Urgent Debates — Member for Tamaki Makaurau—Standing Down as Minister

I have received two letters from Rodney Hide seeking debates under Standing Order 373. The first relates to the standing down of the Hon John Tamihere as a Minister. The second relates to the inquiry into allegations surrounding Mr Tamihere and the Waipareira Trust. Both letters relate to particular matters of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility and I would have been inclined to accept either one. In these circumstances the application first received by me is the one that will take priority. However, as the two cases are interrelated, members will be able to refer to the inquiry in debating the standing down of the Minister. I therefore accept the application relating to the standing down of the Hon John Tamihere. I call on the member to move the appropriate motion.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand—remember the promise; see the result. This is what Helen Clark said in 1999: “The Labour Government will set new standards”. That is what Helen Clark promised—she promised new standards, and we have seen new standards. Then she said that the Labour Government would set new standards “both in terms of behaviour and performance”. It has. We have seen a whole new level of performance and behaviour from this Government. Then the Prime Minister Helen Clark went on to say, “so that we govern for the people and are accountable to them.” That was the promise. Look at the result.

Here is another Helen Clark promise from Hansard of 8 February 2000, in her address as Prime Minister:“This Government wants to abandon the culture of golden handshakes negotiated in secrecy, and”—members will love this one—“to abandon the culture of paying people for doing nothing.” That was the promise. Yet John Tamihere was paid $195,000 by the Waipareira Trust, which, it is said, was net—after tax. John Tamihere thought that the Waipareira Trust was paying the tax. So at the 39c tax rate, that would make the gross amount of that golden handshake $320,000. Members should remember that this is not a large Government department or some big corporate; this is a little trust, which the Labour Party pretends to represent, that helps the poor and downtrodden of west Auckland.

Michael Cullen says that it might have been paid before he put up the tax rate, in which case the tax rate was 33c. That would make the payment $291,000 gross. Is that OK? Is that what Helen Clark is now saying? Because that is what she is telling the New Zealand people. I want to remind the New Zealand people of something else that Helen Clark put out: “A decade of shame—today’s reason why National must go.”

Here are the golden handshakes: Bryan Mogridge $200,000; Michael Wall $140,000; Douglas Blackmur from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority $160,000; Roger Estall $68,000—that was terrible; Jean Martin $30,000 to $50,000—how bad was that? Then there was Ian Collinson from Solid Energy $200,000. Now there is another name to add to the list—John Tamihere, with a golden handshake of $320,000 from a trust.

But it gets worse for Helen Clark. She thinks it is OK to have a Minister who campaigned in 1999 on saying that he would not take this golden handshake. I warmed to the guy; the people of New Zealand warmed to this guy. Here was a politician who would set new standards, along with Helen Clark. He was turning down a golden handshake, and the people flocked to the Labour Party because it was a party of standards. We had heard from Helen Clark that there would be no more golden handshakes. We had heard it from John Tamihere, who said he would not take one, even if it was offered to him. He would turn it down, as he was a man of great integrity. What do we now know happened? John Tamihere went around the back and started hassling for his golden handshake.

It gets worse for Helen Clark. She said that it was OK. That is not contested. None of that is contested. Everyone knows that John Tamihere got the golden handshake. They have accepted that. They are only worried about whether he thought the tax had been paid and whether the amount he received was a net amount. But they all know that he had said he would not take it. So it is OK now, in this Government, to say one thing and do another.

But it gets worse. We heard from Minister Parekura Horomia. He said that the Waipareira Trust should not have been spending money on John Tamihere while he campaigned for office. We heard from that Minister, who said that he did not think the trust should have been paying for John Tamihere’s election expenses, on behalf of the Labour Party. Well, that Minister is exactly right about what happened there because, as John Tamihere asked, if the Waipareira Trust was not paying for him, who would be paying his mortgage? Who would be feeding his kids?

What does Helen Clark say about all that? What does the Acting Prime Minister, Michael Cullen, say about all that? They say that it is OK. They will keep him on the pay and perks of a Minister, but remove all his responsibilities. They told him to go and hide in Henderson for a while, and to bury his head—because Labour is a Government that says one thing and does another. Helen Clark said that this Government was going to close the gaps. That is why it poured money into things like the Waipareira Trust. Well—close the gaps! She has opened the gaps: John Tamihere got a $320,000 golden handshake. But wait, there is more. They gave him a car—oh, it is tough being a Labour MP—and, because he was struggling, paid for the insurance on his car. When we look at that Labour Party, we might say “Surely not!”, because John Tamihere would fill all that out in his ministerial return—would he not? Prime Minister Helen Clark would demand that, would she not?

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: It is in the Cabinet Manual.

But if we pick up the Cabinet Manual for that year, what does it have for John Tamihere? A nil return. He put in nothing. So what is this Government saying to the people of New Zealand? It is saying that that is OK. And we learn that when it came to paying tax, Mr John Tamihere was confused. He thought that the $195,000 was a net amount. He must have been confused also when he filled out his election return. He did not realise that as a taxpayer it is absolutely the taxpayer’s responsibility to ensure that he or she pays income tax.

So Helen Clark is saying that when small-business people in New Zealand get paid, they should just say: “Oh, I thought that that was the net amount.” It worked for John Tamihere; he did not even lose his job over it. We cannot say that John Tamihere should not understand these things, because he is a lawyer, for goodness’ sake! He was the chief executive officer of an organisation receiving $8 million a year, and he is the Minister for Small Business, for Helen Clark.

I have no faith in Helen Clark’s inquiry, because, in her own words, she has already done several inquiries. Mike Williams, the president of the Labour Party, said that this was old ground and that it had all been done over before—as though the Labour Party knew all this. Well, here is something about Helen Clark. Mr Winston Peters asked her whether Mr Tamihere had disclosed to her that he had pleaded guilty to two charges of forgery and two charges of uttering, and he also asked when she learnt of that information. Here is the answer. On 26 July 2000 Helen Clark told Parliament: “Approximately 5 years ago Mr Tamihere’s counsel, at Mr Tamihere’s request, briefed me fully on the general matters the member is alluding to, and I saw the full statement of defence.”

