General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It is really interesting to see that the pretenders are all here, but the leader is not.

💬 Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The member knows that is out of order.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: There is a very strong convention in this House that members do not refer to the absence of members, but Speakers’ rulings do not make that an absolute. There may be contexts in which it is appropriate. In this particular context, where the member was about to discuss certain activities of the Leader of the Opposition it was noticeable that he drifted out of the House just before the end of question time, to avoid the start of the general debate.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I think the member should withdraw. It is a convention that we do not make reference in the House to absences from the Chamber. That is the point the member is wishing to make, and I uphold it.

I withdraw. I will start by noting that someone else did, as well. Like many New Zealand politicians, I have on a number of occasions spent time in the United States studying their political system—right back to 1988, when I was a guest of the US Government to watch the Bush and Dukakis campaigns, and watch Dukakis lose the “unloseable” election. I have spent time in the United Kingdom, staying at Michael Hirschfeld’s sister’s place, and have spent time with the British Labour Party. The difference between the Leader of the Opposition and myself is that I can remember, and when asked about the facts I can recall them and I can state them clearly.

I think that what National Party members are focusing on now, in the back rooms all around the place, is whether they would prefer to have the leader who gave them the worst loss in their 70-year history, the Hon Bill English, or John Key, the member who during the election campaign, when he was enrolling, could not work out where he lived. He is the man with $50 million, who rearranged his affairs in order to get a Wellington allowance as a member of Parliament. National members are faced with a dilemma, and they are trying to work their way through a problem.

But one thing is very, very clear. Don Brash misled the New Zealand public when he said: “There is no one I have met who is an American involved in our campaign.” He knows now that is untrue. He knew previously that was not true. I agree with Bill English, that it is not necessarily a lie. It is not necessarily a lie, because to lie means one deliberately misleads and knows what one is doing. That is the choice we are faced with on this occasion. Does Don Brash know what he is doing, and deliberately misleads, or is he just confused and does not understand—as with the Exclusive Brethren?

Who could do better than Dr Brash at the press conference yesterday? He went into a press conference to refute some comments around an email. Did he have the email? Had he read the email? Maybe. I think he probably had; I think he has short-term confusion—and it may be long term. What did he say? “Can someone pass me the email? I do not have it with me.” He got it from a journalist. He said: “You’re quite right. I had frankly overlooked the fact that they were there.” This is the email about which he called a press conference! This is the email that says an American, Julian Robertson, had highly recommended strategists for the National Party. This is the email that says Julian Robertson had been recruiting strategists for the National Party. There is nothing wrong with that, but if that were the case why did Don Brash say: “There is no one I have met who is an American involved in our campaign.”? Clearly there is. If he knew, he lied; if he did not know, he is incompetent.

Yesterday in this House Mr Peters tabled an email that poses serious questions about at least two members of this Parliament—not, I hasten to say, about Dr Brash. All the email reveals about Dr Brash is that he passed on an offer of assistance, which was ultimately turned down. The tabling of the email, though, does raise serious questions about the judgment and motives of Mr Peters and Mr Mallard. People in Washington read New Zealand newspapers. Reckless and irresponsible comments by Ministers in New Zealand come at a cost to this country’s interests. Of Mr Peters in particular, who holds the warrant of Minister of Foreign Affairs, the most serious questions must be asked. He is the same Mr Peters who told us, upon his appointment, that his most important task was to resurrect the relationship between New Zealand and the United States, and he is the same Mr Peters who then proceeded to travel almost everywhere in the world—except to Washington.

Dr Brash, by contrast, has been to Washington. Dr Brash went to Washington to support Mr Goff, Mr Cunliffe, and leading New Zealand business people who were there to improve the New Zealand - US relationship. Dr Brash did that because he cares about the improvement of New Zealanders’ future wealth and security, and he is prepared to put aside petty party politics in order to achieve that goal. Mr Peters has demonstrated to us by his actions yesterday that he does not do that—and that he will not.

The Washington visit signalled an important turning point and an important development in the conduct of foreign affairs of this country, because senior politicians from both the National Party and the Labour Party decided that New Zealand’s overriding interest in improving our relationship with the United States—our second-largest trading partner—should take precedence over narrow partisan politics. We worked in a bipartisan fashion to try to take the relationship forward. Mr Goff has been reported in the newspapers as taking some credit for that shift, and I do not begrudge him that. There have been some signs of progress, underlined by yesterday’s reported statement from assistant secretary of State Christopher Hill.

The need to improve the relationship is a no-brainer; I would have thought even Mr Peters understood that. Every New Zealand serviceman or woman who serves in one of the trouble spots of the world would be safer if we could secure a relaxation of the current restrictions on the ability of New Zealand and US troops to train together—something Mr Goff has advocated recently. Every New Zealand citizen would be safer if we could overcome some of the obstacles in our defence relationship with Australia, caused by US restrictions on access to its intelligence and technology. Every New Zealand citizen would be richer if we could, over time, achieve a free-trade deal with the United States to match the free-trade agreement secured by Australia 2 years ago. All of those projects are not short-term projects but are, at the very best, medium-term projects. They will not be achieved in the lifetime of one Government. That is why we must start now and must work together.

