Valedictory Statements

This is a moment of exquisitely divergent emotions for me. On the one hand, I am deeply saddened to be leaving this place and the many friends I have made here. On the other hand, I am elated to have the freedom to be a normal human being again. I am really looking forward to being able to spend some quality time with my partner, Sue, and our daughter Ysabella. She is my first, and I am assured, only child, and she turned 18 months old yesterday.

💬 Hon Annette King: And she’s beautiful.

And she is beautiful—just like her father, obviously!

What a privilege it has been to be a member of Parliament, and I mean that in both senses. Obviously, we lead lives of considerable privilege in this House, but it is also an absolute privilege for me to have been able to serve my community here. I thank all the members of the Green Party who have supported me in becoming a member of Parliament. They put their trust in me. In particular, I thank all the members of the Kaikoura Greens. I cannot possibly mention them all, but I want particularly to mention Alison and Norman Fletcher and Sally Atkinson, who led a tireless team for me. Without their support and love I would simply not be here. Thank you all.

What an amazing, wonderful, life-changing experience it has been in this House—6 years to treasure for the rest of my life. It reminds me of when I was first shoulder-tapped to become a candidate in the Kaikoura electorate in 1996. I clearly remember telling Danna Glendining that she “had to be bloody joking”—and here I am. At that time there was absolutely no way I wanted to become a member of Parliament. I could not have thought of anything worse. But when Danna Glendining and my ex-wife Marg ganged up on me, I did what all men do when they are ganged up on by two women: I capitulated. I thought it was easier to be an MP than to stand up against two women and have them on my back. So I am here now, and I am about to go. I have been wondering how people will remember me, how I will be remembered by my colleagues here in the House.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Tall, dark, and handsome.

Tall, dark, handsome, and young! I have wondered how I will be perceived by the wider public. My ego wants me to be remembered for the good things I have done—for saving the world, and all those things. Perhaps I did not quite achieve that, but I did achieve a few things.

I am proud to have initiated the inquiry into organic agriculture by the Primary Production Committee. As a consequence we now have national standards for organics. We have funded the organic sector strategy, and I think I was the person who actually brought organics into the mainstream in this country. I certainly introduced it to this House, and although I was probably the butt of a few jokes in the early days, I think it is now reasonably widely accepted that organics is here for the long haul and is not something to be scoffed at.

I would also like to be remembered as somebody with a passion for biosecurity. I brought out into the open the problems we have with sea container inspections. I spent a lot of time campaigning against the aerial spraying of the painted apple moth in Auckland. But I think that the most famous insect I brought to this House was the glassy-winged sharpshooter, which my colleague Clayton Cosgrove always referred to as the “glassy-eyed shitshoveller”. That shows how much he knows about biosecurity. Never mind.

Fundamentally, though, I suppose I would like to be remembered in this House for being a hard-working, intelligent, sensible, and general all-round good guy. But the reality is that I will not be. I will be remembered, I suspect, for my decision to stand down from the select committee inquiry into the scampi industry. The reason I stood down was that I perceived there was going to be a conflict of interest, because I had established a personal relationship with a lawyer who was appearing on behalf of one of the submitters to the inquiry. That decision, I thought at the time, was reasonably newsworthy. I thought that the Marlborough Express might have run something about it on about page 5. Well, it probably did run something, but what really blew me out of the water was that not only was I banner headlines in all the newspapers but we led the television news, as well. I was gobsmacked. I really had no idea that the decision was going to be so important to so many people. Maybe it was just a slow news day that day. I suspect that was more likely the case.

Perhaps the headline that has stuck most in my mind, though, is one that Richard Prebble coined here in the House and that the Press in Christchurch picked up on. It came out the following day with this big banner headline: “Sex for questions scandal”. I read that, and I thought: “God! That’s terrible! Sex for questions scandal.”, and then I saw pictures of me and Sue underneath and I thought: “God! Moi? Sex scandal?”. Richard Prebble is not here today but I hope he is listening. I say to Richard that, in case he had not noticed, Sue is young, beautiful, and highly intelligent. And I—well, I am not any of those, actually. Even my kindest friends would probably say that I am middle-aged, overweight, bald, and seriously boring. So Richard, that was not a scandal; that was a bloody miracle. But I knew I had chosen the right woman a few days later when Sue and I were walking on the travelator over to Bowen House and Richard was walking the other way. Sue and Richard had never met, so I introduced them. Sue said to Richard: “Thank you, Richard, for making me famous.” We do not often see him gobsmacked and at a loss for words, but he did not know what to say. He sort of backed off down the corridor; he literally did not say anything. As he went around the corner Sue chased after him, and said: “But watch out for my father, because he still wants to kill you!”. That is my girl! I knew I had made the right choice.