Well, I am pleased to report—happily—that I have the full statement of defence. I also have the captioned summary for the charge that the police laid against John Tamihere. It is headed: “Forgery, as per attached information x 2—penalty, 10 years’ imprisonment; uttering, forged documents x 2—penalty, 10 years’ imprisonment—heard in the Auckland District Court on 13 September 1994.” It states: “Prior to August 1989 the defendant, Mr John Tamihere, on behalf of the trustees, applied to the Housing Corporation for a loan and grants to a total of $160,000, to enable three retirement units to be built on a reservation on part of the land farmed by the Mataroa Incorporation.” I think that Mr Speaker was Minister of Housing at the time, having just taken over from Helen Clark. It then goes on to state that on 21 May 1990 the documents—namely, the licence to occupy and the deed of agreement, acknowledgment of debt—were forwarded to the Housing Corporation. The documents purported at that time to have been signed by the trustees as required. It was subsequently established that at least two of the signatures on each of the two documents had been forged. The signatures concerned are those of Mr Tony Paparangi and Mr Ernest Hauraki. The signatures were forged by the defendant, who also signed the documents as having witnessed the signatures. At the time of the signing, the defendant had no lawful authority to sign on their behalf.

He signed two documents to obtain $160,000. He pleaded guilty to that, and the Prime Minister said she knew all about it in 1995, because she said she had the full statement of defence in her hand. But then again, Prime Minister Helen Clark is hardly one who can make too much of a song and dance about forging documents, is she.

So now we know the standard of this Government: it is OK to forge documents and become a Cabinet Minister; it is OK to say one thing to the public of New Zealand—“I will not accept a golden handshake.”—it is OK to take money from the Waipareira Trust and use it to campaign for the Labour Party; and it is OK to say that one was confused about one’s tax and never paid it. What will Helen Clark do? She will say to go and hide out in Henderson for a while, but keep the parliamentary pay, keep the ministerial pay, and keep the perks. That is the standard of Helen Clark in this Government. I say that we on this side of the House have no faith in any Government inquiry.

💬 Ron Mark: Tuku Morgan.

The member is calling out about Tuku Morgan. Compared to this, Tuku went shopping at The Warehouse. That is what this can be compared to. Tuku Morgan was stingy, compared to John Tamihere’s having to cover his mortgage and feed his kids. Tuku Morgan was a shopper at The Warehouse—and did we not hear Helen Clark complain about that! All the accounts of Aotearoa Television had to be made public.

Well, I say this: Tuku paid his tax; John Tamihere did not. I say to Helen Clark that this is her responsibility. It is the standard that she has set in Government. I do not have faith in any inquiry that is not totally independent of Helen Clark, and why do I say that? Because as the Prime Minister said: “There have been many inquiries under me, as Prime Minister, and they found nothing.” I say that if we do not go looking, we will not find it. I suggest to the Government that it sack John Tamihere today, and send a very strong signal about the standard for any Government of this country.

My second point is that the Government should instruct for a judicial inquiry into this matter, because, to date, the inquiries that Helen Clark has set up have totally failed in their undertakings. Helen Clark should send a simple signal. She is the one who campaigned for new standards. Are they new standards below anything we have ever seen in the history of New Zealand, or are they standards of some note? When one of her Ministers promises the electorate: “I would not take that money”, and wins votes accordingly, that is held to account. Every time a Minister stands up and answers a question in this House, or tells the media something, are we to assume that that is the truth, or is it an answer like the one John Tamihere gave?

As the member rightly said: “If you don’t go looking, you won’t find anything.”, and I think that one or two of my colleagues might be starting to take that advice just a bit seriously about one or two other people in the House. There might be some interesting issues around a few million shares that somebody happened to have only a short time after leaving Parliament, having been here for many years.

I do not anticipate taking my full 15 minutes today, but I do want to say that if that was the best that counsel for the prosecution can do, acting on behalf of the ACT party, in cohorts with the Māori Party, then I do not think John Tamihere has an awful lot to be afraid of, arising out of this particular affair. That was one of the weakest attacks I have ever seen in these kinds of circumstances. Even Dr Brash could have done better than that, and that is about as low as one can go in that regard. He rested almost his entire case, apart from dredging up ancient history and reading it out in great amounts, on misrepresenting almost everything said by the Prime Minister, or me, or the Minister of Māori Affairs. What we did learn was that the statesman role has been cast aside—well and truly. The ACT party is 2 percent in the polls. It is clear that there is only one way up—and this is the way to go because there are certain kinds of animals that go up only in that particular way. What we certainly do know is that Dr Jekyll has disappeared and the real Mr Hide has reappeared as of this afternoon.

This Government did indeed set new standards, and that is why Mr Tamihere has stood aside. Can members imagine this happening under the National Government—Minister after Minister after Minister, guilty of serious offences and serious breaches of public faith, not standing aside but carrying on with every excuse made about their actions? Serious allegations have been made against Mr Tamihere, and they are serious allegations taken seriously by the Government, but it behoves—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Aw!

I will come back to that member in a minute, because unfortunately I now have the documentation on him. I will come to him a little later on. The allegations are taken seriously by the Government and it has therefore set up an inquiry. The first move by the Opposition was to try to slander Douglas White QC. I am looking at the face of the once-hopeful leader of the ACT party. He knows Mr Douglas White very well. Any notion that Mr Douglas White is in the pocket of a Labour-led Government is really so farcical as to be absolutely absurd. I just wish those members would say that kind of thing outside the House, but of course they will not do that because they lack the unparliamentary word to make that possible.

There are issues in front of the inquiry. First: what was the nature of the payment? Members are loving the term “golden handshake”. Well, they should read the Waipareira Trust press statement today. It came from Mr Eynon Delamere, and he is not a stooge of the Labour Party. He is part of the other group within the Waipareira Trust, and he has no love for Mr John Tamihere. He does not say it was a golden handshake. He does not say that.

💬 Hon Bill English: It was.

Oh! It was, because Mr English knows better. That is why he is sitting where he is instead of over there. The second issue is: what was the responsibility for the payment of tax? That is as much a technical issue as any other. It is obvious that members opposite do not understand what the law is. They do not understand what derivation of income is, and what year it applies to. They do not understand any of those issues. That is why we have a QC conducting the inquiry, not one of the members opposite. There is the issue of the vehicle and the insurance thereon, and when the payment ended in that particular respect. There is the issue of the election return. I did notice with amusement that TV3 said that the law on election returns was very clear. That could be said only by somebody who has never done one in the past. There is also the issue of payments being made by Mr Tolich and what those payments went to. Mr Tamihere assures me that he has answers on those questions.