Just yesterday assistant secretary Hill signalled that we are making some progress in the relationship. For any Minister of the Crown, let alone the Minister of Foreign Affairs—the self-appointed champion of better relationships with the United States—to sink a harpoon into the very heart of our international interests and wantonly destroy the progress that is being made is utterly beneath contempt. Mr Peters will know, because his officials and the US officials will have told him, of the huge cost to this country of Mr Mallard’s reckless behaviour at the commencement of the last election campaign. The effect of Mr Mallard’s comments at that time, introducing those about a bogus American bagman, was to kill constructive dialogue with the United States cold, stone dead. It has taken time and effort from Ministers on the Government benches, from members on the Opposition benches, and from business interests in this country to get things back on track.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I call the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you well know, the allocation of speaking spots for this debate is published well in advance. New Zealand First does not appear on the sheet today. Can the House have some explanation as to why Mr Peters now stands to take a speech? The fact is that this is supposed to be a Labour Party slot. Of course, many people are now saying that Mr Peters has joined the Labour Party, but I think the House is owed an explanation of this matter.

That is the kind of brainless point of order that that member is famous for, with no Standing Order and no Speaker’s ruling cited. It is not his business who speaks next; it is yours.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: Thank you. Speaking order is in the gift of the party, and Labour is not the only party that has decided to reallocate a speaking slot in this particular debate.

Madam Speaker—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: He’s joined the Labour Party.

No, no—if New Zealand First reminds anyone in New Zealand of another political party, it is of the National Party when it had a bit of truth, honesty, and integrity. That is what New Zealand First reminds most people of: the National Party when it had leadership and a sense of decency and honour—not the shallow, shilly-shallying group over there now on the Opposition benches, who have no policy and no principles, but are permanently obsessed with just one thing; power. Those members just want to have power. The speech made by Mr McCully reminded me of a deer caught in the headlights. The National members are flailing around for an escape hatch. Don Brash got nailed yesterday. In the House he took a bazooka out to the press conference, and he turned it on himself—not me—and that is why he must go.

First of all, I say I have been abroad. I went overseas to study political campaigns in the USA in 1988 at the request of the American Government, and was with the Republican campaign. For people’s information, I say I have been to Australia likewise and to the UK. The issue is not that the Americans might have been involved—or the Germans or the outer Mongolians or the Russians or the British—in any campaign that is going on. Do members know what the problem is? Don Brash denied that. He said it was not true. He said, just as he did over the Exclusive Brethren funding National, that he knew nothing about it. When the question was first raised as to whether Don Brash knew anything about the Exclusive Brethren paying for National’s campaign and doing all the pamphlets, he said no, he did not. He was asked whether he knew who had put out the pamphlets attacking the Greens, and he said that he did not know.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Come on, Winnie—own up.

Then a few days later, he owned up, yes. I thank Tau. That is right; a few days later he owned up—I thank the member very much. I was searching around for the word “confessed”, but “owned up” is good enough. It is standard 3 English, but that is OK.

The issue is not that the British, the Americans, or anybody else might have been involved in any party campaign; the problem arises when one denies that and then resorts in this House to pure fiction. John Foote is a New Zealand citizen. John Foote did not bring any money in from overseas. Do members know that John Foote was offered $87 an hour by the National Party to run its campaign? I ask National members to deny that. That is the kind of hypocrisy that I am hearing now. [Interruption] Oh, I say to Tau that that is very good—it is a boomerang. He is quite right; it is a boomerang. But here is the truth: Dr Brash said all the allegations were a thundering lie.

💬 Hon Member: How did you get on in Tauranga? What did you lose by?

Well, I tell people what I have not done in my career. I was not promoted for exactly 48 hours. A promotion did not so overwhelm me that I had to go off and get some Valium, and I did not find a promotion to be so much for me that I lost my nerve and my mind—and that after being described by my leader as “the best deputy National could ever possibly want”—and was gone within 48 hours of being promoted. That is what I have never done, at all.

💬 Hon Bill English: Is this the best you can do?

Oh no, I can do better than this. I am just warming up.

Here is the truth: the National Party denied overseas involvement in its campaign. It denied American involvement in its campaign. There is nothing wrong with having American involvement; why do those members not just own up? But last night, at the end of the press conference, we again found out the truth.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Who paid the legal fees for the wine box?

Who paid for the wine-box inquiry? Yours truly. That member should go and ask the BNZ. I will tell members who did not pay 1c: Tau Henare. He got into Parliament on my back and on the back of New Zealand First, and he never paid 1c, ever. [Interruption] That was another boomerang question. I would never have thought Tau Henare would have the temerity to raise that question. Shame on the member! I had to carry the whole can by myself.

When one’s political career is at its end, when one’s reputation is in tatters, and when one has nothing to look forward to, one turns round and joins the Labour Party. Mr Peters very, very cleverly came to the House yesterday with a pile of emails. He said they would destroy people. He made the erroneous connection between National and some Americans, all the time knowing that his own campaign was run by an American called Mr John Edward Foote.