So that was the scampi scandal. I know I can joke about it now, but it was a pretty difficult time in my life. It was a fairly rich experience in the rich tapestry of life—a great one for finding out who one’s friends are and, perhaps more pertinently, who one’s friends are not.

I would particularly like to thank all of the members of the Primary Production Committee, whom I will name: David Carter, Doug Woolerton, Clayton Cosgrove, Gerry Eckhoff, Dover Samuels, Phil Heatley, Janet Mackey, and Harry Duynhoven. I know I was the butt of quite a few jokes for you guys at the time, but the reality was that you kept me sane during that period. It was a very tough time for me, and you were there for me. I will never forget that. Thank you. In fact, working for the Primary Production Committee was always a highlight for me. I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed the people, and I enjoyed the committee staff. Bob Bunch, Mary Hay, Steven Mitchell: my thanks to you. I will miss you guys. It was a great time. It was the highlight of my time in Parliament, in many ways, working in that select committee.

Having said that, I also have to say that I am convinced you got parts of the scampi inquiry badly wrong. I believe you shot the messenger and allowed the real culprits to get away with perpetrating one of the biggest frauds and one of the gravest injustices in New Zealand history. I really struggle with the suggestion from some people that there was no evidence of wrongdoing. There clearly was. Affidavits are sworn evidence. Affidavits have convicted murderers in the past. I agree with the argument that if there is a whole sequence of events, and if we go through the sequence of events and find a causal relationship between each event, then we can prove that the beginning finished up at the outcome. If there is a break in the chain, then we cannot prove guilt. But there is another way of looking at evidence and that is to say that it is like a jigsaw puzzle. If we have enough of the pieces and they all interlink, even though a few pieces may be missing, we can still see the overall picture.

In this case, I believe that there is a very clear picture of premeditated offending. And please do not forget the evidence of those people who made submissions to the Primary Production Committee but who, because they were alleging criminal behaviour, had their evidence returned to them. It was returned because it was outside the scope of the inquiry—I accept that. But one cannot then say there was no evidence. There was a considerable amount of evidence.

If the next Government, whichever colour it may be, wants to follow up on the scampi issue—and I really hope it does, because that would restore some of my faith in the political system—I suggest that a good place to start would be with Helen Cull QC. She was the lawyer who convened the State Services Commission inquiry that ran in parallel with the Primary Production Committee one. She got it right. She knows pretty much what happened, but she was also constrained in what she said, because her terms of reference were limited to looking at the Ministry of Fisheries and not at the offenders. I believe she should be asked to publish her real findings, and that the people guilty of raping and pillaging the scampi fishery should be brought to account.

I think that the incoming Government—again, whatever colour it is—should also heed the words of former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer when he said that the criticism of the Ministry of Fisheries, by both inquiries, was the most scathing criticism of a Government department in New Zealand history. I agree with that. But what has happened? Did anybody get sacked? Did anybody get moved sideways? Did anybody get rapped on the wrist with a wet bus ticket? No, nobody did. At the time, the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Fisheries put out a press release to say that his staff had been vindicated. They had not been vindicated. He should have been falling on his sword, not continuing the fantasy that the ministry is a law unto itself and can ignore the rulings of Parliament, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal. I believe that the Ministry of Fisheries should be made aware of its responsibilities under the Fisheries Act and under international treaties, and that it should address the social and economic well-being of coastal communities. It is simply unacceptable, surely, that small fishers in fisheries like cockles, whelks, geoducks, paddle crabs, pilchards, and others, including scampi, can be put out of business and their lives destroyed by the whim of ministry officials. The quota management system is a tool in the tool-box of fisheries management. It is not an end in itself. It is most certainly not there for the purpose of hugely enriching a small number of people at the expense of others and of the ecological sustainability of the fishery.

