General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Well, it really has been a bad week for the Government, has it not? What a shocker! It is only Wednesday and it has been a bad week for the Government, and I say that it will take more than all the formaldehyde in China to preserve that Government beyond 2008.

One did not have to read about it in the Dominion Post, but, as it turns out, I did. I thought the front page was quite interesting: “Labour support crumbling”. The interesting bit in the story was from Michael Cullen, who said: “I don’t comment too much on polls,” and he believed that John Key’s honeymoon was over. Well, if it is over when I am 20 percent ahead, that is quite an interesting observation really, is it not!

It has been a bad week for a Government that has forgotten who put it in office. The Government does not care about the people of New Zealand any more. Last week when the financial markets were in crisis the Minister of Finance did not even know that the banks in New Zealand were having meetings to try to prop up liquidity. He did not know—which was my guess—that Nathans Finance was going to fall over on Monday, because that Government is so out of touch with New Zealand. The Government is so out of touch with New Zealand and everyday New Zealanders that it does not care about the big issues any more. It is prepared to trade 10 years of a relationship with Australia over a simple attack job here domestically on me. The Government thinks that that is more important. It is no wonder that New Zealanders are looking at the Government and saying: “We don’t want them any more.” Because when one starts being prepared to trade one’s relationship, then it tells one that things are going terribly wrong.

The other thing that is going terribly wrong is the right of New Zealanders who want to have a chance to stand up and say what they think about politics in New Zealand. I tell members that the Labour members may not know much about the Electoral Finance Bill, but they know more than Mark Burton, the Minister who is actually running it, does. My colleague Bill English has been asking Mark Burton questions, and Mr Burton cannot answer any of them. It has got so bad that Bill English now has to give 24 hours’ notice so Mark Burton can scurry back to his office and try to get an answer.

When we asked Helen Clark today what role she had played in this, she thought that was a silly question and did not want to answer it, because she knows that that bill will not last. New Zealanders are not going to support an assault on their democracy such as we are seeing from Labour. I am not surprised that Labour members are silent, because they know that it is wrong. They know that New Zealanders are entitled to have their say, and that that bill will stop them having their say. They will become second-class citizens with that legislation, which does not even deserve to be called a bill.

I will make this prediction: Mark Burton will be gone before that bill has gone, but both of them are going, pretty soon. That is what we know. Judith Tizard and Rick Barker will also be gone—actually, anybody in the Labour Government with a name starting with a “B” is gone—Benson-Pope, Barker, and Burton are gone, and quite a few others are going as well. They deserve to go if they are going to treat New Zealanders with disrespect.

Earlier on this year my colleague Bill English made it quite clear that the National Party was prepared to be in consultation about electoral law reform. That is the way it happens. We do not have an Upper House in this country, and we do not have a written constitution. New Zealanders rely on electoral law that is passed, not with the intention of keeping the ruling party in power, not with the intention of screwing the scrum, and not with the intention of being the only bastion that will stop them from electoral oblivion. The reason we have electoral reform on a bipartisan basis is that we rely on that basis to pass good legislation. What is the intent of this legislation? It is to get the Exclusive Brethren, and anybody else who wants to speak out against Labour, and they did not consult us.

Quite interestingly, they did not consult the Māori Party or ACT, either. On Saturday morning, anybody watching Agenda would have seen Guyon Espiner say that Helen Clark counts the Māori Party on her side of the ledger. So they are good enough to have, maybe, in a future Government with Labour, but they are not good enough to consult on this legislation!

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker; kia ora tātou. I have some awesome questions for my Māori Party colleagues, because I suspect they will know some of the answers, but there may well be others in the House who have the answers to these questions. I ask members to put up their hands if they have heard of the United Nations. Very good; well done. I ask them to put up their hands if they believe that New Zealand places a high value on our relationship with the United Nations. Well done; excellent. Last year New Zealand gave $7.7 million to the 2007 United Nations budget and, on top of that, we contributed $15.3 million to 14 UN peacekeeping operations and nearly $1 million to the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. And it is not just about money; we have contributed largely, in terms of personnel and services, to many UN missions over the years.

Has this high-value relationship just happened overnight, I ask my Māori Party colleagues? No, no—hell, no. Some 62 years ago New Zealand took the plunge, and we put up our hands to become a foundation member of the UN. Our Prime Minister at the time, Sir Peter Fraser, chaired the committee that wrote the trusteeship chapter of the United Nations Charter. We have been a member from time to time of a number of the key UN committees since 1945, including the General Assembly and the Security Council. Indeed, New Zealanders have held some top jobs there. The Unesco World Heritage Committee is currently chaired by the Ngāti Tūwharetoa paramount chief Tumu te Heuheu, Sir Lesley Munro was President of the UN General Assembly in 1957, we have been elected to membership of the Security Council three times, Sir Kenneth Keith is a judge on the International Court of Justice, and Mr Paul Hunt is the special rapporteur on the right to health.

How seriously do we take UN calls to action? Let us take just one area. New Zealand has been a staunch supporter of the international campaign against terrorism, responding rapidly and substantively to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 through contributions to political, diplomatic, legal, intelligence, and military initiatives. We have also signed up to Operation Enduring Freedom through the deployment of ground, naval, and air troops, and we are now party to all 12 UN anti-terrorism conventions. So the big question is, what will we do with the latest UN report on New Zealand from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, also known as “CERD”?