Are members like me—a little bit uncertain about why New Zealand First did so poorly in the last campaign? Here is the reason: the American genius selected by Winston Peters to run his campaign had previous experience running the Williams Brothers shopping centre campaign, the Cumbria County Council campaign, the Moro Friends of the Library campaign, and various training sessions, including one called “Collins for Congress”—thank God it is not our own Collins! But the kicker—the big thing—that Mr Foote hangs his hat on is that he was once a fundraiser for Dan Quayle. This is the guy that Winston Peters chose to run his campaign. The only American bagman in the 2005 campaign was carrying the bag for Winston Peters.

I say to Winston Peters that leaked emails go two ways. I have an email in front of me that was leaked out of a New Zealand First office today—at 2.41 p.m., actually. The writer states that he or she has seen Sky News, has watched the leader of New Zealand First, Winston Peters, and has now come to the conclusion that Mr Peters is nothing more than a Labour Party stooge. The writer states that any further votes for New Zealand First will not come from the writer’s household. I am told that New Zealand First’s email system is clogged with those sorts of emails.

Perhaps one of the worst aspects of yesterday’s so-called revelations by the leader of New Zealand First—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do not usually do this—I would wait until the end of the speech—but I think the member should table the document right now, and then we will see who is telling the truth. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): First of all, points of order are heard in silence. The Speaker has warned the whole House this afternoon, and many members could have been out then. No, that was not a point of order.

Perhaps one of the worst aspects of Mr Peters’ revelations yesterday was the fact that he attacked a gentleman called Julian Robertson. I invite members of Parliament on the other side of the House to tell us how many times they have enjoyed hospitality at various institutions owned by Mr Robertson. I would like them to tell us how many times they have been in helicopters owned by Mr Robertson. How many times has Darren Hughes been up to Kauri Cliffs? How many times has that whip signed the leave papers for Labour Party members to go snivelling up to Mr Robertson at Kauri Cliffs? I want them to own up to the fact that the only person who got a donation from Mr Robertson at the last election was Dover Samuels. He is the man who is happy to say that Mr Robertson has provided thousands of jobs in the north.

Then we have the other issue. Recently at Te Papa there was an exhibition of paintings by Cézanne, Picasso, and other leading artists—paintings that New Zealanders would not ordinarily get the chance to see. Those paintings were on loan to Te Papa by the gentleman in question and his wife. It was a generous gift to the whole country, and I want to know what the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, thinks about that attack. This is an attack by Mr Peters. It is a little bit like a mauling by a mouse, when we think about it. He is a man at the end of his political career—this is a sad, sad end to it.

💬 Tariana Turia: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is almost impossible to hear, and I ask you to ask members of the House to allow those of us who want to listen to be able to hear.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member is quite right. The barracking is coming from my left. In courtesy to the members who do want to hear what the member is saying, members on my left could tone it down a bit.

I seek leave to start again.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought by the member to start his speech again. Is there any objection? There is objection.

I return briefly to the comments made by my colleague Murray McCully, who I think very, very clearly and carefully put out the underlying problem that we are likely to face as a nation if our Minister of Foreign Affairs is going to continue along these lines. We know he has a bundle of papers. It has never bothered us—we could have set the police on him or undertaken all sorts of other investigations, but we have been quite unworried by that. But what does worry us is that at a time when the New Zealand Parliament is, for the greater part, concerned about re-cementing our relationship with the United States, Mr Peters is ripping it apart.

I seek leave to table an email that demonstrates that the only person who ever raised Julian Robertson’s name was one Don Brash—not me, at any point in time, so the member should stop making it up as he goes along. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): There will be silence when points of order are being dealt with.

Document not tabled.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I ask you to consider something right now. It is a question of bias. On 5 April this year Mr Brownlee, Mr Hide, and Mr Smith all accused the Chair of bias. On 2 May this year Rodney Hide accused the Chair of bias. On 3 May Nick Smith again accused the Chair of bias. On 4 May Mr Brownlee accused the Chair of bias, so did Mr Smith, and Mr English also challenged the Chair. None of those occasions resulted in any of those members being evicted from the House. In fact, a track record is now established whereby National Party members continue to challenge the Chair and there is no ultimate consequence. Through today’s proceedings the Chair has given the National Party about four final warnings—or at least three. Once again we have seen interjections during a point of order, and now you, Madam Assistant Speaker, have not acted on the final, final warning. It seems to me that a different standard is being presented in this House, as suggested by Mr English, Mr Smith, and Mr Brownlee, but today it quite clearly favours the National Party. I would like to be assured that this House is treating all parties equally, that laws and rulings will be applied equally, and that if there is another interjection on any point of order, rather than finally warning the House again, you will, Madam Assistant Speaker, exercise your authority and evict the person responsible.

Obviously, I cannot comment on past rulings, but the member does make a fair point. There have been warnings given on warnings given on warnings today. I certainly assure the member that I will act.

Seven years ago, in 1999, visiting public policy expert Dr Camara Jones noted: “Understanding the impacts of socio-economic status on health and how this contributes to ethnic disparities in health does not go far enough. If we are really going to eliminate health disparities, we need to understand the contemporary structural factors … That is, we need to address institutionalised racism if we are really going to make change.” Seven weeks ago the United Nations special rapporteur Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen reported that: “significant racial inequalities continue to exist in health, housing, employment, education, social services, and justice”.