Enough of the serious stuff. I want to talk about the people I will remember from my time here in Parliament. Perhaps it would be easier to talk about the people I cannot forget. There are lots of characters here whom I would like to thank. I cannot possibly mention you all, but I do really want to mention a few. The first one has to be my colleague Doug Woolerton, who has the good sense not to be here. Doug is the joker of the Primary Production Committee—the master of the one-liner. How can I forget him? I am sure other members will not be able to forget him, either. He kept us in stitches with his irreverent humour. I do remember a few incidents that I would like to share with you. At one time we were discussing surveying errors—we deal with land information as well as other things in the Primary Production Committee—and it became apparent that Mark Peck had had a dispute with his neighbour over a boundary. When it was surveyed, it was found that the boundary was 9 metres in Mark Peck’s favour—in other words, he had a 9-metre bigger property—at which point, Doug said: “Geez, Mark, that must be a real bugger for your wife when she has to mow the lawn.” Then there was the time I asked him what it was like working with Winston Peters. Perhaps I should not tell this one. Doug said: “Look, he’s like a racehorse. For 10 minutes every day, his eyes are bright, his ears are pricked, and his nostrils are flaring. He races around the track and just hates to be beaten. But after the roar of the crowd dies down, for the rest of the day he’s just like the other horses. He’s back in the stalls, snoring and farting and rolling in the hay.” Sorry, Doug!

Who else will I not forget? It will be a long-term regret of mine that I did not keep all the notes that Clayton Cosgrove passed to me. To call them irreverent is probably praising them up. I just wish I had kept them to give to Helen or the media. That would have been the end of that political career, for a start. Michael Cullen—I will not forget you, either. You deliver a very boring Budget, but your general debate speeches are gold. Thank you. They are fantastic.

💬 Simon Power: Oh, come on!

Simon’s are not too bad, either.

Mike Ward, my mate here from Nelson: when he was elected in 2002 I invited him to come and stay in my apartment for a couple of weeks while he found some permanent accommodation. Three years later, he is still there, and now he complains that I gave him the small bedroom. But Mike really is a character. He lives the Green philosophy in a way I could never aspire to. He is a cycler and a recycler of considerable repute. Thank you, Mike, for your friendship and your support. I really do appreciate it, and I think the planet also owes you a debt of gratitude for your decades of dedication to its survival.

For entirely different reasons, I will never forget David McGee. What a treasure that man is to Parliament. Dave, thank you for your advice, particularly during the scampi inquiry and the traumatic times I was having then. I really appreciated your advice, your kindness, and your friendship. Go well.

Before I close I would like to say a few words about genetic engineering. There is good science and there is bad science. It may well have potential for the future, but at the moment genetic engineering is indubitably bad science. To release alien species—and that is what GE species are—into our unique ecosystems is folly of the highest order. At this stage we simply do not know enough about the technology, and we need to be cautious. We need always to err on the side of caution. In the meantime, of course, we have to be aware that ours is a market-driven economy. The market signals are very clear. Our consumers in our elite markets simply do not want to buy GE food. We already have a market made in heaven. It is one of the greater miracles of my 6 years in Parliament that we were fighting against GE when I first came in, and we are still GE free. Hallelujah to that! We are still nuclear-free as well, and hallelujah to that, except that I think Ken Shirley wants to have a nuclear power station in his backyard.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: No, not in his backyard—in somebody else’s backyard.

He wants to have one in somebody else’s backyard.

Parliament has given me much more than I have been able to give in return, and I thank you all for that. This has been an experience to treasure. But the greatest gains to me personally are two women, who are sitting up there in the gallery. They are the reason I am standing down at this election. They are the two people who have rejuvenated my life and given it new direction. Ysabella, who is my first and only child, is the most amazingly gorgeous wee—[Interruption] Hello! That is her, up in the back corner there. She is gorgeous—I am slightly prejudiced, maybe—and everybody who meets her loves her. She is my pride and joy and the apple of my eye. Sue, her mother—I did not know I was capable of loving somebody so much. At last I have a soulmate, and I just cannot wait to spend more time with her.

Thank you all for your friendship and your support. I shall miss you very much.