What are we talking about here? It is racial discrimination. Perhaps a definition we could start off with might be something like this: racism occurs when one group of people is perceived to be inferior and deviant, and another group is perceived to be superior and normal. Well, the UN committee identified that the New Zealand Government’s actions “tend to diminish the importance and relevance of the Treaty and to create a context unfavourable to the rights of Maori.”

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Whom did they talk to?

I will get to that. The committee was concerned that only a small percentage of the Waitangi Tribunal’s recommendations are followed by the Government, depriving claimants of a right to an effective remedy. The committee was concerned by the discrepancy between the assessment made by the Crown and that made by non-governmental organisations on the foreshore and seabed issue. There are six pages of straight-to-the-point discussion and recommendations. The committee came up with 16 ideas for action, such as renewed dialogue and consultation, of which one part is our effort to have the repeal bill that is in our name put in front of this House. The committee talks about giving status to the implementation of the Treaty of Waitangi and granting the tribunal legally binding powers.

Finally, I ask the class of the mighty Māori Party, how do members think the Government responded? Well, it is interesting that the Rt Hon Winston Peters, in addressing the UN committee, stated: “New Zealand remains unwavering in its support for the United Nations.” That is what he said. But in talking about this report, he said that it is meddlesome and that its authors were not experts on the issues they were dealing with. Dr Cullen, thankfully, had some supportive statements to make when he said that the report put the Government on notice to consider and consult carefully.

Well, we have been there before. Two years ago the same committee released its findings on the Foreshore and Seabed Act, and our Prime Minister derided its work as being that of a “committee that sits on the outer edge of the UN”. That sort of response is pretty disappointing, considering that people like Mark Solomon, the Treaty Tribes Coalition, and Joris de Bres, amongst others, also put a number of statements in front of the committee. They gave statements and supporting evidence. Some of those people are appointed by the Government, so there we go.

The longer-term effects of racism short-change everybody. Racism sets groups of people against each other and makes it difficult for us to perceive our common interests, so we hope that this report will be taken very seriously.

I have two issues to raise with the House today. First of all, I have something that is not new; it is to do with Mr Key’s inability to hold to one line of a story—any story—for any length of time. However, the second is new, and I will come to it. Both issues involve Mr Key’s interaction with the electoral enrolment process and Mr Key’s public statements about where he lived at any point in time. The second issue involves, additionally, Mr Key’s interaction with the Companies Act and with the New Zealand Companies Office.

Five years ago, in June and again in July 2002, Mr Key stated publicly that he was building a house in Parnell, central Auckland, and that he was building “an electorate home in Helensville”, which is in west Auckland. At the time Mr Key was living in neither home, but in a third home in Remuera, in east Auckland. Clearly, Mr Key was on the move. The electorate home in Helensville clearly became more important for Mr Key, because a few months later, in October, he was enrolled in the Helensville area and he voted in Helensville where his electorate home was situated—so far, so good. By 2005, however, Mr Key had changed his mind. He said publicly that he had intended to live in Helensville but that it had proved too difficult, and he did not want to vote there any more but in Parnell, where he then lived, which is where he presumably votes now. So far, all we have is a flip-flop—just another flip-flop. He said he would live in Helensville, he enrolled in Helensville, and he voted in Helensville, but he then changed his mind. He may have broken the Electoral Act, but he may not have; I do not know.

But, then, after the flip-flop came the denial. A week ago, on 15 August, it was stated: “Mr Key said that when he first stood for Helensville, the fact that he lived elsewhere had been front-page news,”. Well, it was not front-page news that he lived elsewhere; it was front-page news that he intended to live in Helensville. That is what he told the public in June and July 2002. So he told the Electoral Enrolment Centre that he lived in Helensville, he told the public that he would live in Helensville, and he told the returning officer that he lived in Helensville when he filed his expenses, but he now denies that he ever said that. So we have a flip-flop followed by a denial. And that is Iraq all over again.

But then things become a little more serious, because the Companies Act comes into play. In March 2002 Mr Key told the Companies Office that he lived in Remuera. That was a statutory declaration. In October 2002, 7 months later, he made another statutory declaration to the electoral enrolment people that he lived in Helensville. In March 2003, 6 months after that, he made a third statutory declaration to the Companies Office that he lived in Remuera—again. In 2004 he confirmed for the Electoral Enrolment Centre that he lived in Helensville. So questions arise. I ask whether Mr Key really shifted from Remuera to Helensville to Remuera to Helensville during each of those periods, and I ask whether that is somehow possible. Quite when did Mr Key live neither in Remuera or Helensville but in Parnell, where he lives now? When did he shift to this third address? I ask whether Mr Key is aware of the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993. Did he breach the Act; if so, was it by accident or design?

Much more important, I ask whether Mr Key is aware of the provisions of the Companies Act. No one may mislead the Companies Act. The law is strict. Section 377 of the Companies Act states that an offence is committed if anyone makes a false or misleading statement knowing it to be false or misleading. The offence is a serious one in our law. It attracts a fine of up to $200,000 or a prison term of up to 5 years. If Mr Key were ever convicted of such an offence, he would be asked—required—to leave this House.

