General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It is 21 years since I was first elected to this Parliament, and most of that time I have been very proud to work here. I am proud to be the member of Parliament representing the people of Rongotai, and to have the privilege to serve as a Cabinet Minister in this Government. I have debated hard, I have interjected with the best, I have received my share of insults, and I have handed out a fair few myself. I have laughed and I have cried in this Parliament, and I know that this is no place for the shy and retiring.

But I am deeply saddened by the political theatre that has played out in this Chamber over the past few months against David Benson-Pope. I am saddened, I have to say, that the cheerleader of that personal, nasty, and vindictive attack is Judith Collins, a woman with a husband and child. She stated in the Sunday Star-Times last week that “women … can be the fiercest defenders of the weak and vulnerable”, and that she wanted to “help women and children”. I am saddened because, in pursuit of column inches in the media and in justification for her elevation in the National Party over someone like Georgina te Heuheu, she has been prepared to expose David Benson-Pope’s wife and children to unjustified personal abuse and public attention. She has laughed and celebrated as she has made her despicable comments of “pervert” and “dirty old man”, and she has not cared about the impact on his wife and his children.

💬 Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I take exception to being labelled as someone who has used the term “dirty old man”. I think that that member should be asked to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: If the member says that she has never used that term, then her word must be accepted. I ask the member to withdraw that.

I accept the member’s word. That member called David Benson-Pope, in this House, a “pervert”.

💬 Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister, who has been in this House for 21 years, was asked by you to withdraw. She did not.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I thought she had. Would she please do it again.

I withdraw, and the member does not like this, and she is not going to like this, because—[Interruption]

💬 Madam SPEAKER: Would the Minister please withdraw clearly.

I withdraw. The member is not going to like this, because I am going to tell her she was prepared to call David Benson-Pope a pervert, not caring about the impact on his wife and children. Those are comments that New Zealanders know are not true, and all the while David Benson-Pope was expected to stay calm and aloof from the maelstrom that was swirling around his family, and as damage was being inflicted on the people he loves.

I know what it is like to have one’s family under the scrutiny of the media and the public, and I tell this House that it hurts like hell. One wants to protect one’s family and stop the pain, the embarrassment, and the attention they are getting, but one is not able to. I say to Judith Collins that I sincerely hope her child is never subjected to the sort of unjustified attention that David Benson-Pope’s family has had to endure because of her action. Unfortunately, she has set a new benchmark for our families in the future. She has said, by her action, that it does not matter who is destroyed or who is pulled down or damaged, as long as the end justifies the means.

At the end of the day, this whole, sorry saga has been about leadership. A decent and strong leader would have said: “Debate the issues, not the individual; focus on the policy and not the person.” But when put to the test of leadership, Dr Brash failed. He decided that he, too, would wallow in the mire of personal invective. The result is that he is a weak-looking leader and there is a fair dose of hypocrisy swirling around his comments.

I am really sad that Bill English, a man who has always previously defended the need to protect our families from the slings and arrows of this place, was dragged into the mud-slinging, as well. I believe the behaviour—

💬 Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. At no stage did I mention David Benson-Pope’s family. In fact, at no stage did Judith Collins ever mention David Benson-Pope’s family. I take objection to the member saying I was drawn into mud-slinging when I just asked questions in this House.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member. That is a debatable point and he will have an opportunity to reply.

The behaviour of Judith Collins, Don Brash, and Bill English over this affair has damaged them personally. Members can just ask the public. I believe it has damaged this Parliament, and it has damaged innocent New Zealanders. To David’s wife and two children, I apologise on behalf of this House. To the teachers, the children, and the parents of Bayfield High School, who have had to withstand unprecedented and unnecessary media scrutiny—27 parliamentary questions about their school, talkback chatter, and TV cameras—I apologise on behalf of this House. To the thousands of New Zealanders who have watched some of our elected representatives turn this place into the Colosseum rather than a debating chamber, I apologise.

On 12 March Judith Collins said she was going to carry on her attacks. On 14 March she said her campaign was over. She knows it was wrong, National knows it was wrong, and it has to stop.

💬 Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. While the Minister is on her feet and apologising, maybe she would like to apologise to Tukoroirangi Morgan and his family, Peter Doone and his family—

💬 Madam SPEAKER: The member knows that that is not a point of order.

I noticed Dr Cullen sitting there smiling as he thought he was stepping through the final stages of his strategy to hit back. But, of course, the shot that Mrs King has fired is in the wrong place altogether. In the debate about Mr David Benson-Pope, his family was never mentioned.

💬 Hon Annette King: Calling him a “pervert”?

I say to that member that when Helen Clark put my children on TV and drew my family into questions in this House, I was a bit distressed about it, too. The House has always operated on an unspoken convention that we do not attack the members of other members’ families. At no stage during the David Benson-Pope debate did that occur. Who drew David Benson-Pope’s family into the debate? It was David Benson-Pope. He set out on a charm offensive—or, as one commentator put it, a “blub” offensive—and he decided that the best way to rebut the strong allegations of his dishonesty in this Parliament was to hide behind his family, to put his family in a Sunday newspaper, and to get them to talk on his behalf.