The Māori Party is here today to say that we will not wait another 7 years, another 7 weeks, or another 7 days to put up with the price of racism. This week the reputable academic partners of Statistics New Zealand, Public Health Intelligence, and the Wellington school of medicine joined forces with the Ministry of Health to report that higher mortality for Māori relative to non-Māori cannot be explained purely by the overrepresentation of Māori in lower social classes. This analysis can no longer be ignored or dismissed by a range of riddles that diminish research if it comes from the United Nations—from an anthropologist and an international expert.

It is New Zealand’s aptly named Public Health Intelligence that is urging us to seek explanations for the ethnic disparities in mortality. Decades of Disparity III reports that the impact of racism on ethnic inequalities in health is likely to be mediated through both socio-economic—institutionalised racism—and non - socio-economic, or interpersonal, and internalised racism, pathways. In essence, this final report in a series of three that examines disparities between Māori and non-Māori from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s reinforces the impact of personal, cultural, and institutional racism in this nation—and we are not alone. Another reputable source, the British Medical Journal, describes a growing literature showing an association between racism, morbidity, and mortality. A British Medical Journal editorial states: “Cross sectional studies in the United States report associations between perceived racial discrimination and hypertension, birth weight, self related health, and days off sick. In a recent study from the United Kingdom victims of discrimination were more likely to have respiratory illness, hypertension, a long term limiting illness, anxiety, depression, and psychosis.” It therefore stands to reason that countering racism must be considered a major public health issue.

If the “r” word is too scary, members should think about the following questions. Why is survival from cancer—even adjusting for age and stage—lower among Māori than non-Māori? Why is that although the prevalence of paediatric asthma is similar for Māori and non-Māori, Māori children have more severe symptoms when they present to the health provider, require hospitalisation twice as often as non-Māori, and are less likely to receive adequate asthma education or even be prescribed preventive medication? The analysis is clear, consistent, and convincing. Differences in access to, and quality of, health care create different outcomes for Māori compared with non-Māori. Considering racism to be a cause is an important step in developing a research agenda and response from health services—and it is about time. We must start getting real about the links between racism and health if we are really and genuinely committed to preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health. There is no time to wait. Only then will the Māori Party be able to accept the catchcry of one law for all.

If people cast their minds back to the last election, they will remember that the National Party fought its campaign on three things: massive tax cuts, racial division, and Don Brash—and it lost. Straight after the election Don Brash was asked whether he wanted to be the National Party leader, and he said he did not really know and was not really sure. From that minute on, he became a dead man walking.

Since the election, no doubt on the advice of highly paid American strategic folks—or Murray McCully; one of the two, I guess—National members have gone on the attack, in a personal sense. They have been led by the rising—now fading—star, Judith Collins. The plan has not worked; it has folded back on them. I say to people like Mark Blumsky that it is obvious—the National Party has gone down that track, and now all of those attacks have left it with no real plan, at all. They have not worked; nothing has happened. But once the attacks have gone away—drained away—the National Party has been left with nothing of just about anything. It has no policy; it has no plan. National Party members have nothing to say in the House—they are doing nothing.

A back-bench member like Mark Blumsky would expect that into this vacuum would charge the leader, and that that leader would give scene-setting, large speeches; that he would come to the House and ask penetrating questions, and would be seen and heard in every hamlet across the country as he led the charge in the rebirth of the once-great National Party. I ask members whether that has happened. I ask National Party members why Don Brash has virtually disappeared off the scene in New Zealand.

I ask why Don Brash’s speeches are so bad. Members may recall his speech after David Parker’s speech to the House, which was reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart in terms of its quality—it brought tears to our eyes. It was an occasion for a leader to rise and bring his troops with him into a major debate. But Don Brash embarrassed every single National Party member by bumbling his way through his speech for 15 minutes. I ask why Don Brash cannot ask a question in the House—he has been here for a while; why can he not do it—why he has no policy, and why he hates New Zealand. What does he have against New Zealand? He talks about Australia, Singapore, China, and Malaysia—anywhere but here. Perhaps he does not know he is here—he is confused about everything else, so maybe he is not sure he is in New Zealand.

I can tell that the National Party does not like this situation, because its members have done some cruel, cruel things to this man. Mr Nick Smith—the bagman for Bill English—got Don Brash to go all the way down to the southern lakes, stand in them, and say we would have a power shortage because of a lack of water. If he went back there today and stood in the same spot as he was in last time, he would drown. How awful can Nick Smith get?

Have members noticed that John Key has gone quiet? If there is ever a sign of someone moving towards a leadership challenge, it is when that person goes quiet. John Key is so cruel. Bill English has had a haircut and got a new suit. What further signs do we need that he is trying to overthrow the leader? Gerry Brownlee stood behind Bill English out on the forecourt, while Bill English led the charge on the Telecom leak. Bill English was there, with big Gerry right behind him—as if Bill was the leader. How cruel and how cutting can the National members be?