💬 Rodney Hide: Oh, you trust him? Where is he then?

I would not trust the member further than I could throw him—and despite the fact that I go to the gym five times a week, I could not throw him very far. In fact, when the member was speaking, and I had this vision of him in boxer shorts, I was inclined to leave the House and not try to speak at all in the debate. Our view is that these accusations are not to be dismissed lightly, and are not to be taken as proven before all the evidence and the explanations are to hand. The Tory parties do not take that view on natural justice, because there is nothing natural and nothing just about either the National Party or the ACT party. All matters will be fully considered—

💬 Katherine Rich: What about Tuku Morgan?

Well, that member managed to lose her mother a job. All matters will be fully considered and independently reported on, and that report will be published.

What I hear, in this House and outside, is the sound of crackling glasshouses all over the place. Which party has deeply opposed the Members of Parliament (Pecuniary Interests) Bill, which would require MPs to make a declaration of their other assets and income? The ACT party. Why? We know why its members do not want to declare their pecuniary interests—they have far too many of them, and they do not want people to look at them. Look at Mr Hide. He was asked a straight question today and gave a curly answer. He was asked whether he had received payments from businessmen outside Parliament, and he said in response: “To do anything in Parliament?”—a little innocent qualification to the question. Once the qualification was in, he said: “No, I haven’t.” Of course that leads to the obvious answer that he has received payment from businessmen outside Parliament. He had payments from business people outside this House while he was an MP—and this is the counsel for the prosecution! He should be the expert witness for the prosecution on these sorts of matters, because that is about where he is in that regard. And would Mr Shirley care to assure us that nobody in the forest industry has given him any kind of remuneration, benefit, interest, or anything since he has become a member of Parliament? What a stunning silence.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: I remind members that points of order will be heard in silence.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I draw your attention to Speaker’s ruling 119/4, which was given by Speaker Hunt in 2000: “As long as the member who made a personal statement remains a member of the House, the member’s personal explanation may not be debated or otherwise challenged, even where it was given in a previous Parliament.” I have given a personal statement, and stated categorically to this House that I have received no remuneration for the work I did for the international forestry sector.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: That statement will be respected because the member gave that in this House. I stand by my previous ruling.

Absolutely, I respect that statement that no payments were made by the international forestry sector. I ask again: did he receive any payments, any remuneration, or any interest from any aspect of the forestry industry since he became a member of Parliament? And he is silent on that.

We then had Mr Hide on tax. Mr Hide’s allegation against Mr Tamihere is that he avoided tax. This man went to Fiji to instruct people on how to avoid tax. He made a crusade of defending one of the biggest and nastiest tax evaders in this country, Mr David Henderson—“Hendo” to the leader of the ACT party; one of his closest mates—who ran the sex industry in Christchurch and avoided tax thereon, although I am sure he got no freebies out of that.

Then we had the issue of Dr Nick Smith. It is so terrible when people do things that get them into trouble with the law. What did happen to Dr Nick Smith? He was found to have committed contempt of court. That means that the court did not believe what he told the court. The court found that Dr Smith had not told the court what were, shall we say, the facts. That was the reality. Did he get pushed off the front bench? Did he move anywhere? Was he stood down? No, he was praised by the leader and the rest of the National Party for his actions. There really are two rules in this country for the National Party—one rule for National Party members and one rule for the rest of the country. If people in the rest of the country are guilty they get punished, but if they are in the National Party they get praised.

How has this all come about? Mr Hide has been working for some months trawling through the records of the trust and working with individuals within it who are closely connected with the Māori Party, working on behalf of the interests of those who are seeking to replace Mr Tamihere with a Māori Party MP in his electorate at the next election. The ACT party is working on the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in this particular case. So what are the realities—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about public accountability?

Dr Nick Smith asks about public accountability. He is the man who was found to have committed contempt of court and who was not believed by the court. He asks where the accountability is, from the luxury of the Opposition front bench.

Finally, I make one gentle point to every member of this House. Before everyone in this House waxes so eloquent about severance payments, whatever they may be, I invite members to look at their own salary’s determination, because even Dr Nick Smith, should he go down at the next election—pray God that he does—will collect 3 months’ salary for doing nothing, but, then, he has been collecting a salary for doing nothing for the last couple of years, in any case.

In the interests of openness and transparency, I seek leave to table the police caption sheet against John Tamihere.

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

I seek the leave of the House to table a copy of the document that the Prime Minister said she had seen, which is the defence of John Tamihere in the District Court at Howick in Auckland.

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

We are debating a very serious issue today and a series of very serious allegations. The first one is that Mr John Tamihere flagrantly misled the public. That is accusation No. 1. He had said that he would not take a golden handshake, but at the same time he accepted a golden handshake that was at least $195,000 and may have been closer to $300,000. It was a blatant misleading of the public. That, in itself, should be sufficient to have this man resign from Cabinet and, indeed, resign from Parliament.

The second accusation is that he may not have paid tax on this very substantial amount—an amount that, if it was a gross pre-tax figure, was about five times the average wage, and, if it was a net figure after tax, it was about six or seven times the average wage. That is a huge amount of money on which he may not have paid tax. This is a very serious matter that in itself would suggest that Mr Tamihere should be out of Cabinet and probably out of Parliament. Then, thirdly, it is alleged that he failed to correctly file his electoral expenses return. If that is the case, and if it is established that he has spent more than his statutory limit, his election to the House is invalid.

Each one of these three accusations is sufficient to have Mr Tamihere resign from Cabinet and, indeed, resign from Parliament. So, first, we have three very serious allegations made against a Minister of this Government. Then we have the matter of quite different standards being applied by the Prime Minister. This Prime Minister is someone who required Lianne Dalziel to resign from a ministerial position immediately it was established that she had misled the public. The Prime Minister said: “Off with her head!”. Now we have a Minister who, on the face of it, has transgressed in three serious matters, and the Prime Minister seems to be saying that that is OK.