So serious questions arise: did he live in Remuera in March 2002, and did he live in Remuera in April 2003? If he did not, in both cases or in either case has he approached the Companies Office to offer an explanation? Does the Companies Office prosecute someone who has a false address, or does it prosecute only sometimes and, if so, under what circumstances? Let me remind the House that my colleague the Hon David Parker, when confronted with a similar issue under exactly the same Act, stood down. He resumed his ministerial role only when he was able to show that the error he was accused of did not happen. There are some questions to answer, I say to Mr Key.

So, in our changing world, with the globalised economy, the highest interest rates in the developed world, and financial instability from here to London, here is the big question: did John Key live in Remuera in March 2002? That is it! That is it! Did John Key live in Remuera in March 2002?

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Is he telling the truth?

I want to tell Mr Mallard what the good voters of Wainuiōmata have as an answer. It is: “Who cares?”. Their other question is: “Trevor, why do you care, when you always said you cared about ‘me’?”. And that is the problem for the Labour Government. That speech tells everyone who voted Labour that Labour has stopped caring about the voters and cares only, and obsessively now, about the survival of the Labour Government.

The reason we had Mr Hodgson today is that Phil Goff’s performance in the last 10 days has resembled a dog that goes off to chase the traffic and hits a parked car. So today we had the next best shot from the Labour Party, Darren Hughes. He was the man who got up in question time and made the big hit. When Labour voters realise that the person Helen Clark is putting into the front line on behalf of low and middle income New Zealanders—people who face 18 months of going backwards between now and the next election—is Darren Hughes, then those voters, too, will start leaving the Labour Party.

You see, my colleague and our leader, John Key, is absolutely right. When everyone else thought that the Labour Government was trawling through the policy options to improve the lot of New Zealanders, who are now going to pay the price of mismanaged growth, it was, in fact, trawling through the rubbish bins and the Companies Register to try to find another way to trip up a politician whom they simply cannot deal with. That is why it is getting personal and nasty, and Trevor Mallard needs to understand that whenever he or his colleagues are on TV attacking John Key, our support goes up not down.

The voters want to see a positive, forward-looking vision of New Zealand, what potential it has, and where it can go, rather than see a tired, fag-end, worn-out bunch of Labour elitists who are only ever worried about where they have been and what jobs they might get between now and the election. That is all summed up by the Electoral Finance Bill. Helen Clark has done nothing more self-serving—more for the Labour Party and against the people—than to bring in that legislation. She has written a piece of legislation that makes sure that her useless Minister—what is his name?

💬 Hon David Carter: Burton.

—that he and Trevor Mallard will get to spend $65,000 of public money in their electorates next year, advertising themselves; and the National candidate will be allowed to spend only $20,000. In fact, those members will get to spend $85,000, $65,000 of which is public money. In the electorate of Taupō, the National candidate will win.

The Government has become totally self-serving and totally inward-looking. I feel sorry for the voters it has deserted, because the people who have loyally voted for Labour and expected some kind of reward for it after 8 years have been deserted. Back in 2000 people on the average wage—loyal Labour voters for three elections—were paying 19 percent of their income in tax; now they are paying 23 percent of their income in tax. Their interest rates are going up and their purchasing power is dropping. And if Mr Mallard is worried about the polling now, well the bite has not even come yet. [Interruption]

Mr Hughes made a good point. I listened to Mr English very carefully. Amongst the things he talked about he alleged that we were a self-serving Government and that it is “all about us”—apparently. Then he spent 2½ minutes talking about what the National Party may get to spend and what the Labour Party may get to spend. He talked about National wanting to get into power and about not liking the fact that we are in power. Well, if that is not self-serving, I do not know what is.

Mr English made another interesting point. He tried to illustrate what the voters want to see. Here is what I think the voters want to see. If John Key wants to become the Prime Minister, then the voters will want to see truth, consistency, and credibility. It does not matter how many speeches that member makes over there, whilst every 5 seconds looking up at the press gallery, grinning, and trying to drag out a bit of adoration, because he knows that the New Zealand Herald, for instance, on the topic of therapeutic goods, sliced him open. He had four dictaphones under his nose, and he still could not come out and give a consistent position on that. The New Zealand people want a bit of credible, consistent, truthful leadership, and they ain’t getting it out of that man.

We should take a look at Mr Key’s past. Of course, it is all right for Bill English and the mob over there to have a go at us on election spending and on all sorts of other issues, but when we have a go at them and challenge their leader to be consistent on Iraq, on therapeutic goods, on where he lives, and on climate change, which are all pretty simple questions, they cannot hack it. They send in the man who is deputy leader, who is himself inconsistent. For 8 years, on superannuation, for instance, he said he was not going to cut it, then a couple of months ago he said it was too generous and told the old folk that the votes of the 20-year-olds were not won by telling them they would be secure in their retirement and that, by the way, National might have to cut it and to means test it. So, as I said in another speech, he is about as consistent, about as solid, as a jelly on a hotplate; it sort of oozes out from all sides. I say to those members that if they want to show real leadership, then they should stand up today—not even bothering to give us some policies; we know that is too difficult for them—and tell us what their position is on Iraq, on climate change, on measures relating to therapeutic goods, on where John Key lives, and on the other issues Mr Hodgson raised.