It is no wonder. After Don Brash made the latest bungle yesterday with the email leak, National members must now be plotting. Members should look at the press release I have here. It came out after the email leak and states that a spokesman for Dr Brash had said that how to respond to the email leak was still being discussed. Then a press conference was called. No National MPs went to it. There was no big Gerry Brownlee standing behind the leader at this press conference—he had already been behind Bill. No one turned up, and then we found out that Dr Brash—who, his staff were saying, was thinking about how to respond to the email leak—had not even read it. He called a press conference, went along, said a series of things that were completely and utterly mistaken, had to be given the email by a journalist, and said: “Frankly, I didn’t understand.”

The National Party members are sitting up, and I want to say to them that the 70th National Party anniversary on Thursday will be the last supper for Don Brash.

One of the puzzles of New Zealand politics over the last 10 years has been why Winston Peters does not want to be taken seriously. This is a man who most people would agree has some media presence and political capacity—there is no doubt about that. Some of us who have known him for quite a long time have always thought he would one day take the opportunity to be a serious politician. After the last election it looked like he might have decided to do so. He raised a serious issue—the relationship between New Zealand and the US—and he looked as if he might have meant what he said, which is a bit hard to take sometimes from a man whose ferry bottom has scraped Cook Strait more times than I can remember. But it looked like he would have a go at it.

The National Party was interested in going along with him. Don Brash played his part in a way that I had not seen an Opposition leader play it before. He went off to Washington with a senior Minister from the Government—I cannot recall that happening before—to talk about an issue that has been politically sensitive in New Zealand, and he did so with good will, with good intent, and, there is absolutely no doubt about it, with the New Zealand interest at heart. Winston Peters was not there, because he has not been to the US, but I presume he was, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, going along with it. But he cannot help himself. On the very day when the Americans signalled some shift in that relationship, Winston Peters let his personal animosity towards Don Brash cut right across the national interest.

Do members not think that officials in the US embassy and our own civil servants in foreign affairs would have been sitting there asking themselves how they could take Winston Peters seriously? Phil Goff asked that question yesterday, if quietly. He wants to know how to handle the situation when he goes back to America, and when they say that his man said he wanted a better relationship but then made out like being an American was some kind of disease—some kind of terrorism—and it is some kind of interference if an Opposition politician talks to one of them.

Let us see what sort of American behaviour Winston Peters is endorsing. His campaign manager, who my colleague Gerry Brownlee has talked about, used to be a Republican Party fund-raiser. Is that how Winston Peters knew on Morning Report—or said he knew—that the Republican Party was worried about Americans in New Zealand politics? I believe he had been talking to John Foote, his campaign manager, when he said that. What a ridiculous and stupid thing for that man to say when he was representing our country.

Another bit of conspiracy theory, if he wants one, is that Helen Clark is in the process of dropping Plunket from PlunketLine—it will be a line, with no Plunket—which is an iconic New Zealand community organisation. Who is getting the contract? A large American corporation, with a US$70 billion turnover, that is currently enmeshed in fraud proceedings in the US. So I ask Winston where his conspiracy is. I want to know whether Glenn Owen, or Owen Glenn—whatever his name is—who donated $300,000 to the Labour Party, is a shareholder in the McKesson corporation. Why is this Government, with Winston Peters’ support, trying so hard to shaft Plunket—to the extent that the Prime Minister is now not invited to its 100th anniversary—and hand the contract to a multibillion dollar American corporation in which a Labour Party donor might be a shareholder? Members opposite should answer that question.

One can see how we can go into all sorts of theories about Americans—including about Winston’s campaign manager. As my colleague Maurice Williamson said, it is a bad case of foot in mouth.

If we had been sitting here waiting for a defence of the National Party leader by Bill English, we would have been sorely disappointed by that speech. But given that it was Bill English who was stabbed in the back by Don Brash—several weeks after Dr Brash had affirmed his undying loyalty to Mr English—we could not really have expected that from him.

I want to go on the record and correct the statements made by Bill English and Murray McCully that this matter is something to do with the relationship with America. It is about no such thing. This debate is about the deceit, the dishonesty, and the misleading behaviour of the National Party and its leader. Speaking of deceit, I point out that it is nothing but a double standard for the former Minister of Health Bill English, who refused year after year to give PlunketLine money, to get up and condemn this Government, which has, every year, funded a well health-line for children.

I make reference to the United States by saying that in the United States, when a condemned man walks from his cell to the execution chamber, people call out: “Dead man walking!”. That refers to a man who is still alive but is facing the inevitability of imminent death. Don Brash, politically, is a dead man walking. On today’s Midday news the TV reporters, who had been going around Dr Brash’s colleagues in the National Party, came to the conclusion of the inevitability of a leadership challenge. Is it any wonder? It was cruel of Bill English, John Key, and Gerry Brownlee—the three would-be assassins—to set up their leader, Don Brash, as they did yesterday. For them to send him to a press conference to explain an email that they had not even given him to read is nothing short of a cruel and cunning plan. I ask members to listen to what this morning’s New Zealand Herald wrote about this matter: “What kind of National Party leader calls a press conference to downplay the contents of a potentially embarrassing email—only to front without a copy of the document or any indication of having read it properly beforehand?”. It provides the answer: “A short-lived one.” We can see from the debate today that not one of those assassins will defend their leader. They will try to claim this as a red herring, but secretly they know that Don Brash is a dead man walking.