It is the most flagrant example of this Government applying different standards to Māori Ministers than to non-Māori Ministers. That is a serious matter that I think this House should reflect on very carefully. Lianne Dalziel was out on her ear because she misled the public. John Tamihere has been asked to stand down, while continuing to draw a salary, and just to lie low for a time, despite the fact that he may have misled the public, may have failed to pay tax on a very large lump-sum amount, and may have falsified his electoral expenses return. Those are very serious accusations.

This is also the same Prime Minister who in 1999 said—when she was in Opposition, of course—that Labour, if in Government, would apply new standards to the performance of Government and the performance of bureaucracy. Well, we have new standards all right—a new low standard that exceeds anything that we saw in the previous decade. Indeed, I cannot think of any case that is more serious than the one we are currently facing. It is a very serious accusation, even leaving aside the fact that he may have been paid this money for doing things when he was in Parliament.

The chairman of the Waipareira Trust has suggested that that was a misunderstanding and he was not really being paid to do things in the House, and, for the moment at least, I accept that comment. But even without that comment there are three things, any one of which would require him to resign if the Prime Minister had any sense of what was decent and appropriate for a Minister in a New Zealand Government.

The next issue that worries me greatly is the nature of the inquiry established. I am not going to call into question the integrity of Douglas White QC, but he has been asked to undertake an inquiry with very limited powers. Indeed, we have the words of Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former Labour Prime Minister, to confirm that. He said this morning on television: “I think it is also important to say that this is not a commission of inquiry. This is not a body that will hold public hearings. It does not have the power to compel evidence and to cross-examine people; it relies on the voluntary cooperation of the people about whom the inquiry has been launched.”

What kind of inquiry is that? What kind of confidence can we have in the conclusions of that inquiry? Mr Douglas White QC has absolutely no statutory authority. He has absolutely no ability to subpoena witnesses or to subpoena documents or files; he has absolutely no ability to cross-examine witnesses; and he cannot look into any matter without the express permission of those being inquired into. Who does he report to? He reports to the Prime Minister, and only to the Prime Minister.

The inquiry is effectively powerless, and it is toothless. These allegations are so serious that we should have a proper commission of inquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses, subpoena documents, and subpoena files. This is a very serious matter. We run the risk that in 6 weeks’ time, by late November, we will have the results of this so-called inquiry, and unfortunately we can have no confidence in the results of that inquiry at all. We need a proper commission of inquiry, which has the appropriate authority to look into this very serious accusation. [Interruption] Mr Mallard may not regard this as a serious matter, but it is one of the most serious accusations ever made against any Minister in this House. We have a QC who has no powers to investigate and no powers to subpoena. All he does is look at things that witnesses are willing to contribute; he has no power to subpoena at all.

My final point is this. In response to a question I asked in the House earlier this afternoon about Mr Tamihere providing a written guarantee to the Prime Minister, the Acting Prime Minister said that there had not been a written guarantee, it was simply an oral guarantee that the Minister had given to the Prime Minister a few days ago. Let me quote from page 147 of Mr Tamihere’s own recently published autobiography. He states: “I gave the Prime Minister a written guarantee that I had done nothing at Waipareira that would embarrass her, the party, and most importantly, my family. I gave her my Wanganui computer printout showing her my police record, and gave her written authority to access any of my financial or employment records.”

That is a written guarantee in anyone’s language, and either Mr Tamihere was not quite fully accurate in his autobiography, or the Acting Prime Minister was not quite accurate in his response to my question. On the face of it Mr Tamihere has given the Prime Minister a written guarantee that he has done nothing to embarrass the Government, and it looks as if that is nothing like the truth. The public expects the Prime Minister to be consistent in her treatment of seriously offending Ministers, and so far the public is seriously disappointed.

That photographer up there has a most important photograph. He just got Don Brash talking in the House. It will be an exclusive, and its value will be immense. But this is a terribly sad day for the Māori people in this country, an awfully sad day for New Zealand, and an even sadder day for John Tamihere. I can recall the Tuku Morgan affair and an $89 pair of underpants that he bought with his pay, after having left work one night. Helen Clark said anything and everything about that, as did Mr Mallard. There were four full-scale inquiries, and at the end there was no sin or crime found, at all. There were four full-scale inquires, and no crime at all. It is actually quite amusing, in a very sad way, but I was the Minister of Māori Affairs once, and I was sacked for trying to expose corruption. I said that the Quality Inn deal was a fraud, and I was fired for it.

💬 Dail Jones: By whom?

By Jim Bolger of the National Party. It is really a matter of great interest to me that I have not heard one word from the National Party, or from ACT, about Fay Richwhite’s latest deal—not a murmur, not a mutter, not a syllable, and not a sound. Back in the days of the wine-box inquiry, Fay Richwhite was doing its best to shut it up.

Along has come a member of Parliament who is clearly, in my view, a goner—and I am sad to say that, because I have a certain view. But facts are facts, and I want to go through them. We would not be having this discussion today were it not for the fact that some time ago, in July 1999, the media of this country were alerted to the facts, and decided “because they wanted their party in Government” that they would do nothing at all about them. They all know that. These allegations were made in this House on 27 July 1999, and that was followed up by further radio programmes outside Parliament, in which no attempt was made by me to say things in a privileged environment. I have to ask myself about the spinelessness that overcomes the New Zealand media when it does not even report what is privileged in the House, let alone what is said outside it. Let me tell members this. Back then, on 27 July 1999, I alleged that there would be a golden handshake. Two days later John Tamihere said, when he was asked whether that was usual for the Waipareira Trust and whether it was normal practice: “Oh, it’s never happened before, so I want to make a number of points clear. As of last night there won’t be any severance pay.”

💬 Dail Jones: Who said that?

John Tamihere said that.

💬 Dail Jones: When?

On 29 July 1999. He went on to say: “As I have indicated to you this morning, as of this morning it’s no longer an issue for the whānau, Waipareira Trust, or John Tamihere.”