Those members talk about accountability and they throw arrows across here demanding accountability, but when we say: “Hang on a minute, you’re inconsistent. The member’s not credible.”—I cannot use the “t” word, but their leader is fast and loose with a number of points in his history—they do not like it, do they. They cannot hack the pace. But if our democracy is so precious—to quote another member—then the people are owed explanations by all members of this House, by all political parties, whether they be Government or Opposition parties. We do not ask today for the impossible. We do not ask today for a policy on climate change, a policy on housing affordability, a policy on therapeutic goods, or any of that. That height-bar is just too high for that new member and his deputy. We simply ask, on behalf of the New Zealand people, that he comes clean on a series of issues.

Mr English challenged us to say what we have done for our core constituency. Well, I say to Mr English that there have been 350,000 new jobs since 1999 and we have the lowest Māori unemployment figures on the record of counting. Under the Working for Families programme, 350,000 families are getting their own money back in tax credits of, on average, 110 bucks a week. That can be compared with yet another inconsistent point, which is that he wants to gut Working for Families and pull out 50 or 80 bucks a week from that average sum. Opposition members have all gone a bit quiet—the old bantam hens over there—have they not. To quote from Dad’s Army, they do not like the old cold steel. Well, I say that if they are going to get in the ring, throw it about, and exercise their democratic right to call individuals in this House to account, then they should look in the mirror and be prepared to stand up—especially the Cheshire cat in the back row—and answer some basic questions.

These are indeed troubled times for many New Zealanders, because they look at the state of the financial markets, at the difficulties confronting many as they try to tackle the maintenance of their homeownership, and at the fact that something like 750 New Zealanders a week are leaving to live in Australia, according to statistics released for the year to the end of July. They look to the people who hold ministerial warrants, the people with flash houses, and the people with chauffeur-driven limousines, and they ask what the Ministers of the Crown in this Government are doing to make their lives more secure.

What those Ministers are doing is trawling through the wastepaper baskets behind John Key. That is what the Ministers of the Crown in this Government are doing. That is all they are doing, and New Zealanders are entitled to draw the most uncharitable conclusions about that.

I have a simple message for the Labour Government today, which is that it should stop playing petty politics over New Zealand’s international relationships. In the last week we have seen that playing petty politics with New Zealand’s international relationships comes at a price. It comes at a price for New Zealanders and it has come, in particular, at a price for New Zealand’s national airline. It is indeed ironic that we should see such outbursts of partisanship at a time when we have the most bipartisan Opposition leader on international relations to sit in this Parliament in over 30 years—the most bipartisan Leader of the Opposition on international relations this Parliament has seen in over 30 years.

I would have thought that the Labour Government would embrace such a moment. I would have thought that Labour members would say it is great that they can take international relations off the domestic political agenda. But in the last week, and in previous months, we have seen that it does not really matter what it costs New Zealand, as long as Labour members can find some cheap line to throw at the political juggernaut that is bowling over the lot of them. I want to remind the House of the cost the national airline will pay, and I would ask the Ministers opposite whether they will give us information on this, because New Zealanders deserve to know.

Mr Goff and other Ministers decided to drag Mr Key’s name through debates in this Chamber by trying to bring international relations, unnecessarily, into the political debate. They were prepared to put almost anything at risk. We have seen as a consequence that the Minister’s relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been put at risk, that the relationship with the national flag carrier has been put at risk, and, most important, that our most important international relationship—that with Australia—has been put at risk. At the end of last week we would have thought that they had learnt their lesson, that they would draw a line under this and move on, but just yesterday we saw the Minister of Defence—the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade—yet again taking another cheap shot in the direction of the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs. I say that it is time that that tactic stopped.

I want the Ministers opposite to tell this House today just what the cost will be for Air New Zealand. We know that $18 million worth of charters are now at risk, but what New Zealanders have yet to grasp is that Air New Zealand conducts a great deal of work for the Australian Defence Force. It does a great deal of mechanical engineering work for the Royal Australian Air Force, and I want Ministers to tell us just how many of those contracts have been put at risk. What will the Australian Government’s position mean for those contracts? What will it mean for new contracts? New contracts are coming up for tender in the coming weeks. Will New Zealand be able to tender for those contracts?

We know that the Royal Australian Navy uses Air New Zealand’s workshops for significant work on the gas turbines on their frigates. Are those contracts at risk?

💬 Darren Hughes: John Key agrees with Helen Clark on this.

Well, I think that New Zealanders are entitled to know what the cost is. We know that Air New Zealand derives in total some tens of millions of dollars of revenue from those contracts, and we want an answer.

New Zealanders are entitled to know National’s policy on anything that its members have raised in this House today. It is a very interesting debate when we hear members of the Opposition getting up and saying a whole lot of things, but not being prepared to put some substance behind those things. It is a typical Opposition strategy to create a doom and gloom image, say anything, bring in the marketing guru, and then say anything again. That has been the strategy adopted by National members.