I have to say that it took a long time for even his hardened, cynical, political mates to speak on his behalf. They left it until the Thursday before David Benson-Pope’s family appeared in the media, after this House had been at David Benson-Pope for months—12 months since the first day he stood up and misled the House. He was asked a simple question as to whether he was aware of any complaints against him, and he said no, he was not aware of any complaints against him of any sort in his 24 years as a teacher. Since the day he said that, any number of people have been willing not just to make the allegations but to front up to the media—not just about what he did, but to confirm they had made complaints. As a number of members have said, they fronted up to the police as well and made their honest statements about what they believed to have occurred, and just about everything they said contradicted what David Benson-Pope told this House.

What undermines the House’s confidence even more is that in the end senior Labour members conceded it. The Prime Minister said he made an error of judgment, which for her is very strong language—that means he lied to the House.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That is clearly out of order, and the member should withdraw and apologise. He is the last person who should make that kind of allegation in this House.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. Now we hear the innuendo from Dr Cullen that somehow I am the last person who should make allegations. I say to Dr Cullen that we have sat here for 6 years listening to the half-truths of the Labour Party, like the granddaddy of them all that we heard this year—when a complaint is not a complaint. Maybe he had a discussion with Bill Clinton when he was here. Members may remember his statement about it depending on what the meaning of “is” is. Well, it depends on what one thinks the meaning of “complaint” is. It is obvious for everyone to see.

A senior Minister of the Crown, who was questioned in a straight-up and honest way about his past actions and about his knowledge of them, made a statement to the House that has turned out not to be true. I say to Dr Cullen that no one in the Labour Government is willing to stand up and say that David Benson-Pope correctly made that statement to the House. In fact, I asked the Prime Minister a question last week—Dr Cullen was answering on behalf of the Prime Minister—which was whether the Prime Minister now believed the statement that David Benson-Pope had made to the House.

💬 Rodney Hide: What was the answer?

His answer was no.

💬 Hon Members: Rubbish!

Well, I ask members to look at the Hansard. He said no. Every member who was sitting here and heard question time last Thursday will recall that. He said no, he did not believe it. So if the Government does not believe him, why should the people of New Zealand?

It is really clear not just to me but to the majority of National Party members and to the country that Judith Collins not only got off her leash but she got off-message. She made a major tactical error, and it is really interesting that Dr Brash backed that tactical error right from the start. When a party has no leadership and no policy—

💬 Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sitting here trying to listen to the speaker, and Dr Cullen is issuing threats across the Chamber that are personal to me. He knows as a senior member that that is thoroughly against Standing Orders. One is not allowed to threaten another member in any way that might constrain his or her ability to speak in the House. I ask him to withdraw those threats.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I issued no threat against the member.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I have to accept the member’s word.

That is the National party—it has no leadership and no policy. When it is clear to National and to the rest of the country that there is no leadership and no policy, then National members have to resort to personal attacks. That is the only time they are ever done, and National is doing them well.

New Zealanders will not put up with it. Our sense of fair play and decency is an intrinsic part of our culture. The robust nature of policy debate in this Parliament should play a big part in our culture, as well. Parliament could and should be a place for ideas, for challenges, for serious disagreements, and for debate—but for debate on policy and on the future of our nation. For goodness’ sake, that is why we were elected to represent people in this House. It should not be a place for scraping the gutter and regurgitating its contents in the Chamber.

The moves of Judith Collins, Bill English, and Don Brash over the last few weeks have chewed up the last of their political capital. For National’s leader to get sucked into this when he is struggling for his own political survival shows either desperation or a complete lack of judgment—perhaps both. Or perhaps he has fallen for what the Listener describes as Judith Collins’ buttering up of the leader—not a pleasant thought. The Listener quotes: “Privately, some colleagues profess exasperation at what they say is Collins’s helium-filled ego, her buttering-up of the leader, and a tendency to go off-track when fronting important battles.” That is just what her friends and colleagues say.

So what do her political idols say? Can I ensure that it is placed on the record, in case anyone has any doubt, that I have no points of policy agreement with either Ruth Richardson or Jenny Shipley, but on this point I agree. Ruth Richardson consistently opposed any mud-slinging, gutter politics. She said that a National Government would not engage in disgraceful personal attacks but that it would attack the real causes of the problems. Jenny Shipley also consistently maintained high personal standards. She made it very clear that she would not support personal attacks. I opposed both those women on every policy point I can recall, but they made a significant contribution to this Parliament. They both left this Parliament with their heads held high because they had never breached their own high standards of personal behaviour. Judith Collins, in contrast, has not only breached standards but acknowledged in a Sunday paper that she thought she had gone too far, then said that despite that, she would carry on.

I do not know what happened at National’s caucus meeting on Tuesday, but clearly the leash was put on. But I do not think it will last long. In order to get out of the gutter members have to have thought about some policies. They have to have developed some policies that their caucus agrees on and that they can argue robustly in this House. There is no leadership in the National Party. There are no policies.

I may have breached some of the integrity that I have on policy issues by referring to both Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley, so I just compound the problem by saying that I have found a policy point of agreement with Richard Long. The headline to Richard Long’s article in yesterday’s Dominion Post stated: “Nats must cut Benson-Pope loose and get to the real issues”. He said that the electorate wants a concentration on the real issues. I think, on that single point, Richard Long was right. New Zealanders will not accept, nor should they accept, this Parliament becoming a place for the regurgitation of what is scraped out of the gutter by Judith Collins and her ilk. It is time for us to get back to the real issues.