Then John Tamihere went on to say this, when he was asked whether he would mind the real world of politics, of being a candidate, and all that: “I don’t mind that, but if you are going to accept these standards of so-called party politics, you’ve got to get out of the gutter sooner or later. I don’t really want to debase myself by running around in a sewer with Winston Peters.” That is what he said. Then John Tamihere went on to say a whole lot of other things, and they were believed, of course, by the media—beloved as he was by them. I remember telling Angela Gregory, a New Zealand Herald correspondent, about all that, but she thought she knew better than me. Five years later we know just how irresponsible she was when she was given all the facts—the whole facts, and all the facts. Mr Tamihere knew it was not true, because there was a meeting at Taipa up in the far north on 17 April when the first proposal of $50,000 was turned down. The later proposal was for $280,000, and for a range of other issues as well. I am quoting from Hansard. He also knew it was not true, on 27 and 29 July, because on 3 May 1999, 2 months earlier in the same year, he had received this letter from the trust: “Tēnā koa, John, re your pending resignation.” It is all here; it is all out there.

Now let us examine what has happened today. Mr Cullen got up and acted very much like Jenny Shipley did back in July of 1999.

💬 Dail Jones: Who did that?

Jenny Shipley, the former National Prime Minister, did not want to know. She was asked about Government expenditure; she did not want to know. Today Mr Cullen said that there are four issues involved. He asked whether it was a golden handshake. The answer to that is, of course it was. That is why, back then, Mr Tamihere was denying it. The second issue was about tax law—was it infringed? Of course it was. That is why the Government has Rob McLeod doing the work. That self-pronounced expert—John Tamihere—has got Rob McLeod on the case. The third issue concerns vehicle insurance, and of course that is an undeclared benefit. The fourth issue that Dr Cullen raised was about election returns. Now that is serious, because it is an incomplete return and it takes him way over the expenditure limit, for a start. That, as the Reg Boorman case of 1987 will tell members, is a corrupt practice. That is it; good night. One cent over the top, and one is gone. Now there is a funny thing about that, because back in 1987, when Roger McClay, myself, and a man called Brian Henry were handling the Wyatt Creech case, we alleged a corrupt practice on the part of Mr Boorman. Members will not believe this, but we got a phone call that night from the National Party, which was paranoid that we had brought that allegation. We asked why that was, when it was part of our pleadings. National said Labour and National had members who were over the top, and National did not want us to complicate the matter for it. That is what the National Party told me—that it did not want us to complicate that matter for it. We said National could go and get stuffed. We said it was not helping Wyatt Creech and did not even believe in the case, and that we would be carrying on, regardless. That is a fact members do not know, but I am telling them now—and it is true.

💬 Rodney Hide: It’s the best sort of fact.

It is a fair sort of fact, yeah. But talk about people throwing stones, or throwing pipi in a whare—this is it.

There is the issue of the payments by Mr Tolich and where they went. I think I have a clear eye as to where they went, and it will not be above board in respect of the Waipareira Trust. There are all sorts of other things, like scholarships to universities—to the Auckland University of Technology, and what have you. It is all there. But I want to ask this question: why did Dr Cullen not raise the question of the falsification of application numbers to tax-paying bodies involved in training and health? So the trust overstates its application numbers and it underspends, and that is why it has all the profits for the Westgate investment. It is as clear as daylight. The second issue is this: here is an outfit that declared an unrealised sale profit, before the sale occurred, as present income. That is illegal. It was over $800,000, and it took the books from the red to the black. That is serious. Then, of course, there are the over 30 forged cheques, which the Māori Affairs Committee heard all about in the year 2000 and did nothing about—and the committee heard about it from the former Waipareira Trust lawyer. It heard about the forging of cheques and the falsification of accounts.

All I want to say is that this is a very sad for John Tamihere, and I believe for the Labour Party and for the Māori people in particular. But those are the facts—except that I would like, sometime, for the people on the Opposition side of the House to have the same keen interest when people who are not brown commit those sorts of sins. When they do it, the sin is magnified a million times over, and I sit here and I hear not a sound, not a syllable. I have to ask myself—

💬 Gerry Brownlee: That’s not true.

It is true, and I more than anybody else know it. [Interruption] I know it for a fact. That member has a colleague over there who was prepared to defame me, yet last Friday in the High Court in Auckland he said that whatever he had said about Winston Peters was not true.

That is what he said, but that member did not raise a finger about all the other serious offences that go on in the name of this country and this Parliament. If there is going to be one law for everybody, then let us make sure that there is.

A significant number of very serious accusations have been made in relation to John Tamihere’s actions, both before and since he left the Waipareira Trust. It is appropriate that those be dealt with by way of a thorough investigation by someone with the appropriate expertise. The Government is therefore to be congratulated on moving swiftly to set up an inquiry, on ensuring that the terms of reference cover all known and likely accusations, and on the relatively tight time frame within which Douglas White QC must report. But let us face it—the Government had no alternative.

If any of the accusations are true, then they will be of great concern not only to this Parliament but to all the people of New Zealand, and especially to taxpayers and recipients of the services provided by the Waipareira Trust. I know myself that it would have been immoral and totally unacceptable for me to have used my employer at the time, Trade Aid, to bankroll my first election campaign, especially as that organisation was in receipt of Government grants to support its work with the poor and disadvantaged. But it is not for this Parliament to act as a kangaroo court on these matters. As Dr Cullen said, we do not live in “Alice in Wonderland”, and therefore the sequence of events should be evidence, a verdict, and then, if appropriate, sentencing.

Whatever the outcome of the formal investigation, John Tamihere has to live with having made a categorical public statement that he would not accept a golden handshake before the election, and then proceeding to accept one after the election. John Tamihere has been a role model to many people, both Māori and Pākehā. He has let them down, and he has let himself down. Ultimately, the public will judge Mr Tamihere on the morality, rather than the legality, of his behaviour. He should reflect on that as he makes a political decision about his future.

As the allegations about John Tamihere have unfolded over recent days I have tried to listen to them with a degree of dispassion. That has become increasingly difficult to do, because of the way that so much of the fact as it appears has been mixed with the innuendo that is fuelling a lot of the allegations that are floating around. In the time I have available to me this afternoon, I want to try to separate out some of the issues, if I can, and then to look at the likely consequences of the actions that relate to them. I want to do that against a background of making this observation: John Tamihere may well be a big loser from this whole saga, but I suspect that an even bigger loser in terms of credibility, confidence, and certainty is this Parliament. Yet again we will have shown—and already this debate this afternoon has shown traces of it—that when faced with a situation of the magnitude and seriousness of this one, we do not debate the issue, but, rather, we very quickly descend into a “Who said what, who did what,” tit for tat, back and forward “If you’ve got an allegation, I’ve got a better one to top it.” sort of a debate. The people of New Zealand, who want to get some answers and want to get to the truth, simply say: “There they go again! I’m sick of the lot of them. Why don’t they all go away?”.