It feels somewhat presumptuous to be making a valedictory speech when just 3 years ago I stood here and gave my maiden speech. Just last week a press gallery journalist, in the context of my not seeking re-election, asked me whether I felt I was a failure as a politician. I certainly do not. I do not believe that the success or failure of any job should be measured by the length of time spent in it. I doubt whether that journalist would consider herself a failure if she had spent 3 years working for, say, radio and then moved on to another position in television. I prefer to measure my achievements against my own standards. The past 3 years have certainly been pretty action-packed and I can honestly say “never a dull moment”. So I am happy to leave here with a feeling that it has indeed been worth it; that I have actually managed to make a little bit of difference for the better, albeit in a small facet of a few people’s lives.

I came into the House under the leadership of Richard Prebble, and with his support and encouragement I threw myself into the job. I only lately found out that when Mr Prebble was told, in 2002, that I would be standing for ACT he mused: “She’ll be trouble, but she’ll be good.” Well, I have been both. I was trouble, but I was good, too.

I put my career in journalism on hold to come here, so analogies are inevitable. One catches a whiff of the smell in the back of the cave and instinctively, just as others want to run away form it, the journalists want to go in to find out what is causing the smell. As an Opposition MP too this applies. One does the research, asks the questions, and checks out the problem. But an MP lets the journalists do the writing, and it is the writing that I have missed so much and that I cannot wait to get back to. Just as good editors have encouraged, pushed, bullied, and cajoled me into writing award-winning stories, Richard Prebble made me want to work hard to be an effective MP. His experience and knowledge were invaluable, and I am grateful to him for his generosity in giving advice to a novice.

The first advice was that I should not to be scared to make mistakes; an MP who does not make mistakes is not doing his or her job. I remember that, not long after the election, the Hon Steve Maharey wrote to the Speaker raising a possible abuse of the privilege of free speech by me in a general debate. I had proof that, despite statements to the contrary, Child, Youth and Family Services were still placing vulnerable children in the care of convicted sex offenders; in this case, a paedophile I had named in my 1996 book. It was late at night. I nervously showed a copy of this letter to Mr Prebble, thinking that I had really done it now. I was expecting a bollocking. He took the letter and read it, and we got the usual scratching of the back of the head and hitching up of pants. “Hmm. This is very serious,” he said as he read through the letter, and he kept saying: “This is serious.” Then he said: “Well, Mr Maharey has suggested to the Speaker that he ‘have a discussion with Ms Coddington’ about raising such concerns in the future. This letter itself could be a breach of privilege.” said Mr Prebble. “Go down to the House and read Erskine May and see what you think.”

It ended up that I happily wrote to the Speaker with a counter-charge that Mr Maharey could be just as much in breach of privilege as I was, because he was trying to frustrate and impair my freedom of speech, and impair the proper carrying out of my duties and performance as a member of Parliament. The complaints, of course, never amounted to anything, but I wonder how many second or third-term MPs have sat up late at night studying Erskine May—let alone an MP in his or her first few months. Richard Prebble’s guidance helped to make this place feel slightly less alien, despite the fact the former Speaker kept muddling me with Heather Roy for months. Serving with a parliamentarian of Richard Prebble’s calibre has been a rare honour and privilege.

One of the main reasons I leapt the divide from the fourth estate was that I am driven by a desire to do more to help and protect children—not just protect them from sexual abuse, but help them in terms of improving their chances for a good education. There is no doubt that most of our children do extremely well at school, but not long before I left North and South magazine I wrote a feature on the appalling situation in this country whereby around 18 percent of school leavers are unable to read, write, or add up, to a sufficient ability that they can cope with everyday life. I call this child abuse of the mind. If the same portion of students left school physically crippled there would be an outcry.

When Qantas sponsored me as a press fellow to Wolfson College, Cambridge, in 2003, I studied the effect of parental choice on literacy standards in the Netherlands and Sweden. When I got back here I published my research in a little book called Let Parents Choose, and campaigned hard on the merits of a voucher system, which would allow all parents, not just the affluent, to take children to the school they choose—an ACT policy since 1996. That policy is now being adopted—albeit incrementally—by other parties in this house. The voucher system is no longer a dirty word. “Let parents choose” became the catchcry from Russell to Blackball during our crusade against the massive school closures. Then just last week at a political meeting in Auckland, a candidate for the Māori Party agreed that ACT’s education policy is the best for Māori—30 percent of whom leave school with no qualifications.