Dr Brash was dead long before this latest bungle. He was dead when a newspaper that is one of the most reliable supporters of the National Party offered the headline: “National offers little inspiration”. That paper made the point—quite clearly—that the National Party’s leader and its members were indecisive, unconfident, and lacking in inspiration and momentum. Those are not our words; it is what the media are saying about the National Party—the most unsuccessful National Party in the history of this country. Members should not just blame Don Brash—it is that group of hopeless, incompetent, disloyal people on the front bench who constantly undermine their leader. The people on the back bench of the National Party, who will not be here after the next election—they are an aberration—will not stand for that. Those members do not want just Don Brash to go; they want that whole incompetent front and middle bench to go with him. The issue with Don Brash is one of a lack of credibility—he is the “gone by lunchtime” man who could not deny saying that but could not remember saying it, either.

Then Lockwood Smith and Don Brash improperly asked a group of American congressmen to support politically National’s pro-nuclear campaign. The American congressmen quite properly rejected that suggestion, but it is an indictment on Dr Brash and Dr Smith that they even made it.

Then we saw the plain, common deceit that was shown by the National Party and Don Brash, who denied that National was being funded by the Exclusive Brethren to the tune of $1.2 million. Don Brash even asked for the diary entry on his meeting with them to be removed so that the public would not know about it. The mainstream man, who was seeking election on the basis of the funding of a small and extremist religious sect, denied that he knew anything about it, and 2 days later he had to admit he had deceived this country. It is no wonder that that hopeless party is in this situation.

What Phil Goff has in common with Winston Peters is that for political ends he will compromise New Zealand’s best interests. We saw that with Phil Goff when he abused Foreign Affairs confidences and used them as a Security Intelligence Service to spy on members of the Opposition, and we saw it with Winston Peters when on the very day that there was a warming in the relationship between New Zealand and the United States, he jumped into the exercise of anti-American jingoism to get a few cheap political points.

The real reason why Winston Peters and Phil Goff do that and are doing it today is that they are so embarrassed about the pre-run for the Government’s Budget. We remember the “mother of all Budgets”. We remember the “chewing gum Budget”, but this year’s Budget will go down as the “collander Budget” because it leaks like a sieve. Never in the history of New Zealand have we seen such a leak from a Budget. This is a $1.8 billion leak for which this Government will do anything to get if off the front pages. And to make it even more embarrassing, all the signals are that the leak came from none other than David Cunliffe’s own office.

But that is not the only leak we have seen in the last week. We have the “leaky homes leak”—and I am not talking about the Beehive. This Government will provide discounted loans for leaky-home owners. After we revealed this, the Government said that, yes, it was planning a pre-Budget announcement. Well, that would make a good Tui’s “Yeah, right!” ad. When the Prime Minister was asked whether there will be a loan scheme for leaky-home owners, did she deny it? No. She said: “You will have to wait.” I say that that leak is significant because every single day leaky homes are being bought and sold. They are being sold at very low prices because of the huge difficulty of the problem, and there were speculators out there, over the weekend, buying them up because of the Government’s mismanagement of secret Budget information.

What is behind that leaky-home issue is that in the middle of the election campaign, 3 years after doing nothing about leaky homes, the Government announced a review. The Government said the review would be completed by October, and 6 months later we still do not know the result of that. That is why there is such bad feeling about this Government on that leaky-home issue.

Where did the leak on the leaky homes come from?

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Where?

It came from Clayton Cosgrove. He has been bragging to his mates. He has been saying he is the big mover and shaker within the Government, and that he has this multimillion dollar package for the leaky-home owners, and he has been saying it to everybody. We have two super ambitious Ministers in David Cunliffe and Clayton Cosgrove, who will do anything to crawl over the dead bodies that lie on the front-row and second-row benches of this Government. They will do anything to replace the worn-out, tired, and discredited Ministers of the Government front bench. Members will remember that it was Clayton Cosgrove who organised the anti-Clark protests outside his own parliamentary colleagues’ homes in Christchurch back in the 1990s.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Was it really?

Yes, it was. Clayton Cosgrove organised personal protests outside Lianne Dalziel’s home and outside the office of Ruth Dyson, such is the blatant, cynical ambition of Clayton Cosgrove. Clayton Cosgrove bears the scars of the leaks that Helen Clark and her team did on Mike Moore, and this Budget is about “leak revenge time”. We are seeing it from Clayton Cosgrove and we are seeing it from the Minister of Communications, because they have their ambitions ahead of this Government. I want this Minister to explain this “collander Budget”.

If I had time, I would rush across with my hanky so I could wipe the member’s chin. I suggest that he take a little time out, wipe it off, and clean himself up. He got very agitated during that speech. He said that Phil Goff has a lot in common with Winston Peters. Well, I have to tell Nick Smith that he does not have a lot in common with members in this House because he is the only member in this House to be found guilty of contempt of court. He is the master of leaks. His leaks are usually in pursuit of publicity for himself. He is well known for it.