Let us get back to the issues here. I think they come into two broad categories. There are the issues that relate to Mr Tamihere, and there are the issues in a wider sense that relate to the Waipareira Trust. If we take the issues that relate to Mr Tamihere, we find there are about three broad headings. There is the question of whether he accepted a golden handshake, having said he would not do so. There is the issue of the tax status of that payment. There is the question of any subsequent expenses paid to him or expectations made of him in respect of any payment advanced. The issue of the golden handshake is in some senses the least important of the three. That comes down to whether he stuck by his word—and the implications of that are serious enough if he is shown not to have done so, but it is actually not a criminal offence to change one’s mind. On the issue of taxation, it is a much more clear-cut case: was there a tax liability, and, if so, how was it met and what steps did Mr Tamihere take in respect of his responsibilities in that regard? The third question, the question of expenses and the associated matter revealed on television last night—that any payments made to him were less of a severance or a redundancy and more of a recognition of services he was going to continue to provide to the trust while a member of Parliament—is, I think, the most serious allegation of the lot.

The latter two questions and the question of the golden handshake deserve the full attention of an independent commission of inquiry, such as the White inquiry, because if there is an allegation arising from that that criminality is involved, then that is a matter for the courts to proceed with separately. I think what is happening here, and what concerns me not just in this particular case but as a general point of principle, is that members seem to be expecting an inquiry of some description to be the judge, jury, and executioner. What an inquiry of the nature of the one that has been established will do is to determine whether there is a basis for any further action, whether criminal or otherwise. It is very important in these types of instances not to put carts before horses but to move one step at a time, in the interests of clarity, in the interests of public decency and decorum, and in the interests of Mr Tamihere. While Mr Tamihere may well be down at the moment and quite possibly out, he has certain rights to represent himself, to have his side of the story heard, and to have his explanations proffered, as well.

Alongside those issues, which the White inquiry will deal with, is a set of wider matters that relate to the Waipareira Trust, some of which have been rehearsed in the House this afternoon—allegations such as those made on TV3 last night and those repeated by Mr Peters just a few short moments ago. I concede that it is very difficult in the heat of the moment to separate some of those things out from the particular circumstances that affect Mr Tamihere. Indeed, it may well be impossible to do so, because there may be such a close link. However, I think the point that my colleague Gordon Copeland attempted to allude to during question time today is also relevant here. Various accounting and auditing standards have not been well applied in relation to bodies of the type of the Waipareira Trust, and many others—and we are not talking solely about Māori organisations here, either. The Government has been aware of deficiencies in those bodies with regard to auditing practice for many years, and the Audit Office has drawn attention to them as requiring to be rectified as a matter of some urgency. But they have not been yet addressed. I think that many of the circumstances in the second set of issues—those relating to the Waipareira Trust—come down to the adequacy of our control procedures and the need to move swiftly to rectify them. Any organisation that receives any form of public funding has to accept a measure of accountability. Our standards have been variable and lax in that respect for far too long. This will not be the last such case of its type to arouse the attention of this House.

The issue that we then need to address is what all of that does for the integrity not just of Mr Tamihere—that is a matter he has to wrestle with and reach his own decisions on in due course—but for the wider integrity of our system of Government and for the role of this Parliament. People have a right to expect that the people who serve as members of Cabinet or as members of Parliament are, to the greatest extent possible, honourable and honest. That is a charge we value and protect very strongly in this House. One cannot impugn a member’s integrity, and that is as it should be, but it carries with it the expectation that a member’s integrity is straightforward, completely honest, and without blemish. When we engage in a debate in this House that, if we are brutally honest, is far less about John Tamihere and the rights and wrongs of his actions, or his case, and is much more about the respective political advantage to those who may be throwing rocks one way or the other, we demean ourselves totally. I do not know about other members, but since this case has been in the media a number of allegations have been made to me about a number of other members in this Chamber, and all sorts of things that they may, or may not, have got up to. All sorts of people have said to me “This is absolutely, fundamentally true. It cannot be denied.”. What it actually invites, if we carry on down this path, is for all those accusations, however unsubstantiated they are, to be tossed around here under the protection of parliamentary privilege, in the hope that somewhere along the way just a little bit of the mud sticks and does damage.

I am not saying that John Tamihere should not be held to account for his actions. He should be. I am not saying that there should not be a full and proper inquiry. There ought to be. I am not saying that if matters arise from that inquiry that require further action, they should not be followed up. But I am saying to members of this House that we should deal with the issue here. Let us focus on what this issue is about. This is not an opportunity for all the dirty washing and all the dirty linen, and the muck that people feel somehow compelled to throw, to be tossed around. If we are really talking about integrity, trust, and honour, then let us think of the trust and the honour of this place. It will suffer, and with it will suffer the individual integrity of every member and the credibility of any Government—this Government, or any succeeding one—to be able to act in the public interest. That is not a responsibility I want to have on my shoulders. I want to see this place work well and constructively, and I think that most members do likewise. I simply make the plea that as we go through the process of the Tamihere case, we recall the wider circumstances and do our best for this country.

The member who has just resumed his seat, Peter Dunne, is a person whom I have some respect for. Normally, he is a man who offers this House very sensible suggestions about how we should progress issues, but I think he has lost his way a little bit on this one. He is right to say that Mr Tamihere has the right to put his case and to have his side of the story heard. Mr Tamihere, as a member of this House, also has the right to come here, the highest court in the land, to tell this House what the facts are. Where is he? He is hiding in Henderson, having been sent there by his own caucus because it knows that this is a huge embarrassment not only to it, not only to him, but also to this House.

