Financial Review Debate — Department of Internal Affairs

The Government is completely out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders, and nothing illustrates that more than its upgrade of the ministerial BMW fleet at a time when the Government is asking other New Zealanders to stomach cutbacks in the services that are available to them. Government Ministers are having their cars upgraded so they can travel around in flash new BMWs, while the Government is cutting public services and telling New Zealanders they need to tighten their belts.

Government Ministers cannot even get their story straight about the cars. John Key said, first of all, that he did not know anything about the upgrade and that the first he ever heard about it was when his driver told him on 15 February.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Who signed the deal?

John Key signed it. John Key signed the deal. John Key signed it off. I will get to that in a moment. John Key signed off the deal not once but four times—four times. I will get to that if Mr Macindoe will hold on to his braces for just a moment.

John Key told TV3 on 15 February that the first he knew about the cars was when his VIP driver told him. So first of all it is the VIP driver who told him, then later on he said that the first he heard about the upgrade was when he read about it in the newspaper. So we have two stories now: that it was the VIP driver who told him about the upgrade and that he read about it in the newspaper.

I will go into this issue in a little bit more detail. John Key then said that the upgrade did not come as a surprise to him. He told Mike Hosking on 21 February—this is a good one—that when the Crown car driver said to him some weeks back some comment about the car and about new ones coming, it did not seem much of a surprise to him because he sort of knew the fleets turned over. If members can follow all that, they will know that basically John Key said the VIP driver told him about the upgrade, he was not surprised, and he did not really care. Of course, a few weeks later, when it all blew up into a big issue, suddenly he had never been told about the upgrade of the VIP cars and he did not know anything about it, despite the fact that he had signed it off four times.

So when, in fact, did John Key first find out about the upgrade of the VIP cars? Well, we have to go all the way back to 30 March 2009 when he first signed off on the upgrade of the VIP fleet. He signed it off first on 30 March 2009, then he signed it off again on 21 April 2009, then on 21 March 2010, and then on 20 April 2010. John Key signed it off not once but four times. What was his rationale behind that? Well, he did not read the reports. He did not read the reports. What are the reports that John Key did not read? They are nothing particularly important, just the statement of intent for the Department of Internal Affairs. What does the statement of intent actually do? It only authorises the spending of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. That is all right; it is not particularly important! It does not matter that John Key signs those reports without reading them. This is only the deal that basically tells the Department of Internal Affairs what it will do. John Key signs off reports without even reading them.

First of all, he claimed that he did not know anything about the car upgrade, then it turns out he signed it off four times—four times—and then it turns out he did not know about it because he did not bother to read any of the reports on it that he had received.

💬 Hon David Parker: A bit like those emails from the Exclusive Brethren.

It is a lot like the emails from the Exclusive Brethren; he never opened those emails. He did not know anything about all that money the Exclusive Brethren were washing into the National Party’s campaign. Apparently, John Key is not very good at reading things. He does not open his email. He does not even read substantive documents from his department, and there is nothing much more substantive than the statement of intent, which is basically the Government’s job.

John Key did not bother reading the statement of intent, because why read it when he has no plan? If the Government actually had a plan, it might care what is in the statement of intent for the department, but it has no plan, at all. The Government is totally at sea with a Prime Minister whose only objective is to have his photograph taken as many times as possible. There is no photo opportunity involved in reading a statement of intent before he signs it off—no photo there. It has not even got John Key’s photograph on the cover, so why would he bother reading it? He just signed off the statement of intent without even bothering to read it. I think that is pretty disgraceful.

We then find out that there is a lot more to it. Between 19 and 20 July 2010, it turns out that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff had been meeting with the Department of Internal Affairs and Ministerial Services and discussing the upgrade of the VIP fleet, which John Key knew nothing about. Nobody thought to tell John Key anything about it —if we believe exactly what he said. The Prime Minister was marching along totally in the dark with no idea about the upgrade of the BMW fleet. He signed it off four times, and all the time his chief of staff was meeting regularly with the Department of Internal Affairs and discussing the very issue of the upgrade, yet John Key did not know anything about it.

What about the rest of the Cabinet? Did those members know anything about the upgrade? Well, in fact, they did. It turns out that the Minister of Internal Affairs not only signed off the upgrade but back in December he wrote a letter to Bill English asking to keep some of the money from it. The Minister of Internal Affairs knew all about the upgrade, but the Prime Minster did not know about it. According to John Key, no Ministers knew anything about it. Well, the Minister of Internal Affairs knew all about it, and the Minister of Finance knew all about it. In fact, John Key knew all about it too, if his signature is to be believed. If we are to believe John Key’s signature, then he knew all about it. But apparently, no, we cannot trust his signature, because he does not read the things he signs. We cannot trust his signature.

That could explain the National Party’s manifesto, which had John Key’s signature on it, too. He does not seem to know very much about that, and he does not read the reports that get sent to him. He does not read stuff he signs off.

John Key knew all about the upgrade of the VIP fleet. He knew all about it, and he simply was not willing to front up and say he knew about it. He did not care. He was so out of touch with New Zealanders that he did not care that Ministers were getting new BMWs while ordinary, working Kiwis were being told to tighten their belts, with cuts to their public services, cuts to their health services, and cuts to their benefits, with more coming. More cuts are coming because Bill English and John Key have said that all new spending is off the table.

This year’s Budget will not even keep pace with inflation. It will not even keep pace with inflation, but that is OK because the Ministers have their new VIP cars to cruise around in, while the rest of New Zealanders stomach the cuts to services.

💬 Hon Member: Out of touch.

The Ministers are totally out of touch and they have no plan, but they have new cars to drive around in. Whose interests is this Government really looking after? It is looking after its own interests. It is looking after the interests of its mates, not ordinary, hard-working New Zealand families.