To put it quite simply, National is not reflecting the real concerns of people on the ground. In fact, what we are hearing out there is something to this effect: “You know, John Key says all the right things, but we’re not sure about the detail. You get the feeling he’s going to say what he thinks you want to hear, but not what he really believes in. When are we really going to hear the detail? We know the policy, but what are they really going to do? We have had enough of the marketing strategy.” That is what New Zealanders out on the ground are saying, but National wants us to believe otherwise.

Labour has been listening to the real issues out there that people care about, the real issues that they believe this Government is addressing, the real issues that they know make a difference to the lives of families—families with children, the elderly, and people who are disadvantaged within our communities. When we get that feeling that there is a bit of a movement and a swelling on the ground that John Key says all the right things but that people are not sure about the detail—they get the feeling he will say what he thinks they want to hear but not what he believes—we know that there is a marketing strategy there that is just for TV, and just for Parliament, that has nothing to do with people out there on the ground, in the community. I can tell by the way National members are looking down at the floor that they know it, too.

Dealing with real issues is about affecting the lives of people in our communities, for example through establishing low-cost visits to general practitioners and low-cost prescriptions. Those affect real people, real lives. Income-related rentals affect real people, real lives, so does ensuring that in our communities we have more skilled and trained people. Just last night I was in the south Waikato district at a ceremony to celebrate the increased number of Modern Apprentices who are now coming through in Tokoroa. It was fantastic. The mayor himself said that never before had they had such commitment from the Government, from industry training organisations, and from local businesses, to say that the trade sector was a priority. Small communities like Tokoroa are growing their own apprentices and now those apprentices have the ability to contribute back to their communities.

That is what real people are feeling on the ground. They are quite excited, actually, about the level of investment that this Government is making, alongside communities, to improve the lives of a lot of people. More important, my colleague Clayton Cosgrove pointed to the issue of employment and to the increased number of jobs we have had out there. We know that affecting the real lives of people, and families with children, is done through giving people the ability to have a job, put kai on the table, and look after their own. That is what people want, and that is what they have seen under this Government. There are also rates rebates for low-income homeowners. Again, that is a policy that affects the real lives of real people.

But what would National have us believe? They would have us believe that all that does not matter, and that it is not making a difference. We can go into any small community and its people will tell us that Government policies have gone quite a bit towards helping them meet their annual costs.

What is most important is that we are investing in families with children through tax credits, not through tax cuts that would benefit only a few. Investing in families with children through the Working for Families package has continued to make a difference. We can always do more there, and we intend to. National is very light on detail, but what it is not telling people is that that investment would go under a National Government.

So although the marketing strategy may work for Parliament and for TV, those people out on the ground, real families with real commitments who have a real sense of wanting to do better for themselves, know that if National gets in, all that will go. Out on the ground people know that although National members are so hungry to get on to the Treasury benches that they will say what people want right up until the election, after the election, bang, they will do something else.

That is at the core of the question asked by my colleague Pete Hodgson. We have to be able to believe what someone says, and we want to have a sense that at the very top of the Opposition leadership the Leader of the Opposition is able to tell the truth and to say what he believes, not what he thinks people want to hear. That is the kind of difference that I think in time will reveal itself and will really show a lot of New Zealanders that that leadership is all style, no substance, and no detail whatsoever. New Zealanders deserve better than that.

Kiwi cancer patients are suffering needlessly because the technology that could streamline their treatment is not available publicly here in New Zealand, and it is not likely to be for quite some time. It is not fair, it is not just, and it is blatantly wrong. The Ministry of Health has been dithering around about the purchase of a publicly funded PET scanner, which is a positron emission tomography scanner, since mid-2005 and we are still no closer. A recent TV3 news report stated that we are about 3 years away from that—3 long years. It is a totally unbelievable wait for cancer sufferers and for cancer doctors, who are also pushing for one of these publicly funded PET scanners.

It is a fact that these scanners have been available in Australia since 1992. The patient is injected with a very small amount of radioactive glucose, which provides a very clear image of cancer sites and gives doctors a very clear indication of the stage of the tumour and what treatment is required, and, of course, it is used for monitoring after the therapy to see whether the tumour is still alive. PET scanning has become a benchmark for staging cancer and New Zealanders have great difficulty accessing it. An 84 percent accuracy in the diagnosis of cancer is as important as an 86 percent specificity of the rate of cancer. Basically a PET scanner ensures the best treatment option for that particular patient.

Over in Australia—and I am definitely not one to push the boat of Australia—they work on a ratio of having one to 1.5 publicly funded PET scanners for every 1 million of their population. They currently have 16 scanners in 13 locations, seven contracted facilities, and one cyclotron to produce the radioactive material for every four scanners. So the Australians have at least four cyclotrons and they are actually looking at increasing their PET facilities.

In New Zealand we do not have a publicly funded scanner. We would love to have one. We would like to have one cyclotron, as well. It would be very beneficial. Two would be beyond belief. What do we have here in New Zealand? We have patients travelling to Australia at their own expense. Last year 43 patients paid their own way to Australia for a scan, and 53 patients were funded by district health boards. I would imagine that not one of those patients came from the far north or the East Coast. There is a facility at Wakefield Hospital, and some private patients, and some very fortunate people from Capital and Coast, actually get to use it. The glucose solution is flown in from Australia pretty regularly.

