings in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and cannot give us the statistics.

Day after day the Minister of Immigration has become New Zealand’s biggest political embarrassment. Day after day she cannot answer, nor can Steve Maharey, nor can the Prime Minister. They bring in hundreds of thousands of people, then bleat about the collapse of the Auckland transport system. They bleat about the health, education, and welfare system costs. If people are sitting on a motorway in Auckland tonight, with the traffic in gridlock for sure, I want to tell them why that is. They are there because, amongst other things, 40,000 people per year have been placed in Auckland from abroad. Forget about domestic immigration, those people are coming from abroad, and the Government claims to have some solution to Auckland’s structural problems. What a joke! Mr Maharey is prepared to spend $3,500 on each unemployed migrant in Auckland to help that migrant get a job. What are those migrants doing here? How do they get here? What is going on? When did these Labour Party people last spend one cent to help a New Zealander get a job in the far north, or in the provincial towns where gangs are killing each other? This Labour administration is arrogant, distant, gullible, and downright incompetent over immigration. It is guilty of the most breathtaking cant and deceit, and thanks to this pamphlet, New Zealand is going to find out about it. [Interruption] David Benson-Pope, the walrus over there, can shout all he likes. But I am telling him this: our correspondence, our emails, and our telephones are going off the wall, and so is talkback, and no amount of spineless intimidation is going to stop us. Everything we wrote in this pamphlet comes out of the briefing paper of the Minister herself. It is all from her own evidence. [Interruption] Mr Benson-Pope can shout and scream, but he is a total waste of space, and in 2005 we are going to make sure that he and his Benedict Arnold clique are gone.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to give a member of the Government, Steve Chadwick, the opportunity to withdraw and apologise for calling Winston Peters or myself—I am not sure who she was talking to—a racist during her interjections.

💬 Steve Chadwick: I said the pamphlet was racist.

That is not what she said. I would like her to withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I did not hear it. There was slightly too much noise. [Interruption] She did not say it? All right.

I am very pleased to contribute to the general debate and, first up, to congratulate the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, on an outstanding 10 years as leader of the Labour Party, and on 4 years as one of the most outstanding performers as a New Zealand Prime Minister in the history of this country. There would not be a more united Labour Party, Labour caucus, and Labour Government when compared with any other Government in the history of this country. The quality, the competency, and the popularity of the leadership provided by Helen Clark and her deputy Dr Michael Cullen are largely responsible for the united state the Government is in. I am proud of that unity, which is the complete opposite of the disunity of the National Party Opposition.

After 10 years of Helen Clark’s leadership, we can see in the employment statistics for New Zealand that unemployment has dropped from 9.1 percent down to 4.4 percent. I feel particular pride in the drop in Māori unemployment from a level of 21.8 percent down to 9.6 percent.

💬 Georgina Beyer: How much?

It is 9.6 percent. It is the first time in 16 years that Māori unemployment has been below 10 percent. I am particularly proud of the fact that this Government has achieved a drop in Pacific unemployment from a level of 22.9 percent down to 6.6 percent. That is a huge achievement by this Government in reducing the employment inequalities in our communities. It has been as a result of strong leadership and a commitment to New Zealand and New Zealanders.

I also want to talk about the state of the Opposition, because it is important for our democracy that we have a strong Opposition. I am sad to say that since the election 18 months ago, the Opposition has been in absolute disarray and disunity, and this afternoon I want to raise the issue of the leadership of the National Party because it is a concern for New Zealanders. One day that leadership may impose certain policies on this country that I think will be disastrous for communities such as the one I represent. I want to mention some of the comments that have been made in relation to the performance of the National Party, and to quote from our learned fourth estate—in this case the New Zealand Press Association—on the leadership of the National Party: “The latest trauma over the deputy leadership threw up a fundamental problem that has bedevilled the National Party for many months. No one knows what anyone else is thinking, doing, plotting or whispering, and National desperately needs its leadership to settle down.”

Another indication of the failure of the National Party leadership right from the start was the resignation of its deputy leader within a matter of weeks, after the new leader had supported Nick Smith. The New Zealand Herald stated the other day that if the Opposition National Party continued to look incompetent in running its own affairs, how on earth could it persuade voters that it was competent to run the country? The answer is that it is not competent to run the country. In the 18 months since the election it has clearly demonstrated its disunity in every respect, and that it is not to be looked at as an alternative Government. Every politician knows that a house that is divided against itself cannot stand. The National Party has certainly demonstrated that it is in no position to form an alternative Government.