I say to both sides of the House that the events of today and recent weeks bestow no credit at all on any of those involved. In the interests of the people of this country, the message must be that we focus on some real issues and get away from this personality-driven attempt to destroy everyone simply because we might disagree with their policies. Let us argue the policies and the merits and demerits of those.

In that regard, a week ago today the Wellington region received one of the best pieces of news it has heard in a long time—one it had been waiting for—that the report of the hearings review subcommittee overwhelmingly and unanimously recommended that the construction of the Transmission Gully highway proceed as a matter of priority. The only person who seems to be out on a different limb is the kamikaze Mayor of Wellington. I would have thought that she might care to learn a lesson in basic politics: count the numbers. If one is on the losing side, maybe one needs to look at oneself. Clearly, that is what the mayor should be doing.

I speak with some feeling on this issue, because I have been intimately involved with it for a large number of years. I brought the “Do It Now” petition to Parliament in 1999, I introduced special legislation in 2001, and I have worked for a long time with all of the groups that have had an interest in this issue. The sense is overwhelming that a settlement has now been reached—that now is the time to move on, make the progress, and get this development, which has been on the Wellington regional agenda since 1939, under way.

Yesterday in the House the Minister of Finance made three very important points. Firstly, he confirmed that the funding that was previously earmarked for the coastal highway would, pursuant to the agreement with United Future, now be available for Transmission Gully. Secondly, he confirmed that it would be inconceivable for any government, local or central—the Mayor of Wellington notwithstanding—to overlook the overwhelming depth of public opinion in favour of the proposal proceeding. Thirdly, he made the point that there were no legal impediments to funding Transmission Gully over a longer period of time, thus confirming the comments made by the Chief Executive of Transit New Zealand last Friday that funding is not the issue.

So we are at the point now where all of the obstacles have been removed. What is needed is the next step in the process—and I am confident it will happen—which is an affirmative vote from the Wellington Regional Council. Then we can embark upon bringing this necessary infrastructure development to fruition.

I acknowledge the work of a lot of people who have brought us to this point. I acknowledge the fact that my electorate neighbours, Winnie Laban and Darren Hughes, have been very ardent advocates and supporters of, and activists for, Transmission Gully. I acknowledge the work of significant numbers of members of the Wellington Regional Council, the Wellington chamber of commerce, transport organisations in this city, and the vast number of individual citizens who have signed petitions.

💬 Hon Member: And Mark Blumsky.

The member talks about the previous Mayor of Wellington. I remember talking to him about the issue. He told me that Transmission Gully would cut travel time to the city by a mere 5 minutes and therefore was not worth it. It seems to be endemic in mayors of Wellington.

Now is the time to move on, make progress, and ensure that the decisions that have now been reached on the best possible advice are acted upon. If we are able to achieve that—as I am extremely confident we will—we will not only secure transport access to this city but also demonstrate that we are serious about trying to curb what is a major infrastructure deficit right across New Zealand, be it roading, rail, electricity, aviation, or other modes of transport.

What we need to be starting to embark upon in New Zealand is a real concentration on reinvesting in infrastructure, and improving it so that the quality of services that can be delivered to our citizens is intensely increased. If we do that, we will make a significant impact. Our region and our country will benefit, and we will lift ourselves out of the mire within which we have become enmeshed in recent times, and I think New Zealand will welcome that.

There are two ways in which we can tell that a Government is in its dying phases, and this Government is in rigor mortis. The first is that it starts crying foul about parliamentary accountability. I am proud to have Judith Collins as my bench mate. She had Lianne Dalziel sacked because she had misled the media—and the Prime Minister said so. We also had David Benson-Pope held to account because he misled this Parliament—and that fact, too, has been confirmed by the Prime Minister. That also came about because of the diligent work of my excellent bench mate, Judith Collins.

But there is a second way in which we can tell a Government is in its dying stages—that is, it is reviewing everything. In any area of Government policy where there is any sort of problem, we have Ministers saying they will have a review. We have added them up. There are 69 reviews—

💬 Paula Bennett: How many?

—69 reviews going on in the Government right now. Some of the reviews are occurring because Ministers have got themselves in a pickle and they want a diversion. Some of the reviews are occurring because of the Government’s boomerang policies. The chickens are coming home to roost on bad policy decisions that have been made previously. And the third area of reviews are occurring because this Government is so bereft of ideas and so lacking in direction that it has rushed off to the public service to try to come up with some fresh, new ideas that might explain where it is going.

Let us take the Whangamata marina decision made by Chris Carter, which was pretty dodgy given that he had had a wee chat to his mate Bob Harvey, as was confirmed in the House today. To divert attention away from that decision, on Tuesday he announced that a review of coastal policy would be held. The problem was that he forgot to tell Dr Cullen. We asked whether there were terms of reference for the review. The answer was “No”. We asked whether there was a timetable for the review. The answer was “No”. Well, that announcement was nothing more than a diversion, and it is not the only one. Steve Maharey is on the back foot over text message bullying. What did Steve Maharey announce as the great new initiative to save kids? He said: “Let us have a review.”