We need our own facility in New Zealand. We know that it could cost up to $20 million to set one up, but one surgeon estimated that the savings on lung cancer alone could be up to $600,000 per year. Overall it has been estimated that at least $3.5 million is wasted on unnecessary surgery for cancer patients. We know that cancer causes 29 percent of all deaths in this country, and it is estimated that by 2011 this will increase to 47 percent, which is estimated to be 22,000 cancer patients.

Research that could save lives and expedite treatment should be a priority for the Ministry of Health. But what has happened? The bureaucracy is spinning into action and committees have been formed—a real committee-fest. The Cancer Treatment Working Party presented a report to the Ministry of Health in mid-2005. The National Service and Technology Review Advisory Committee provided an update to the Minister of Health in November 2006. We have a Service Planning and New Health Intervention Assessment committee looking at new health interventions. That committee is somehow involved. Then the business case was considered by the national District Health Boards chief executive group in June 2007 and it was turned down. The chief executive officer group decided that it was too costly without adequate justification of additional patient benefit, which is ridiculous.

Dysfunction, disorganisation—these are the hallmarks of a disintegrating Government. I have to ask the Government speakers: who knew what happened in the Air New Zealand situation? The strangest aspect of the whole issue about Air New Zealand and charter flights is who in the Government actually knew the truth. According to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, they knew only last week when the story broke. But, in fact, most of the senior Government officials—the senior public servants—knew and had known for months. Simon Murdoch had been specifically advised by Rob Fyfe, the Chief Executive Officer of Air New Zealand, that the flights were to take place. Air New Zealand did the right thing. It knew that the flights were sensitive so it sought advice and spoke to the most senior foreign affairs official in the country—actually, chief executive officer to chief executive officer.

The information did not remain just with Mr Murdoch. There is a special committee—the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination—of which Mr Murdoch is a member. The committee is chaired by Mr Maartin Wevers, who is the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and it includes the Secretary of Defence, Mr John McKinnon. These three people are all former or current diplomats of the highest experience. One would think they knew how to spot a sensitive issue. Other members on the committee include the head of defence, the head of SIS, the police commissioner, and the chief executive of Treasury. They all knew, yet apparently no one spoke to a Minister or even to anyone in a Minister’s office.

Now we have to take a member’s word in this House—or, as the Prime Minister says, until it is proven otherwise. That is the formula she used to get rid of Mr Benson-Pope. So we have to ask this simple question: why was it that these experienced public servants thought that they did not have to speak to a single Minister, even though Air New Zealand could see there was a potential problem? It is the case that this Government seems to have two foreign policies—one for external consumption and one for local consumption. We saw the local consumption version last week. The Government always attacks the United States—the bogeyman of the left. It happened at the last election. We saw Phil Goff give one of his vein-popping speeches. The Government thinks there is mileage in all of that, but Colin James said this week in the New Zealand Herald that the Government should forget Iraq; the country is simply not interested.

The Government also has a different foreign policy—the external one. It is usually a bit of a different message: we like to get on with friendly Governments, smoothing over differences and putting them off to the margins—although that was somewhat forgotten by the Prime Minister in reference to Australia this week. One has to ask oneself this question: is this why the officials thought that the flights were OK? Had the Government somehow given an indication that they should be helpful to our friends, that all the Government Ministers needed was some form of plausible deniability? On the face of it that is exactly what they had. They came down here and denied.

I reckon the public have worked this one out. They can see hypocrisy. They can sense shallow politics. This time the tired old tactic of bashing the United States, of bashing our closest friend, Australia, simply has not worked. I wonder whether any of the members on the other side of the House have actually taken the time and trouble to look at the New Zealand Herald blogsite. There are about 30 pages on this issue, and almost 95 percent are saying that they actually do not care, that it does not really matter, that it is probably a good thing that we help out our old mate Australia when it asks for it, and that Australia is entitled to a bit of respect and support. The public simply do not care.

💬 Russell Fairbrother: Off over to Iraq are you?

That is the point that Mr Fairbrother does not work out. The public have moved on. I must make this point to Mr Fairbrother. Mr James was absolutely right. I say to the Government to forget about Iraq, because the public are actually looking forward. They are not interested in disputes of the past. They want change, and come November 2008 they will have their chance to get it.

That member Wayne Mapp wants everybody to forget Iraq. So do all the Governments that have sent troops there who have died. The National Party wants to sweep it under the carpet. We can understand that; its members do not want the words of their leader coming back to haunt them. They would prefer it to be forgotten, it is sad that it will not be forgotten, and it should not be forgotten by New Zealanders. If that lot were the Government, they would have sent young New Zealand men and women there to die, and Air New Zealand would have been bringing them back in body bags.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Oh no.

Yes, that is what it would have been doing. Poor old Dr Mapp wants the public to forget it.