Labour members are proud of the unity on this side of the House, and we need that unity to be effective in Government—particularly in relation to our coalition partnership with the Progressive party, as well as with United Future. That comes down to good management by the leadership in relation to how we progress issues in Government and in the House. It is a key issue in relation to how effective we are as a Parliament.

One of the concerns is in relation to what Don Brash represents in policy. We know that it is on record that he wants to sell assets. It is on record that he is looking at raising the eligibility age for pensions, and that is a huge concern for Pacific communities and Māori, as life expectancy for Pacific and Māori people falls well short of 70 years of age. If he raises the eligibility age from 65 to 70, a lot of Māori and Pacific Island people will miss out on a pension, and that is just an absolute disaster for this country.

The Ahmed Zaoui case is becoming a critical test of our justice system and our democracy. The security risk certificate procedure applied against Mr Zaoui is a “trust us” procedure. We are supposed to trust the three official players, the Security Intelligence Service director, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and the Minister of Immigration to get it right in secret—that is, to determine whether Mr Zaoui is a danger to national security. Trusting officials to determine a person’s future in private is the antithesis of true justice, which should be open and accountable.

New Zealanders are now seeing why we cannot leave it up to individual appointees operating in secret. In the November 29 issue of the Listener, the inspector-general, Laurie Greig, showed a prejudice towards asylum seekers and a lack of understanding of our international commitments to them under the 1951 refugee convention. He said: “We don’t want lots of people coming in on false passports (that they’ve) thrown down the loo on the plane and saying, ‘I’m a refugee, keep me here.’” It is well entrenched in refugee law that asylum seekers will often arrive with false documentation because they cannot apply at the local passport office in their country without being dragged off and jailed, tortured, or killed.

We have also seen how the Security Intelligence Service cannot be relied on to get it right. In the Zaoui case, the Refugee Status Appeals Authority comprehensively discredited the summaries and chronologies provided by the Security Intelligence Service. The summary simply repeated the slanders Zaoui had experienced in Europe—slanders that originated with the repressive Algerian regime, which is more threatened by a democrat and peacemaker like Mr Zaoui than it is by real terrorists. Hence its slander and framing-up of Mr Zaoui.

The New Zealand Police also repeated these slanders as the reason to detain Mr Zaoui. The Assistant Police Commissioner for Counter-terrorism, Mr Jon White, told the Department of Corrections on 6 December that Mr Zaoui was wanted on an anti-terrorist warrant—issued, in fact, by the brutal Algerian regime—and that he had been sentenced to death in Algeria, something which the Algerian junta did to 1,500 people, mainly to stop exiled democrats like Mr Zaoui from coming back to Algeria.

Yet Mr Zaoui has been unjustly detained in New Zealand for 12 months—10, shamefully, in solitary confinement, and he is now in court trying to obtain even a minimal summary of the accusations against him. He also wants the inspector-general’s review of that security risk certificate applied to him to at least consider his human rights. It would be unwise for us to rely on the inspector-general to deliver justice to Mr Zaoui. His track record is one of backing up the Security Intelligence Service and the police, even when they are later found to be wrong—as with the raids on the houses of Aziz Choudry and David Small in 1996.

It is clear from the proceedings in the Auckland High Court this week that a key source of the accusations against Mr Zaoui is one or more of the British, American, Canadian, or Australian intelligence agencies.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member cannot talk about the proceedings in court of a case that is going on. So far I have been listening to him carefully. He must make sure that he does not talk about the proceedings in court.

We do know that at least three of the four agencies I have referred to showed their incompetence and political bias over the so-called intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That is another reason why we cannot have intelligence agencies applying secret justice in our country. Now we have Laurie Greig coming out with prejudicial comments against asylum seekers. I hope Parliament will support my motion, on today’s Order Paper, that we recommend to the Governor-General that she remove Mr Greig from office for “neglect of duty” under section 7 of the Act governing the inspector-general.

The Government is reluctant to do this, but it was heartening to hear the Minister of Immigration, Lianne Dalziel, in response to questions by me in a select committee this morning, say that she was “fully bound” by human rights commitments in the Zaoui case, and that she was “very keen” to review the legislation applying to security risk certificates. But if the present law is inadequate, and so many State agencies have got it wrong in the Zaoui case, why will she not lift the security risk certificate off Mr Zaoui, which she is authorised to do at any time. Mr Zaoui has suffered enough. Free him now and let him live here with his family as a legitimate refugee. I seek leave to move the motion in my name—member’s notice of motion No. 1.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member has sought to move that motion. Is there any objection? There is.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.