Then we come to the whole mess over the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, the billion-dollar bungle there is so big that we will not have one, two, or three reviews—we are to have five reviews. There will be a review on forestry policy and a review on electricity policy, and a review is going on over the way the numbers are done. The Government has an absolute policy vacuum, and the problem, I tell the ladies and gentlemen of this House, is that all those reviews just create uncertainty in the electricity sector at the very time we need new investment.

And there is another mess-up from Chris Carter. Do people remember when we had that knee-jerk reaction to that dear little girl who was hurt by dogs? Suddenly, we were to have the microchipping of all dogs—and now we are having a review of the policy of dog microchipping, to fix up that mess that Chris Carter has on that front.

There is another one. We all, as members of Parliament, are aware of the trauma of families that are caught up with the problems of leaky homes—thousands and thousands of them. They were told by the Government 3 years ago that it had set up the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service and the problem would all be solved. Well, in July last year Chris Carter announced there would be a review and that those carrying out the review would report back in October. Well, it is now March of the next year. Are there any results from the review? No, there are not, and, in fact, we have no idea of what the Government will do.

Then we could take areas like tax, and my colleague John Key will talk about all the reviews that are going on in that area. If we take my colleague Judith Collins’ area, there are many reviews going on in social welfare, because the Government does not know what it is doing. Equally, my colleague Paul Hutchison will be speaking on reviews with regard to health. If we take an area like immigration, the Government has three separate reviews going on.

💬 Hon Member: No surprise.

That is no surprise. Tens of thousands of people are abandoning New Zealand, and there is a reduction in the number of people who are choosing to migrate to New Zealand. We even have a review, which was meant to report in November, in respect of immigration and Phillip Field.

Last week women gathered around the breakfast tables to celebrate International Women’s Day. I attended two of those breakfasts as Minister of Women’s Affairs. It was a wonderful day to set aside political differences, to reflect on the achievements of women in New Zealand, and to contemplate the improvements that are still to be made. I was proud to identify how well women have done here in New Zealand. In playing leading roles in politics, in the head of State role, and also in our largest corporation in the country, women have done very well. But when we look down a layer—and this was the question I asked—where are the women who are coming through? Where are the women who will take up leadership roles in the future?

I also asked whether the young women who are coming through to those roles know how recently some of the rights we take for granted today were legislated for, many of them in my lifetime. Equal pay itself came in in the 1970s, access to safe, legal abortions was passed in 1977, discrimination based on gender was made unlawful in 1977 with the Human Rights Commission Act, rape within marriage was not an offence until the 1980s, and domestic violence was not taken seriously by a range of Parliaments for a number of years. The rights that women take for granted in this country today have been hard fought for and not easily won, but they are just as at risk of being taken away from us unless we know what they are and how to stand up for them.

I believe that the National Party has a shameful record in terms of women in Parliament and a shameful record in terms of women in senior positions, both in Cabinet and in the shadow Cabinet. It has punished the last two women MPs for the crime of not agreeing to policies they were not consulted on, despite being the spokespeople on those policies. The heyday for the National Party was when the Minister of Finance was Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley was the Minister of Social Welfare and Minister of Women’s Affairs. They were women who dominated the political landscape. I did not agree with their policies, nor did I admire their policies. But I have always admired women who have been prepared to stand up for what they believe in, to argue the issue, to debate the policy, and to not play personal politics with individuals.

I did not agree with Ruth Richardson’s and Jenny Shipley’s policy prescription for the nation in 1990. We had the benefit cuts, we had the Employment Contracts Act, and we had the 1991 Budget, which unleashed National’s competitive market model on health, housing, education, and accident compensation—everything that underpins a decent society, which the leader of the National Party had said he would bring to New Zealand in 1990. We had been promised that in the election campaign. It was a low point for women—that is the point that I am making—in terms of the impact of National’s policies on families, especially in State housing areas.

But in all that time of robust debate—and the debate was robust; I was there—I do not remember the two chief protagonists for the National Government, Jenny Shipley or Ruth Richardson, personally attacking anyone or exposing their families to the kinds of things that we have now seen in this House. Ruth Richardson said before the 1990 election that a National Government would never engage in disgraceful personal attacks but instead would attack the real causes of problems. Jenny Shipley is also on record as saying she did not support personal attacks.

The National Party has now got itself into a situation where its leader does not assert his abhorrence for what has happened in this House—and what we have heard was abhorrent. Dr Brash’s predecessor—and, I am sure, his hopeful successor—now says that because Judith Collins did not say, when talking about David Benson-Pope, that his children’s father was a pervert, it was OK to call David Benson-Pope a pervert. Well, that was not OK. Everyone in this country knows that Judith Collins went too far in this House—everyone except the National Party. The National Party is sticking up for that appalling behaviour, and I cannot understand why the leadership of the National Party is adopting that position. I say “the leadership” because I know that there are MPs on the Opposition side of the House who agree with me that Judith Collins went too far, and who are appalled at what she did in this House. They are embarrassed that a woman could sink to such depths and that the leadership of the party is prepared to condone it.

What crocodile tears we have had from the Opposition side of the House! I have been on the receiving end from members on that side, too.