But let us get back to some of the earlier comments and speeches about the poor personal attacks on Mr Key, and about how sad it is that the Government wants to remind the public about his shallowness. I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago of about 400 factory workers in South Auckland. National says we are not in touch and that we do not listen to those people. Well, I was there and we were talking about housing. Of course, we have had the National members lately pronouncing on housing. What have they been saying? They have said that they want to sell State houses to the tenants, yet all of this year National’s housing spokesperson, Mr Heatley, has been railing about the properties in Ōrākei in the eastern suburbs of Auckland. It is a place where many people, particularly Ngāti Whātua, have lived for years and years despite Governments doing their very best to shove them out, and he is saying that we should sell those properties. Will he sell them to the tenants? Will they have the $1 million to buy them?

💬 Jill Pettis: No!

No! National will be selling them to its mates, yet again. Let us get back to Mr Key’s words. He is afraid of the effects on the underclass. He believes that it is unaffordable for many people to have a house. So what is this Government doing about it? We will actually do something about it up in Hobsonville. We will have affordable housing for people to buy. We will have State housing, we will have schools, and we will have shops. We will make a community where not everybody in that community is rich or poor, because we know the failed policies of the past and what they delivered.

What does the man who went up to Waitangi with a young Māori girl, saying that he was there for the underclass, say about Hobsonville State housing? What does he say about this Government’s desire to have affordable housing in his electorate? He says: “Oh no! We don’t want those poor people anywhere near us. Get them out of here. And, by the way, do not let them live in Ōrākei either.” This is the man who would have us believe that he is there for the underclass, for all of those people I was talking to at that meeting in South Auckland who work in the factories, who work in manufacturing jobs, and who are trying to bring up families on low or modest incomes. What does Mr Key have in store for them? He says that we cannot have affordable housing anywhere near his electorate, that we cannot have low-income people living in $1 million properties up in Ōrākei—they have to be sold—and he pretends that he will sell State houses to low-income people who are in State houses right now, because they are so low-income that they cannot afford to buy a house. Where is the logic in that?

But we should not get personal. We should not get in there and test his theories and policies. Oh no, it is terrible if the Government dares to do that to the Leader of the Opposition. The same people Mr Key says he is concerned about—the people I was talking to a couple of weeks ago—were saying how great KiwiSaver is. They asked me what the National Party would do to it. We know what it will do to it, because it has already said that this Government is spending too much on retirement. What that means is that National will either cut KiwiSaver or cut the pension, or both. Those members over there know that. They know that the party, led by John Key, voted against increasing the minimum wage, voted against KiwiSaver, voted against increased holidays for average working families, and voted against lower doctor fees. It voted against prescription fees of three bucks. This is the man who says that he is worried about the underclass yet he voted against lowering doctor fees, lowering prescription costs, better wages, and better holidays.

Of course, we are not supposed to remind him about his desire to send troops to Iraq so that they could be killed. It would not be a bunch of Tories’ sons and daughters who went over there and fought in Iraq; that is not the way it works anywhere in the world. Oh no, the poor underclass would provide the bodies to go over there. [Interruption] Dr Mapp does not want to be reminded about Iraq; he wants to read his New Zealand Herald blog so that he can forget his leader’s idiotic statements, which he made 3 or 4 years ago.

There has been much criticism of the Minister of Justice, Mark Burton, in recent weeks, and all of it is deserved. He is simply not up to the job. His performance in question time when trying to answer Bill English’s incisive questions has been nothing short of incompetent.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: You can tell which side this one’s on!

But, for the benefit of Mr Mallard, I say that I am in a charitable mood this afternoon. To borrow the words of Denis Healey—who was a real Labour person, as opposed to Mr Mallard—I want to concentrate on the real Mephistopheles behind this shabby and discredited Faust. I want to talk about the Attorney-General.

There is one matter in the debate on the Electoral Finance Bill that has to be addressed, and that is the failure of the Attorney-General to provide this House with a report under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

💬 Jill Pettis: That’s in touch with the people!

The former member for Whanganui is hiding behind two boxes. I wonder whether it is in order for her to do that and to yell and to scream like a fishwife. She should come out from behind those boxes if she wants to interject properly.

The Crown Law Office provided a legal opinion to assist the Attorney-General to determine whether a report should be made to Parliament. The Crown Law Office concluded by a fine margin that the bill is a justifiable limitation on the right of freedom of expression. This was a very poor opinion; it failed to address fundamental issues about this legislation—that it impairs the ability of private citizens to criticise public institutions and political candidates, and that it stops private citizens from debating matters of public interest during an election year.

Those are the sorts of restrictions that are worthy of Boy Assad of Syria; they are Draconian, and they are totally unacceptable. The Attorney-General should have provided a report under section 7. In fact, I agree with former Labour MP Richard Northey, who said in this House in August 1990 that the Attorney-General has an individual, independent responsibility to act in a judicial way and to report on matters even when there may be political pressures not to notice them.

Any Attorney-General conscious of his or her responsibilities would have provided a section 7 report in this case, notwithstanding the Crown Law Office opinion. I agree with one of the Attorney-General’s predecessors, the Hon Margaret Wilson, when she said that as Attorney-General she considered she should err on the side of caution in advising the House of any possible inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is for that reason that she provided a section 7 report on the Electoral (Public Opinion Polls) Amendment Bill 2000 and the Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) 2001. In both those cases she concluded that the bills were inconsistent with section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and did not appear to be justified under section 5. In both those cases the House was dealing with members’ bills, but that is beside the point. She was conscious of her responsibilities and took the time and trouble to write such a report.