“At some point National MPs will start asking: ‘If you can’t use your leader in the House and you can’t get him to front a press conference, when can you use him?’ ”. That was the penultimate sentence from the political editor in a Dominion Post story today, and it is the question that is being asked by National front-benchers and back-benchers. I could add to that list of questions that ought to be asked, so I will add a couple more: “What do you do when your leader can’t remember who he talked to and what he said to them?”, and: “What do you do if your leader says one thing in private and is less than honest in public?”.

I think we ought to go through those questions and see whether we can give the members opposite some answers. What can they do if they cannot use their leader in the House? We know that is true—they cannot use Don Brash in Parliament any more. He is here about one day a week. He makes a fleeting appearance and then shoots out of here so fast that one would think he was being chased by somebody. Murray McCully said that Don Brash has gone to Washington. Yes, Don Brash has gone to Washington. He would rather go anywhere than be here in this Parliament. He would rather be in Picton. He would rather make a speech to a regional conference. He would rather be at home writing that speech than be in Parliament where he can be accountable and can front up to this Government and take us on. Every time Dr Brash does stand up in this Parliament, National’s stocks go down. He bumbles, he mumbles, he stumbles, and he even fumbles, and then he grumbles that nobody listens to him, and the back-bench members cringe and crumble. He is permanently AWOL from this Parliament. He would prefer, as I said, to be anywhere other than fronting up in this House. So that is why members opposite have to ask the question of what they do when their leader cannot front up in Parliament.

As to the second question about getting a leader to front a press conference, I have to say that one of the bread and butter jobs of a politician is to be able to front up to the media. National members rolled out their leader on a big day when they had to front up to the fact that there was a leak within their own caucus—somebody in their own party is leaking emails to Winston Peters, their old enemy. Someone—probably Gerry Brownlee—is leaking emails straight to Winston Peters.

So Dr Brash rocked up for the hastily called press conference. I agree with Phil Goff that it was a set-up by the National Party members. They were not there to support Dr Brash. They shoved him in the room. He fumbled and bumbled his way up to the microphone, wondering what it was all about and looking as though he was a possum caught in headlights. Then he asked: “Now, where is the email?”. He had to ask Guyon Espiner to hand him the email. So he was handed the email, and he hastily read it and said: “Ooh! You’re quite right. I quite frankly forgot the fact that they were there.” This was the man whom National had sent out to fix the problem. He forgot. [Interruption] I will table the transcript for Mr Key. He said that was rubbish—well, here is the transcript.

Dr Brash did not have the email. He called the press conference to explain the email. He forgot about the email. He did not have the email. Do members know something? Dr Brash forgot why he was there. He did not know why he was having a press conference. That is why National members cannot send him out to have a press conference. He embarrasses his minders. It generally looks like his next career will be as an undertaker. That is what it looks like.

Now I will talk about the third question. What if leaders cannot remember who they talked to and what they said? Well, we know that is true—Don Brash cannot remember. His memory lapses are so long now, and they are growing by the day. What will members opposite do with him? They will get rid of him. He is gone. He is a “dead man walking”.

In listening to the debate in the House today, one would think that the only important thing in New Zealand—the only thing obsessing New Zealanders—is the leaking of emails. The New Zealanders whom I have talked to are sick and tired of worrying about who leaked which email, because they actually have other things on their minds.

I want to talk about one of those things today, and I am glad to say that it is not just on my mind but is on the minds of other intelligent MPs in this House—MPs such as Maurice Williamson, who I am delighted to see sitting in the House today. We are talking today about an icon of Wellington—Mark Blumsky will acknowledge that that is what it is. It is a dilapidated icon but an icon nevertheless—namely, Wellington’s trolley bus fleet. Maurice Williamson, to his great credit, got the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to write a letter—very unusual—to Stagecoach, stating that in the current environment, with New Zealand having to meet strict emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, with the Government’s desire to increase use of public transport, and with the fact that trolley buses are a Wellington icon and have huge public support, it would seem foolish to do anything to hinder the continuation of the service.

But the extraordinary thing is that this icon—the trolley buses of Wellington—is being put at risk by none other than the body set up to promote and encourage sustainable transport, Land Transport New Zealand. Trolley buses use renewable energy: they use electricity and they could use wind. They reduce our dependence on oil, they are non-polluting, and they do not emit particulates.

💬 Mark Blumsky: They’re quiet.

Mark Blumsky adds that they are quiet. But their future is at risk because Land Transport New Zealand is refusing to fund them fairly. It is refusing to fund 50 percent of their cost, as it funds other forms of public transport. This is creating a Mexican stand-off, and therefore the long-term contract for the trolley buses has already been put off by 15 months and is in danger of being put off for another year. Indeed, the Wellington City Council is having to say that because of the stubborn and incomprehensible funding formula used by Land Transport New Zealand, it may not be able to continue with its trolley bus fleet and may have to switch to diesel buses. I call on the new Minister of Transport, Annette King, who has trolley buses in her electorate, to intervene in order to end this Mexican stand-off. She should require Land Transport New Zealand to fund the trolley buses properly. Smart and sustainable cities, such as Vancouver, San Francisco, and Rome, are falling over themselves to invest in and expand their trolley bus fleets, because they know that trolley buses do not require fossil fuels, are non-polluting, and are therefore an ideal form of public transport.