I have just been recalling how and why the previous speaker, Lianne Dalziel, got sacked as a Minister. It was, of course, because she not only misled the media but also bullied a little 16-year-old girl who had been raped continuously by members of her family from the time she was 8 years old, and that member is currently in court in a defamation proceeding from the lawyer she tried to pick on. That is why that member got sacked. How dare she lecture this House about women’s rights when she behaved as she did toward a little girl who had been raped for years! I say to her, thanks very much—she has just reminded me why she is not worthy of the job.

We have had a lot of fun today. We understand that the Government does not want to talk about policy because it does not really want to talk about the reviews. But there are—how many?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: 69.

There are 69 reviews going on currently under this Government. That means there are 69 reviews going on instead of 69 decisions being made. The Government is so bereft of leadership that it cannot make a decision. It was extremely interesting today to be lectured on leadership by Ruth Dyson. What is she leader of? Can anyone remember? That is right—Child, Youth and Family Services.

💬 Hon Bill English: The Labour left.

Yes, the Labour left within Child, Youth and Family Services. That poor department—left to Ruth Dyson! That department is so bad, so lacking in leadership, that it now has to be merged with David Benson-Pope’s ministry. It is that bad! Ruth Dyson is a Minister who stood in the House and said that she actually agreed that the department was moving towards performance excellence. That is what she told this House—of course, it is not only performance excellence; it is also a culture of excellence, and, at the same time, it is a culture of resistance. She cannot have it both ways. That Minister, Ruth Dyson, was embarrassed yesterday. She was embarrassed by her own words, and she was embarrassed by the fact that she did not want Child, Youth and Family Services to merge with the Ministry of Social Development. She did not want to have to admit that her leadership was so slack and so pathetic that her department has to be merged with David Benson-Pope’s ministry. Yet she was caught out.

She has now had a report come out, which the Government did not want us to table yesterday—strangely enough, even though it is its own report—and she said there—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: It’s been tabled.

No, they did not want it tabled. They objected.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: It’s been tabled, you idiot.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at the comment from that member, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, and I ask that you ask her to withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Members make disparaging remarks about each other all the time. It is a personal reflection that is out of order.

As a personal reflection.

💬 Hon Mark Burton: With respect, Mr Assistant Speaker, I note that the member started her contribution with a list of such insults directed at the member—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say to members that points of order are to be heard in silence, and they must be terse and to the point.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am already dealing with a point of order, Mr Tisch. I say to the Minister, Mark Burton, that he has made his point.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The difficulty that we get into with the comment that was made by the Minister is actually twofold. Firstly, the term used would be considered to be unparliamentary, and, secondly, the way in which it was phrased dragged you into the debate. On that basis, the member should withdraw.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: I withdraw and apologise for bringing you into the debate, Mr Assistant Speaker.

No, no—that is not good enough.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member must just stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: I withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

I get back to the real issues, which are what has been going on in Child, Youth and Family Services. Let us have a look at some of the reviews that have been going on. We have had the external review in 2000, with Youth Court judge Michael Brown. We had the 2003 baseline review, and at the moment the new service progress report is due—that is for the Ministry of Social Development. It was due in February 2006, and what day is it today? Oh—it is March 2006. Of course, that was formerly the sickness benefit and invalids benefit strategy. We also have, in the Ministry of Social Development, the full outcome evaluation of the new service model prototype due in June 2006. That will be a doozy. We have the Working for Families review, the preliminary information due in July 2006, with another review at the end of this year. We have the value for money review. Well, that will be helpful! That is called the “new comedy review”. We also have the Ministry of Social Development’s client debt strategy and debt establishment review project—bracket, date to be advised, bracket. Of course, we know what that is all about. That is because there has been a huge blow-out in debt in the Ministry of Social Development’s clients.

That is just a little sample of the reviews. But what is more important is this: who will do a review that actually asks what is in it for the kids of this country? Who will put our little kids first? Who will put the children in this country first—the children who are abused by people who should be looking after them and looking after their care? Who will do that? Only a National Government will.

This Labour Government is so full of, let us say, review—that is all it can do. In the House I cannot use the word I want to use. This Government is absolutely full of hot air. Its members are always talking about things but never actually doing them. They cannot keep blaming the National Government. I heard Ruth Dyson yesterday blaming the National Party for the last year because we put the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services under stress. No—what has put that department under stress is a hopeless Minister.

I pick up where Dr Nick Smith left off, and I have to say that one can always tell when an Opposition is in deep trouble. One can always tell when an Opposition is hollowed out, has no ideas, and is bereft of any depth. That is the time when an Opposition starts wading through the sewer.

I am reminded of a guy called Senator Sam Ervin, who on 15 November 1954 made a very interesting speech to the US Senate. He told a story, and I think it is quite apt: “A young lawyer went to an old lawyer for advice as to how to try a lawsuit. The old lawyer said: ‘If the evidence is against you, talk about the law. If the law is against you, talk about the evidence.’ The young lawyer said: ‘But what do you do when both the evidence and the law are against you?’. ‘In that event,’ said the old lawyer, ‘give somebody hell. That will distract the attention of the judge and the jury from the weakness of your case.’ ” That speech was made by Senator Sam Ervin on 15 November 1954 when he tore Joe McCarthy apart on the floor of the US Senate.