When the New Zealand Bill of Rights legislation was being debated in 1990, some National MPs criticised the reporting duty of the Attorney-General and said it was ridiculous to expect the Attorney-General, who is bound by the principle of collective responsibility, to write a report contrary to Government policy. Labour MPs, however, emphasised the independence of the Attorney-General and said that he or she could.

This Attorney-General is a disgrace. He has put party before Parliament, and the Labour Party’s interests before the public interest. The Attorney-General is the person who should show his strength by critically analysing this rotten legislation, in New Zealand Bill of Rights Act terms, but he has instead decided to remain silent. Being the Attorney-General is about more than appointing the occasional judge and overseeing the work of the Crown Law Office. The Attorney-General must be an independent officer, placing the interests of the law and the fundamental rights of New Zealanders above party. This Attorney-General has failed to do so, and stands condemned for his failure.

It is very interesting that the Labour Party benches have fallen silent on this issue, because it is a major constitutional issue. I would be very interested to hear from the one lawyer in the Labour Party caucus for whom I have respect, namely Mr Fairbrother. What does Mr Fairbrother say about this issue? Why did the Attorney-General not provide a report at the time of introduction of this legislation? This was, as the Crown Law Office said, even putting it most generously, a finely balanced matter. It deserved a report. The Attorney-General failed in his responsibilities in failing to provide one. This Attorney-General is a Labour Party hack and, as I said, he stands condemned because he has put his loyalty to the Labour Party, to the tribe, above his public responsibilities.

That member, Christopher Finlayson, is the man who styles himself as the Attorney-General in waiting—waiting being the operative word. That man will be waiting when Charles Chauvel becomes the Attorney-General. That man will be waiting when Charles Chauvel turns 50. That man will never make Attorney-General, because he will never be on the Treasury benches. That man will leave this House as frustrated and bitter as he entered it. But what that man does represent is the moneyed right. He is the man who aspires to be Attorney-General, who featured in the book The Hollow Men, and who held high-priced fund-raising dinners so that the wealthy right wing in this country could buy their way into power. He is the man who criticises our Attorney-General, claiming a lack of independence. The facts speak for themselves.

Let us have a look at the credibility issue. This is not an attack on John Key. He does not need an attack from me; he attacks himself every time he opens his mouth. This is an attack on his credibility.

This is a debate. The debate was set off by a lacklustre speech made by the Leader of the Opposition, John Key. The only thing he told the House was that he is presently ahead in the polls. He dwelled upon that as though it were a matter of great moment of State.

The reply to that was led by our Minister of Health, Pete Hodgson. He brought facts and figures into the debate. He outlined the inconsistency of statutory declarations by the Leader of the Opposition. That man who wants to be Attorney-General knows how important statutory declarations are. If we trifle with them we are committing a serious moral offence, at least, and perhaps a serious legal offence. Pete Hodgson outlined, chapter and verse, the impossibility for all those statutory declarations to be honest, to be straightforward, and to be taken at face value. And we have a motive for them to be misleading. At the time those declarations were made, John Key was standing for the first time in the seat of Helensville. He was styling himself as a man of the people of that electorate. Of course, it is quite clear now that he had no intention of delivering on his promise that he would live in the area. The statutory declarations outlined by Pete Hodgson today show quite clearly the total lack of credibility that man has.

But John Key has a remedy. At any time during the speech made by the Minister of Health or after—or even now—he could stand in this House and invoke Standing Order 133(g) to interrupt the debate and make a personal statement to clarify the position. His credibility, having been put on the line in this House this afternoon in this debate, has not been restored by him. Why? Because he cannot advance a statement that will repair the damage of those inconsistent statutory declarations. Therefore, as we stand in the House right now, the debating speech of Pete Hodgson has to be taken as accurate and accepted by the Leader of the Opposition. It has to tell us that he filed conflicting statutory declarations when he should have been consistent, forthright, and honest.

What does that tell us about the man who comes here and gives a lacklustre speech, gloating that he is ahead in the polls at this moment? It tells us that he is a very good marketer. What is a marketer? A marketer is someone who creates a need in someone’s mind, when that person does not want the product for which the need is created. What is the product they are creating? They are creating a myth of beneficence. I sat on a select committee this morning with some of the members sitting on the other side of the House, and those members must really have been churning in their stomachs at the evidence we heard.

My friend Mr Gosche spoke about an underclass. The underclass in this country are not the people whom John Key wants to highlight. The underclass in this country is truly a category of people who are marginalised by a system that fails to recognise their personal needs and their view of the world. I hate to use that term “underclass”, but it is the only term by which we can describe people who are marginalised and discriminated against in such a way.

This is the world of the disabled. [Interruption] The member can interrupt about the disabled; he certainly can. He wants to forget them, just as he wants to forget about his party’s promise to go to Iraq. He wants to forget about the disabled, and he certainly will if he ever gets to the Treasury benches. The world of the disabled is a very, very marginalised and sad world. Their complaint, of course, is that the money available to the disability sector is not getting to them. But they should wait until we have tax cuts, and wait until we have members on the other side of the Chamber on the Treasury benches. Then there will be no money for the marginalised and discriminated against disabled sector.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.