My stance on sexual abuse has been unflinching since 1996, when I compiled my first Paedophile and Sex Offender Index. One of my express aims upon entering Parliament was to follow the lead of the United Kingdom and Canada, and introduce my Sex Offenders Registry Bill. I am grateful to Allan Bracegirdle for drafting my bill so quickly and concisely, and I was very lucky to have it drawn from the ballot so early in my term. It unanimously passed its first reading and is ticking its way smoothly through the select committee process. I have spoken to several MPs in other parties who firmly support the bill, and I am confident that under Stephen Franks’ care this will become law in the next Parliament. That would see New Zealand stand alongside other First World nations with similar legislation.

It is with huge satisfaction that I now see widespread recognition of the faults of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). I started campaigning against this also in the pages of North and South magazine. Before I was made education spokesperson for ACT the Education and Science Committee refused leave sought by ACT for an inquiry into the NCEA. Undaunted, Richard Prebble, Donna Awatere Huata, and I held our own inquiry, travelling around the country hearing submissions both for and—especially from parents—against the NCEA. Now, as I leave, the Labour Government has agreed to not one but three inquiries, with the results that we all predicted when this dreadful experiment was first foisted on our school children back when National was in Government.

Of course, I do not take sole credit for these changes in attitude. The ACT party has been hugely influential on other political parties, whether they care to recognise it or not. Key ACT policies are now accepted, at least nominally, by most parties. Issues that once made ACT a radical party—welfare abuse, low taxes, zero tolerance for crime, ending the treaty grievance industry, opening up the Family Court, and honouring the right to self-defence—are now widely accepted by the New Zealand public as essential for this country’s development, peace, and progress. I consider myself very, very fortunate to have been an MP in a party that not just tolerated my obsessions but gave me the utmost freedom to pursue my objectives.

I have absolutely no doubt that my colleagues will be back in the next Parliament because their work, in terms of being the party of influence, fresh ideas, and new policies, is certainly very successful. They have made enormous achievements, but their work is far from finished. So I do leave with a sense of achievement and accomplishment, and I believe Hansard will reflect that. In select committees I have cooperated, where appropriate, with opposing politicians for good outcomes. For example, on transport legislation Lianne Dalziel and I worked hard together to clean serious sex offenders out of the taxi industry.

I have hugely enjoyed my time here. I have made friends across both parties, from pale Katherine Rich here to brown John Tamihere over there. It is certainly a brutalising place—that is for sure. But I do not blame anyone for the battles I had to face and the demons I stared down. Even the bad times were good. I am sorry for my children; they did not like reading some things about their mother, and they were hurt by it. But nobody ever said that life would be easy, and when the tears were dried we always managed to sit down together, bring things into perspective, and have a good laugh.

I believe members of the press gallery owe me in terms of some of the copy I inadvertently provided for them. For those who hyperventilated and billed me as a star and future leader, I hope your excuse for the non-appearance of your “we got it wrong stories” is that they were spiked. There are no stars in politics, just 120 MPs doing the best they can, in an environment that—unjustifiably, in my opinion—ranks their profession as the lowest in society. My advice to journalists is: do not knock it until you have tried it.

I do hope that what I went through does not deter people from standing for Parliament. I also hope that my controversial publicity does not cause the ruling hierarchy of political parties to over-sanitise those whom they decide to promote as high-ranking MPs just to save their parties from embarrassing publicity. This is the House of Representatives. People who have made mistakes, who have fallen over and skinned their knees, who have picked themselves up and fought another day, and who have lived life to the full will have made embarrassing decisions in their past. But I doubt that New Zealand wants to be represented by 120 individuals who have never made a single mistake in their lives. That really would be a Parliament of freaks.

So I am moving on to another pasture now, which includes a happy marriage and a chance to make some fine Pinot Noir. To those who suspect I am going soft, be warned: I have not finished with politics, and I will not rule out a come-back. I shall be up there with the fourth estate—the nit-pickers—watching you, and remembering exactly what you have promised in this election campaign.

Thank you to my staff, especially Janice Lopez, Scott Dennison, David Young, and my electorate chair Lyn Fitness. Thank you to my colleagues who have supported and tolerated me. Kia kaha, and remember: it is better to fall on principle than to stand on lies. I wish all of you the very best, and I leave you with the words of Viktor Frankl, a neurologist who survived 3 years in Dachau and Auschwitz: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Thank you.