I say to this House—and I made remarks last week—and particularly to some of the newer members that this Parliament is an institution that generally people in this country respect. I will admit that the public may not respect some of the people in it from time to time. They may not respect some of the policies, or the views, or the debates from time to time. But when I brought schoolkids in here, as a constituent member, I realised that the one thing they respect and their parents respect, and the one thing they live in awe of, is this place. [Interruption] That cynical, stupid comment from the numb member sums it up. The one thing that children and their parents are in awe of is the institution that is our Parliament. I refer to the plaques around the walls. Generations fought and died to preserve that thing called a democracy, and to allow us to stand up with freedom of speech and put our views forward. That is what people respect.

I invite the lawyer from somewhere up north, Judith Collins, to reflect on that quote, and I invite her to go and read Sam Ervin’s speech of 15 November 1954. We all know about the McCarthyism era. We have New Zealand’s version of Joe McCarthy here: Rodney Hide. And I wonder what his legacy will be. What will he tell his children and his grandchildren about his legacy when he leaves this place? Will he talk about the legislation he passed? Will he talk about the great issues he addressed, and the people he helped? Or will he sit down one day with his grandchild on his knee and admit that about the only thing he contributed to our democracy was to wade through the political sewer, slop around in the muck a few times, sleaze and crawl his way out on his hands and knees, and put another notch in that enormous belt of his?

💬 Rodney Hide: He’s jealous.

Jealous? I would rather be jealous of Satan than of that member. No one in the House is jealous of that member. That member will say to his grandchild that the secret to his success was that he took a once-great party called the ACT party, which siphoned millions of dollars out of the business community—never was more money spent on such a lost cause—and reduced its numbers to the current lonely two. That is the legacy he will be able to tell his grandchild about.

I also wonder what legacy Dr Brash will tell his children about. Will he tell them about the once-great days when he portrayed himself as a sort of naive Jimmy Stewart—Mr Smith Goes to Washington—for a number of years? And that then he was tempted by the—what is the biblical phrase, something about a serpent and an apple? I do not know; I have not been to church lately. He was tempted by the serpent with the apple. He waded into the sewer. He will live with the stench of that politics for the rest of his days. The biggest review that is now going on in the National Party is the one about leadership. That is the biggest review that is going on, and I invite members to think carefully about it in order to preserve the institution of our Parliament.

What an interesting afternoon it has been in Parliament. We have had the Labour Party dispatch three women—Annette King, Ruth Dyson, and Lianne Dalziel—to do a hatchet job on my colleague Judith Collins. That was their job. That was the message from the ninth floor. Not one of those speeches asked whether Judith Collins had asked the wrong questions of David Benson-Pope. Not one of those speeches from that side of the House mentioned whether Judith Collins’ questions were not worthy of asking. Not one of those members asked the question whether for the last 12 months David Benson-Pope has done everything he possibly could to obfuscate, to not answer the questions, or to not front up. Not one of those members mentioned whether it was a little odd that David Benson-Pope thought it was more important to have lunch with John Cleese, the “Minister of Funny Walks”, than it was to come down to the House and front up to the allegations. Not one of those speeches had anything to do with that.

What they said was that Judith Collins’ questions in the House had hurt David Benson-Pope. They did not say that the questions were wrong, that they were not worthy of an answer, or that they had taken too long to be answered; they said that they had hurt. That is interesting, because it comes on the back of a week when we have had Michael Cullen—and he was in the House when those speeches were being given—cuddling his “dirt file” and making accusations and innuendo about the National front bench that he cannot substantiate. When Audrey Young put the hard question to him before caucus yesterday and asked him to put up or shut up, he did not have an answer for that. He said she should just pick up the latest copy of North and South and have a look at me cuddling Molly the dog: “I want you to remember that. Don’t have me cuddling the ‘dirt file’; I’m happy to throw you the accusations.”

Well, if Michael Cullen and the Labour Party want to get into whether the House is brought into disrepute in debating the issues, then I say to him “Bring it on.” I encourage any member of the House to go back over the last 4 years and look at every single press release that Michael Cullen has issued in the finance area. Every one of them attacks me personally. They do not debate the issues. They do not ask whether they are right or wrong. There is a reason that Patricia Herbert left Michael Cullen’s office. She refused to keep writing the dirt that Michael Cullen wanted her to write, so he hired Mike Jaspers—a guy I went to school with; we were mates—and told him: “Mike, you’re junior round here now, and you’ll write the things I want you to write.” So if Michael Cullen and Labour want to have a new standard in the House, then I say “Good on you!”, but they should start with the Deputy Prime Minister and stop all the muckraking that they do on that side.

While they are at it, they should apologise to Jenny Shipley for the way they treated her. They should apologise to Tuku Morgan. And they should apologise for all of the other things that they have done in the House. Personal attacks are an art form that started with the Labour Party. Trevor Mallard, Michael Cullen, Phil Goff, Steve Maharey, Clayton Cosgrove, and all the rest of them lead the pack, and they do not like it when it gets dished up back at them. They do not like it. Well, this is the time for them to get a taste of their own medicine.