This man cannot return to Cabinet. He will be skating on thin ice if he ever comes back to this House, because it is not credible and it lacks integrity for a member to say to the public in this country: “I will take this course of action with regard to my personal circumstances.”, then do the opposite. In Mr Tamihere’s case, he said that he would not take any golden handshake—the Prime Minister had said that none of her people would be taking golden handshakes—then, for 2 years, he sneaked around the back of that trust, putting pressure on it to come up with the funds to pay him out. We know that the trust had to sell assets, give up programmes, and scrape to the very bottom of its resources in order to make that payment to John Tamihere. No Labour Party member can go out in the next election cycle, or even the next day that he or she might visit his or her constituency, and talk about Labour’s care for those at the bottom end of the social ladder in this country, as long as John Tamihere remains in Labour’s caucus. Labour members know that. They know how brazen he is and what a huge problem it would be if he were to be around Parliament at the moment.

Members should look at an article written by John Tamihere in today’s Dominion Post, in which he states: “We owe it as leaders to set some new potentials and standards for our young people coming through—”.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: That’s actually right.

There is nothing wrong with that; it is quite right. He goes on: “to appeal to their promise and potential, to lead by example and not become corrupted by the iwi chequebook.” Is it not extraordinary that he should make that statement just 5 days after this little allegation was laid against him in connection with an urban Māori authority, an organisation that, he has argued repeatedly, should have the same respect as iwi?

We know where the Labour Party is by the way in which Dr Cullen handled things in the House today. He went on the attack and had a go at just about every member in this House—

💬 Rodney Hide: And those outside.

And some outside. Most of us who were supposed to be cowering at the end of his words were wondering what on earth he was talking about and what planet he was on, because his allegations against others today had no connection to the situation that Mr Tamihere finds himself in. We know that the inquiry that has been set up to find out what is going on, supposedly, and to report to the Prime Minister—

💬 Rodney Hide: A whitewash.

—will be exactly as it has been labelled by the Opposition—a whitewash. It is unfortunate that the Queen’s Counsel conducting the inquiry happens to be a Mr White; no disrespect to him is intended, but this inquiry will be a whitewash. I ask myself this question: if there was not something seriously wrong here, why was Mr Tamihere stood down? If there was not something seriously wrong here, why did Mr Tamihere not front up to the highest court in the land and explain himself? If there was not a problem, why did Mr Tamihere not come out last Friday and say: ”Here are the tax details. It’s all sorted.”? Why did he not say: “Here’s my ministerial declaration. It’s all in here—not a problem.”?

I want to put this little suggestion to the House, as well, over the issue of the car that Mr Tamihere had in his possession well after he had left the Waipareira Trust. If it was a gift, it should have been included in his ministerial interests statement. It was not, if it was somehow some form of recompense or income offered to him as a director of Westland Ltd, then he should have declared it as income and paid tax on it. He should have been able to come along to the House and hold up documents to show that he had done just that.

But all of this is actually not the issue—Mr Dunne is right in that regard. The issue is that the Prime Minister said she would set new standards and require new levels of behaviour from her Ministers. Well, this sort of thing has not been seen from a Minister in a National Government—not ever.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Ha, ha!

It surprises us that Dr Cullen should think that he can prove otherwise. Mr Tamihere is a man who has gone about this country proclaiming his interest in the well-being of some of the poorest and least advantaged in our communities, then has shown that, at the same time, he is prepared to rip into their pockets, take what little they have, and ingratiate himself, believing himself to be better than they ever could be.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: And lie about it.

Then he refuses to tell the truth about that fact. I want Labour members—

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The comment made by the member—I have forgotten his name—from somewhere up north, and also the comment made by the deputy leader of the National Party are out of order.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: They were out of order. A member cannot suggest that another member is not telling the truth.

I withdraw that comment, and will rephrase it by saying that Mr Tamihere has refused to come to this House and put the record straight. He is happy to leave it to a Queen’s Counsel, who has no statutory authority, no capacity to subpoena information, documents, files, etc., no capacity to subpoena witnesses, and no capacity to cross-examine, and who has the capacity only to investigate what Mr Tamihere himself will allow him to investigate, and who then will report to the Prime Minister.

There is no question in my mind that after the Government first saw this happening, last Thursday, it moved swiftly on Friday to get rid of Mr Tamihere. When things went a little bit quiet over the weekend, it thought: “We can get through this. We can get him off this.” It thought it could come up with some weak inquiry this week, and could paper over the cracks, and Mr Tamihere would be back by Christmas, sitting in Cabinet. Let me make this prediction: John Tamihere will never sit in Cabinet again in this country. What is more, if the proper investigations are done—if all the information is made available to the public—he will not survive as a member of Parliament in this country, either. I say to all those Labour members opposite who are about to leap up and defend him that they should think about what it will be like for them out on the traps, telling those people whom Labour Party members like to think they represent the best that Mr Tamihere at all times had their interests in his sights. It is absolutely clear that Mr Tamihere had his own interests in his sights, at all times.

I want to suggest that it is unfortunate that Mr Winston Peters suggested in his contribution today that somehow the attack on John Tamihere is racially motivated. Let us be very clear: there would be no attack on John Tamihere if there were no problem. I also want to know why Lianne Dalziel was—

There can be no more serious allegations than the ones raised in this House today, and that is why this Government has moved swiftly to initiate a high-level inquiry. At the same time, though, we have to acknowledge that Mr Tamihere’s years at the Waipareira Trust were a great success story. Here are the facts. Mr Tamihere started with a 12-employee organisation with a turnover of half a million dollars. He finished with over 200 employees and a turnover of $8 million. That member over there, Mr Rodney Hide, has never run a business—could not run bathwater—in his life. With the organisation building so quickly and so strongly, were all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed? The answer is no. But few organisations with such a remarkable growth record would be able to withstand the scrutiny that Mr Tamihere has been exposed to.

What we have seen in this House today, and in the last week, is a hatchet job of awesome proportions. It has brought together three vengeful groups: the trustees and staff of the Waipareira Trust; Māori Party activists—Mr Sharples has started his election campaign—and, of course, the leader of the ACT party, Rodney Philip Hide, the only, by his own admission, honest man in Parliament.