Land Transport New Zealand has a wonderful objective of promoting sustainable transport. It funds 100 percent of the maintenance and capital costs of roads. Why is it not funding 100 percent of the capital costs and maintenance of public transport? It should be at least funding 50 percent of the costs of public transport. I repeat my call to the Minister of Transport, who may not have been listening earlier, to call a meeting of interested parties and intervene to save the trolley bus network in Wellington. She does not want to be known as the Minister of Transport who allowed the trolley bus network in Wellington to be put at risk and collapse. She will not want that to happen, so she needs to step in and make sure that the trolley buses in her electorate remain. She must realise that there is cross-party support for this cause in Wellington, and she must intervene.

Stagecoach is saying that it is prepared to spend $30 million on refurbishing the trolley buses, but it cannot do that, because a contract needs to be signed to ensure the buses’ future. Vector and all of the parties involved want to fix the ageing infrastructure. The trolley buses are 22 or 23 years old. They are dilapidated and are becoming unsafe. Their brakes are old and so are their windscreen wipers. They are literally at risk. I call on the Minister to intervene to solve this crisis.

What we have seen from Labour in recent weeks is a reckless Government and reckless departments, Ministers, and ministries. They have been leaking like sieves. But it has been a big week for Mr Hughes’ friend David Cunliffe. No longer does he have to bleach his hair, no longer does he have to bring a crutch down to the Chamber, and no longer does he have to wear a 15-kilogram greenstone carving around his neck to get noticed. All he has to do is get his part of the Budget leaked and in doing so make the front page of every newspaper. My good colleague John Key referred to this Budget as the “David Cunliffe Budget”. That is what it is from this point on. We know that it will be Michael Cullen’s last Budget, and David Cunliffe could not wait. No, he could not wait until Michael Cullen was swiftly dispatched. Before Michael Cullen walks away, David Cunliffe is up and moving and ready to make the job his.

Then my colleague the Hon Nick Smith discovered that more ministries and departments are leaking like sieves regarding the building weathertightness announcement that will be in the Budget. We know that the Budget will be a miserable, tiny Budget for Michael Cullen to deliver next week, but two of his newest Ministers have stolen two of his reasonable bits of news.

The interesting thing that we have to ask ourselves is what David Cunliffe and Clayton Cosgrove have in common. It is well known around the Chamber that they are close friends—very close friends—and it is interesting to those of us on this side of the House who monitor behaviour that the two of them are climbing up the scrap heap and competing for Dr Cullen’s job, which will be vacant when he is despatched in the next few months.

But it is the arrogance of this Government and its Prime Minister on the PlunketLine issue that was so brilliantly exposed by my colleague Tony Ryall. The Prime Minister has been caught out, in a blitz of third-term arrogance, by completely disregarding such an iconic organisation as Plunket. She is completely out of touch with all of the young mothers in New Zealand and those families who have waited on the end of the phone to get through to PlunketLine. This is obviously the beginning of the end. Petitions are being circulated around our electorates and Plunket representatives are visiting our offices. They have had a gutsful of this Prime Minister and they have had a gutsful of the arrogance of this Cabinet. The tide is turning on this Government.

Those who know that are smelling the decay and are getting ready to leave. Jim Sutton and Paul Swain are starting to enjoy the general debate and seeing their colleagues being made fun of. They sit there with grins on their faces, as does George Hawkins. He is grinning away there at the back and thoroughly enjoying things. Others are on the managed exit list—Russell Fairbrother, Dianne Yates, Jill Pettis, and Dave Hereora. Who is Dave Hereora? Who knows, at this rate he could be in Cabinet by the end of the week. Others are Marian Hobbs, Dover Samuels, Paul Swain, and Martin Gallagher.

Meanwhile, according to the weekend’s New Zealand Herald, Phil Goff sits in his caravan until 2 a.m., and waits. Phil Goff is playing the waiting game. He is the Prime Minister that New Zealand will never have. We on this side of the House have heard that in the first Labour caucus meeting after the election, Rick Barker got on his feet—and Annette King knows that this is right—and said that the National Party, with its new MPs, was reinvigorated and looked like it was ready to go, whereas the Labour Party had the same, tired old group of people. We on this side of the House heard that there was a round of applause in the Labour caucus. [Interruption] We know that is a fact. It is the first time it has happened to Rick Barker in 9 years. We know that was the case—it leaked over to this side of the House some time ago.

Will it be Phil Goff versus Steve Maharey? Will it be Phil Goff versus Trevor Mallard? Will Parekura Horomia finally make the move—or any move at all, for that matter? It has to be said that Annette King might just stay for Phil Goff, but she certainly will not stay for Trevor Mallard or Steve Maharey. The left thinks it has it all sewn up, but Phil Goff has the sausages and the tongs out. He knows what has to be done in order to secure the numbers. We know that Darren Hughes wanders around Ōtaki and says to the business people there that he is secretly on Phil Goff’s side, that he is secretly in the Phil Goff pack, that he is one of those in the right wing of the Labour Party, and that the business people should not worry because that is where he will go when push comes to shove.

This Government is in decay. It is on its way out. The vultures are circling, the pretenders are moving, and David Cunliffe no longer has to bleach his hair.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.