As my colleague the Hon Nick Smith said, when one does not have good ideas one starts a review. In the finance area, Michael Cullen has never had a good idea. That is why he is reviewing the whole thing. He is reviewing the money coming in—the tax system. He is reviewing the money going out—with the razor gang. He is even reviewing the money that is rolling around and sloshing around in the system, with monetary policy. He is reviewing every part of the finance system. In a few years’ time, what will be reviewed will be the Government’s performance, and I think that we will find a very different answer.

Let us look at the business tax review. Members may recall the Budget in 2005.

There is a growing drive in this country to privatise our coastlines and our marine areas. The Whangamata debate is a typical example of that drive to privatise, and of the very queer hysteria that arises when public space is protected for public use.

Whangamata is a beautiful area and one of the most popular beaches in New Zealand. It has safe swimming, great surf, and fabulous fishing. It is a wonderful example of the crucial interplay of wetlands and coastal areas. In the estuaries, there are vital seagrass beds that act as a critical fish nursery. The shellfish beds are important as a food source for the hapū and the whole community. The estuary is the only one in the whole Coromandel Peninsula that is entirely free from invasive species. It is an area of special significance that is highly valued by the mana whenua, the local community, and everyone who goes there.

But much of the wetland and the saltmarsh in the area have already been lost to growth and development. There is increasing degradation of the estuaries and the necessary functions they fulfil for the marine ecology in that area. Sediment build-up, the churning up of the seagrass beds by motor boats, and dredging of the shellfish beds will destroy that area forever. Now, because of the Minister of Conservation’s decision, that area has been kept safe for everyone to use as a food basket, as a safe place for the family to holiday, as a national resource, and as a national treasure. Yet we face this strangely hysterical response from those who want to privatise it. With Nick Smith leading the hysteria, there is a backlash against the protection of public access to the foreshore and seabed.

We must return to the whole foreshore and seabed debate of just a few years ago, when the issue of whether collective shared Māori customary rights—not private, personal, individual rights, but customary, collective rights—should be upheld was attacked by the rhetoric of the public interest. Both Labour and National used rights of access, the notion of the New Zealand way of life with picnics and swimming, as reasons to keep hapū and iwi from having any tikanga interests in coastal areas.

National’s Nick Smith was especially vocal about those public rights. “The beach is the core to being a New Zealander.”, he said. “It is our right to grab the picnic bag, or the barbecue, and go to the beach.”, he said. Yet on this issue of Whangamata he staunchly defends the private rights of some to acquire public property and to restrict public access. Nick Smith wants to take from everyone, so that just a few can have what is now—already—still everyone’s. We must choose to reject the hysterical and extremist pursuit of development at any cost that is being defended by National. We can have a process for growth and development of our areas and of our economy that does not steal from the public, and that does not destroy our environmental values. We must stop the private capture of public space.

For that, the Greens appreciate the Minister of Conservation’s position. The Opposition has been especially critical of Minister Carter, and has also been talking about former Minister Sandra Lee’s decision to refer a similar matter back to the Environment Court. But National is not telling New Zealanders that the Minister is legally prevented from referring this matter back to the court. The legal circumstances of this case are very different from those of that earlier case. Nick Smith is failing to tell everyone that, because it does not fit his support of development and growth above all else. It is a terrible shame to see this kind of failure to understand the extent to which New Zealanders value the public access, the public entitlement, the coastal environment, and our way of life, by a party that supposedly defends it. In fact, its members right now, in their public defence of the private rights of some, are advocating the theft of public space. We are very pleased they have failed in that cause, and we call on New Zealanders to remind National and others that it is, indeed, a right of the public to have access to our environment.

The point that Labour has been trying to make in the House today is that, as members of Parliament, we all have two roads we can go down in terms of our conduct in this House. It is fair to say that everybody in Parliament, on every side of the Chamber, could throw around all sorts of things, if that was what we decided to do, and spend all our time in this House yelling and screaming at one another. But the reality is that we have seen in the last hour in this House a lot of energy, a lot of anger, and a lot of emotion because of the way in which the debate has gone. I think there is a call on all of us to stop and reflect about the things we are prepared to do and say in order to get a headline, and I think the general consensus in the House is that in the last little while things have gone far too far in relation to some of the language that has been used about an issue that has been debated.

I do not intend to get into the issue, but I do say that the language members of Parliament use determines the conduct, the standards, and the behaviour of this Chamber. One thing that is pretty clear is that a whole lot of stories about Mr Benson-Pope have been distorted in this Chamber by members of the Opposition during question time in a way that has caused a lot of hurt to his family and brought his professional integrity into disrepute. It is pretty clear, from what nearly every one of his students has said, that this guy was a great teacher. He was a good teacher, who did a good job. We have had lots of correspondence from former students and their parents to say that this person was a good teacher who did a good job. In the course of a political argument, a whole lot of stories came out and were distorted. They were not genuine and not true. They were phrased in a way that put the worst possible light on somebody’s integrity and personal standards of behaviour.

Some of the words used went far beyond what we would normally expect in the rational kind of political debate and exchange that we have in this place. Of course we clash with one another. I tell members a secret: Labour members do not like National members. But here is another one: they do not like us, either. That is fine; we will come in here, week after week, and we will throw stuff at one another and have a great exchange of ideas. But what matters is how far we are prepared to go, and what language we are prepared to use to get that headline.