The reason that John Tamihere has been attacked from all sides is quite simple: because it was he who called for greater accountability and transparency at the Waipareira Trust. That is something I would have thought the self-confessed great scambuster, Mr Hide, would support. For a number of years trustees and beneficiaries, including Mr Tamihere, have voiced concerns about the trust, but those concerns have never been answered by a clique of managers and trustees in that trust. The concerns included the possibility of mortgagee sale proceedings; mezzanine finances being sought to prop up the trust’s trading; losses at its call centre in the order of $3 million and over; and the sale of major assets. These and other unanswered questions led to a special general meeting on 27 July this year. The meeting appointed an audit committee made up of John Tamihere; Aīrini Tūkerangi; Ricky Houghton, the treasurer; and Mr Joseph Waru. The audit committee was tasked with instructing Deloitte to conduct an audit and review.

The process adopted for this was highly unusual. Despite Mr Tamihere being elected to the audit committee, he was not allowed access to any of the work in progress. He was not questioned as part of the work. He was not given the opportunity to respond to any of the draft findings. In fact, he still has not received an official copy of the report. [Interruption] The fact is that member opposite does not have the gift of the gab; he has the “gift of the Gibbs”! I think it is called Alan Gibbs and we will get to that soon. The facts are that no audit and review ever took place. The media have called it an audit. Mr Hide has called it an audit. The Waipareira Trust board has purported to release an audit and review statement. That is an absolute fabrication. Deloitte itself indicated in its opening comments on page 1: “Because the procedures enumerated within the attached report do not constitute either an audit or review, we do not express any assurance on any financial information relating to the items in the terms of reference of this engagement.”

💬 Hon David Benson-Pope: Mr Hide didn’t refer to that.

Mr Hide never referred to that. It is also clear that no real examination took place, and I quote from the report itself: “This report was compiled on the basis of information gathered by trust employees and the contract accountant, Mr B Bryant, along with inquiry and interviews with certain people involved in the trust board’s governance and management, and based on reports and documentation supplied or cited by Deloitte.” The guts of Mr Tamihere’s problem is that the people who were under investigation in the audit were the only people who were asked to supply information to it. No one else was questioned. No one else who raised complaints or concerns had a chance to respond.

What kind of dodgy report is that? The reality is that the process was hijacked to ensure that the focus, rather than being on problems facing the trust, was on Mr Tamihere. In simple terms, that is called payback. To further ensure that no one took any notice of the real issue of malfeasance in the trust, just a few days before the report was released five trustees were sacked and three senior workers were removed—all in the same week. There are some serious questions that need to be answered by Deloitte relating to its conduct in the matter. There is also a question of whether, as the auditor for the trust for the last 3 years, Deloitte was ever in a position to properly accept the job.

A gang of three was formed at the trust: the treasurer, a triple bankrupt, Ricky Houghton; the chief executive officer, Reg Rātahi; and the chief financial officer, Bruce Bryant. The members of that gang of three have collaborated and colluded to ensure that they cover their tracks, and to make sure that there is no accountability at the trust. That is the calibre of person that that member over there, Mr Hide, the scambuster, relies on for his so-called evidence.

The documentation relied on by Mr Tamihere’s accusers is wrong in a number of respects, and evidence provided to the inquiry will determine that. Time does not allow me to identify all of the aspects, other than to say the following. It is a fact that the current chief executive officer, Mr Rātahi, received a major bonus package of over $60,000 when he moved from being health manager at the trust. That was not disclosed. In fact, Mr Rātahi’s salary has never been disclosed at all, neither in the report nor to the trustees. It is a fact that the former chief executive officer for 9 months, Mr Mackintosh, was also paid a major package of at least $60,000 for leaving. That also was not disclosed. Only Mr Tamihere’s details were disclosed, and, in my view, the inquiry will show that those details were wrong. There are more flaws and falsehoods, but I will stop there. There is enough evidence even for TV3 and all the rest of the media to have a look at, except that some in the media do not want to focus on it.

We also know that, contrary to the constitution, the current chief executive officer, Mr Rātahi, provided a letter to the chair of the audit committee, Mr Joseph Waru, a trustee, giving him employment through the back door, and buying his support in the oversight of the dodgy so-called audit and review report. Members should work that one out! Again, certain members of the media did not wish to focus on that element, and that is because the report is fashioned in a remarkable, “Hide-ish” type of way so that it provides the reader with quotable information about Mr Tamihere—who was never meant to be the focus of the review—while, of course, at the same time obscuring negative findings about the current management of the trust. I have to say that the smell of the political sewer reeks around the report.

We know that Mr Hide has been working in collusion with the gang of three since August 2 this year. When the heat was put on the gang of three, through an audit commissioned on 27 July, less than a week had gone by before the gang of three was negotiating and colluding with Mr Hide to become the gang of four. Why did those people do that? There can be only one explanation: to cover their own tracks. What started as a search for accountability and integrity at the trust has highlighted an absolute lack of them. For instance, for a chartered accountant working for an organisation it should be unthinkable to allow an outside person—friend or enemy—to trawl through its accounts. Yet Mr Hide has, for 2 solid months, worked his fingers to the bone with the trust on this issue. He has sat in the accounts office, working his fingers to the bone to do over Mr Tamihere. That is an unforgivable breach by that chartered accountant, the consequences of which, I believe, are yet to be visited on Mr Bryant.

Little did the members of the gang of three realise or know what would happen when they got into bed with a creature like Rodney Philip Hide. But it is important for the people—

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, the member cannot refer to a member of Parliament in that way. He will withdraw that remark.

I should withdraw what, Madam Speaker?

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The remark he made about the member being a “creature”. Please withdraw it.

I withdraw. But it is important for the record to be put straight, and for the people of west Auckland and of New Zealand to know that Mr Tamihere has been the subject of a well-planned and well-orchestrated witch-hunt and jack-up. I say to one of our members that people in glass houses should not throw stones. I note with interest that Michael Cullen asked Mr Hide whether he had ever had money from outside. I remember that during the pecuniary interest debate I asked Mr Hide that question. It is not an offence or a breach of the Standing Orders if somebody who wants to go into Parliament says that the salary of $120,000, or whatever, just is not enough, and somebody else says he or she will give that person $50,000 a year. It would be a breach only if the member were motivated to action as a result of that payment. We know that Mr Hide worked for Gilt-Edged Securities for 3 years, and that it was a front to set up the ACT party. We know that Mr Alan Gibbs, his sort of surrogate father, funded that and paid Mr Hide.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.