There are other examples of that in the Internal Affairs portfolio, particularly Ministerial Services.

💬 Hon Hekia Parata: Well, let’s hear some!

Well, one of the first things John Key did as Minister Responsible for Ministerial Services was to sign off a new ministerial housing regime that effectively gave a tax-free pay rise to all of the Ministers in Cabinet. So now they have these flash new ministerial houses—

💬 Hon Members: Not me.

—well, Mr Macindoe is not a Minister, and Hekia Parata lives in Wellington. Chris Finlayson apparently lives in Wellington. He has been seen once or twice around Rongotai. Those members do not get the housing allowance all the other Ministers get, so I can understand. Nathan Guy lives just a bit further up the road, and he got the tax-free pay rise for his ministerial house under John Key’s new regime. Why did John Key sign off on a new housing regime in the first place? Because Bill English was found with his hand in the till, helping himself to taxpayers’ money, which he was not entitled to. So the Government set up a new housing regime that was going to be more transparent and that gave it more money. Why did it do that? Government members are interested only in their own interests. Ministers are driving around in fancy BMWs and living in fancy ministerial houses, but they are not interested in the plight of ordinary, working Kiwis who are having their State house maintenance budgets cut and who are paying more for their early childhood education. But that is all right because the Ministers have new BMWs and flash ministerial houses.

Bill English has increased the spending on flowers in his office. He has doubled the budget. He is spending twice as much money on flowers in his office as the previous Minister of Finance did. “The Dipton Petal” has a new BMW car, his fancy ministerial home that he claims is his secondary residence—despite the fact that he has lived there all along—and lots of flowers. Bill English is feeling pretty good about things. He has pretty flowers to look at, drives around in his fancy ministerial BMW, and goes home to his ministerial home up in Karori—

💬 Stuart Nash: Got his tax cuts.

—and got his big, fat tax cut. This Government is busy looking after its own interests. It is not looking after the interests of ordinary, working New Zealanders.

I start off by remembering the people of Christchurch. We are a month on from the terrible earthquake of 22 February. I think the whole Committee offers its support for Canterbury to get back on its feet, particularly those residents of Christchurch and those businesses.

The reason I raise this is that over the last week we had the memorial service in Hagley Park. The Department of Internal Affairs was directly involved through the Visits and Ceremonial Office in organising that event. I think it did a fantastic job. If we went out to the private sector and asked it to organise an event in a park for in the vicinity of 90,000 to 100,000 people and said it had a bit over a couple of weeks to do it, it would go into panic mode. In my opinion, the Visits and Ceremonial Office did a fantastic job.

Thinking about the terrible loss that occurred just over the hill from Christchurch at Pike River, the Visits and Ceremonial Office stepped up and organised that memorial service for that community. It was difficult to organise that memorial service because of the logistics and the location, but once again it stepped up and did a fantastic job.

The Department of Internal Affairs operates across eight votes and six Ministers, and had close to $230 million expenditure over the 2009-10 period. It encompasses citizens, the Government, and the community. A lot goes on within the Department of Internal Affairs that a lot of people do not necessarily realise happens. We have rolled out the new passport, which enables people to get into 50 countries visa-free and has 50 security features. We have the very high performing Births, Deaths and Marriages, which is trusted by New Zealanders. We are also talking about New Zealand citizenship, with 20,000 to 30,000 citizens heading through that process. The department is trusted by a whole lot of New Zealanders.

I was interested in listening to the address from the Labour member. I would have thought he would talk about the integration of the National Library and Archives New Zealand into the Department of Internal Affairs, because that was a huge issue to Labour last year, but we did not hear anything about that. That integration has gone fantastically well. It was interesting to read in the report from the Government Administration Committee, which is before the Committee today, that: “The powers of both the Chief Archivist and the National Librarian are enshrined in statute”. That was a huge concern of the Opposition. I believe that the integration has gone fantastically well.

I look forward to welcoming the new National Librarian, who will start in early May. William McNaught—

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: Puke Ariki.

That is right. He comes to this new role highly respected. He is the former manager of the Puke Ariki library visitor information centre in New Plymouth. In fact, I visited there over the summer holidays and I was really impressed. I look forward to establishing a great working relationship with Mr McNaught. I also look forward to carrying on the ongoing strong working relationship I have with the Chief Archivist, who was in an acting role and who has now been appointed to a permanent role. That, of course, is Greg Goulding.

As I say, there has been nothing tonight from Opposition members about the integration, which was a big issue last year. Opposition members ran around and said that it would not work. We have a real focus on front-line services and combining back-office functions, and this integration is a very important part of that. I note that when we announced the merger the New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA) welcomed the protection of these statutory roles and the efforts of this Government to reduce fragmentation in the public sector.

💬 Hon John Carter: The PSA accepted it.

Mr Carter is right. The PSA welcomed it.

💬 Hon John Carter: What about the Opposition?

Opposition members have their heads in the clouds. We have just heard the rant from the member for Rimutaka. He should be particularly worried about the new National Party candidate who has been selected for that electorate, Jonathan Fletcher. Mr Hipkins should get used to the sound of knocking, because Mr Fletcher has been out today knocking on doors and getting a fantastic response in that electorate. It is probably only a matter of time—a few months—before Mr Hipkins says goodbye to this place.

The other important thing I wish to raise is the focus of the Department of Internal Affairs on digital information. We have a real focus on ensuring that all of the department’s information is more accessible to the New Zealand public. That suits the Government’s focus on rolling out ultra-fast broadband, ultimately to every home in New Zealand. Many, many fantastic areas of digitisation and technology are happening in the Department of Internal Affairs. Recently in the igovt logon service the 1,000,000th log-on occurred.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time for this debate has expired.

Clauses 1 to 11 and schedules 1 to 5 agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.