I noted that when Mr Key was speaking before, he said that this was a big matter and he was very proud of the way his party had conducted itself on it. But when he came to a town in my electorate, to Waikanae, he said that the whole affair was a sideshow, with no effect on the next election. He said that while the issue was a matter the Opposition needed to exploit, voters wanted promises and policies that would make them feel good and positive about where New Zealand was heading. I agree with John Key, the member for Helensville, on that—that is absolutely right. He was quoted in the Kapiti Observer as saying what a sideshow it had been.

That is why it has been a bit rich to have the response from National today. Its members have been sticking up for and defending their behaviour and their colleagues on this point. It was clear to all of us throughout the adjournment that wherever we went, and no matter what kind of audience we were in front of or group we were visiting—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: You were in trouble.

Mr Smith says we were in trouble. That is not correct, at all. I think Nick Smith should say that nobody came up to him and said that they were really happy with the language being used in Parliament, or that they thought the way members of Parliament were talking about one another was fantastic. That is just not right. I have heard Dr Nick Smith interjecting, but I suspect he does not reflect the mainstream view within National. I think, when we all came back here for our caucus meetings, we said there had been a certain reaction in New Zealand, and people did not like us going as far as that. I think that is the right thing; we should focus on policies, and on being positive about where New Zealand is heading—as John Key said when he visited Waikanae. He was clearly distancing himself from some of the language and behaviour that had gone on. Leadership is needed to make sure things do not descend any further.

So our debate has to be more about policy; it has to be less about the way we phrase our attacks on one another. Debate should be policy based, with a bit of jiving here and there, of course, against one another, but we do not need to do anything in a way such that when our families switch on television they feel embarrassed and ashamed about what we do for a job. We should not behave to such an extent that when members return to their families they have to explain some of the things people are saying about each other in here, because it has gone too far.

I think that is the real point that Labour has been trying to make today. We love fierce political attacks, and fierce political clashes on issues, and we want to see more of that—more debate around policies. We have said that for this year our three goals are economic transformation, the support of families young and old, and the building of a national identity. We will come here in May with a Budget around those three themes, and we expect the Opposition to challenge us on it. We expect to have to stand here and defend it—and we will, because we are proud of our policies.

Finally, can I say how pleased I have been—returning to a firm policy position—at the decision last week of the hearings committee on the western corridor and Transmission Gully. Let there be no mistake about it: the Wellington electorate members of Parliament—Labour and United Future—did a huge amount of work to make sure a funding envelope was available to the Wellington region, so that the right decision could be made for the future of this region.

It is extraordinary that Annette King of all people has reactivated the Benson-Pope saga today. It is extraordinary that after 9 months on this issue it is the previous Minister of Health who has re-dug up dirt relating to her own Cabinet colleague. Firstly, I remind the House that it was the Hon David Benson-Pope who misled this House 9 months ago, and the Labour Government is in denial over that very important fact. I also remind this House that just recently I was talking to my colleague the Hon Tau Henare, and was reminded that it was those Labour members, in Opposition at the time, who spent 3 years hounding Tuku Morgan, who went nowhere near misleading this House.

It was the highly respected constitutional lawyer, Professor Bill Hodge, who categorically stated that the nub of the Benson-Pope saga was at the heart of our democracy, and the least the people of New Zealand can expect, and the members of this House can expect, is that members of Cabinet will not mislead this House, and that, if they do mislead the House, they should go. As constitutional lawyer Bill Hodge pointed out, Mr Benson-Pope misled this House, and therefore he has to go. It is this tired, old Labour Government that, if it continues to limp along as it remains in denial, has effectively condoned one of its members, a Cabinet Minister, misleading this House, and it will go nowhere, and it should go nowhere very soon.

The reason I am concerned that Annette King reactivated the Benson-Pope saga is that it was Annette King who, in 1998, used the very injudicious language that a waiting list of 96,000 was criminal. That is what Annette King said about the waiting list in 1998—that it was criminal. Now, after 6 years of a Labour Government and billions of extra dollars spent, the waiting list is over 160,000 people. I ask Mrs King whether that is criminal. Because by Mrs King’s standards her Government should be on the way out, and the injudicious language that Mrs King used is totally inappropriate.

It will take one hang of a lot more than 69 reviews, which this tired, old Labour Government has ordered up, to fix the health system in New Zealand. After 6 years of building bureaucracy and total lack of productivity identified by the OECD, the Treasury, and by her own Minister of Finance, we are simply not getting value for money under this Labour Government.

But this Labour Government cannot even see when a review is truly needed. I point to the Hon Pete Hodgson, the Labour Government’s “billion-dollar Kyoto mistake man.” He was the man who told this House: “Yes, sign up, ratify Kyoto, and a half-billion-dollar cheque will be written out automatically.” Well, now we know that Mr Hodgson, the man who has been sent to fix the health system, has actually been responsible for the biggest fiscal mistake in the history of New Zealand—$1 billion—yet here he is trying to fix up a health system that is in absolute disarray after 6 years and the billion dollars more that this Labour Government has spent.

It was on 17 February this year that Minister Hodgson was asked some questions about Focus 2000 Ltd.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.