General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Paula Bennett will put children at risk of worsening illness—as she leaves the House—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is not appropriate to refer to any member leaving the House. Would those who are choosing to the leave the House please do so quietly, as the member has every right to have her contribution heard.

Paula Bennett will put children at risk of worsening illness, inadequate health care, and even maltreatment, as she and her Government continue to pass the welfare reforms, and they do not care. How do they know about these risks? Because the Ministry of Health told them over and over and over again. The ministry provided briefings on changes to the text, advice to the Minister, and pleas to the Minister that these reforms—the Well Child compulsion, the severe financial sanctions—would cause beneficiaries and their children harm.

I want to go through some of that advice so that people out there can understand just how seriously the Ministry of Health took these welfare reforms in its concern for child health. In May 2012: “The Ministry of Health expects that income sanctions will have a negative impact on the health of sanctioned beneficiaries and their families. We predict that these people will defer health care. We predict that these people will increasingly present at emergency departments, rather than primary care.” It said that “The cost to the health system will increase accordingly.” Again in May, in tracked changes to a Ministry of Social Development Cabinet paper, it said: “There are risks to the Well Child programme if the checks are seen as a punishment or a sanction. One of the valuable traits of Well Child has been that it is non-threatening and has a high degree of public and family acceptability.” Further emails have passed between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Development over this. Over and over the ministry tells the Minister of Health and the Ministry of Social Development that the sanctions will harm families. It even had to ask the Ministry of Social Development to rewrite parts of its report. The Ministry of Health says: “Please replace the phrase ‘MOH notes’ with the phrase ‘The Ministry of Health has a strong preference that engagement on the Well Child programme does not become mandatory.’ ”

The ministry officials appealed to the Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, asking him to please put this information to the welfare reform Minister. They said: “The ministry is concerned about such heavy financial sanctions being applied. We anticipate these sanctions would have a negative impact on the health of sanctioned beneficiaries and their families. We expect that those sanctioned will be more likely to defer health care, and present at emergency departments. We can do better to reach families not receiving Well Child checks by improving programme delivery.” It is over and over.

Just as one example of the Draconian intention by the Ministry of Social Development, in July the Ministry of Health asked the Ministry of Social Development to do this: “Please remove the word ‘surveillance’. The Well Child programme is not designed or intended as a mechanism for surveillance of beneficiary families or indeed any families. It is a health promotion child development programme that works on the basis of partnership and engagement between the practitioner and the parent and the child. Don’t use it to investigate families.” Despite the false claims by Paula Bennett that this compulsion is necessary for poorer families, the ministry says that there is no strong evidence that health-related social obligations are needed. Then, after months of persistent health advocacy for children, the Ministry of Health asked that the regulatory impact statement attached to the bill note some key warnings: that the Well Child programme itself could be threatened if it becomes mandatory, that sanctioned parents can face significant barriers to compliance, and, finally, that there will be some substantial negative impacts on families who ultimately face financial sanctions, not least because it is noted in the regulatory impact statement that child maltreatment and neglect is particularly sensitive to parental income, where lack of resources limits their ability to meet children’s basic needs. Over and over and over the Ministry of Health told the Minister of Health, the Minister for Social Development, and the Ministry of Social Development that these financial sanctions for the Well Child checks, the welfare reforms, would cause children harm. It has solutions to increase the number of children who are registered with the Well Child system. It has ways of delivering a decent and better programme to those families. Paula Bennett knows that children will be harmed by her welfare reforms, and she will do it anyway.

Hands up all the members of this House who have realised in the last 48 hours that they are in possession of a foreign bank account with $100,000 in it—in fact, they had forgotten about it, and they have just suddenly remembered they had it stashed away. David Shearer is the only member of the House who could put his hand up. The offence here is not that he has a foreign bank account, and not that he has $100,000 or more in that bank account, but that he flagrantly disregarded the Standing Orders of this House, and disrespected this House for 4 years, by not declaring it on his pecuniary interest register. The question has to be why, because the “forgot” answer does not wash. It is astonishing that the leader of a political party that pillories people for their wealth, and pillories people for their memory lapses, is able to say he just forgot, at the same time that he is telling John Banks he should exit Parliament for receiving a $500 gift basket. That is typical of the double standard that we have come to know from the Labour Party, and that is now sanctioned, it would seem, by the leader himself.

What would you be more likely to do: remember that you had $100,000 in a foreign bank account or remember a small picture on the corner of a laptop screen at the start of a briefing? Because what David Shearer has said is that the Prime Minister should have—in fact, he called him a liar when he said he could not remember that small picture. Well, what we are seeing here today, and have seen over the last couple of days actually, is the extreme deception of David Shearer in not declaring that particular asset. Although his party members over there might like to sit there, shaking their heads, sort of smiling, I do not think they have understood how offensive it will be to New Zealanders that someone is trying to hide a foreign asset. That is completely wrong and somewhat inexplicable.

So, as I said earlier, it does not matter that he has a foreign bank account. It does not matter that he has a large sum of money in it. But it does matter that he forgot about it. It does matter that he decided, year after year after year, not to tell the Parliament that he had it. For someone to take the wrong turn on the motorway once is forgetful; to do it four times is plain stupid. That is the class that Mr Shearer has now put himself into. It is interesting, though, that he has this, I guess you would say, habit of being forgetful. He forgot who the painter was on the roof who had a benefit, who he said should have been off the roof and doing something else. He forgot about that. He forgot about the video that he told everyone existed, but did not exist. So this forgetfulness has been a sort of hallmark of him, but I do not think it is a forgivable thing.

It is also interesting to note that when Mr Shearer, who sets such high standards, received the Auditor-General’s report on the—what is it called here—Inquiry into decision by Hon Shane Jones to grant citizenship to Mr Yang Liu, he actually, by the time he got to the end of it, decided there was nothing in here to worry about and that he would go out to the public and say that it all showed nothing. I think he forgot the most important part of that report, right at the start, where the Auditor-General says that they were not able to investigate any of the accusations or allegations made against Mr Liu, and, therefore, they were not able to investigate all of those suggestions that there was something untoward in the way in which this particular case was dealt with, and that they could not look into why it was that just 4 hours after receiving an Official Information Act request, Mr Jones had the officials in his office, the information on the table, and the information in the hands of Mr Liu the following day. A short time after that, Mr Jones made a decision that despite the advice from his officials, he was going to grant the citizenship, and then a day later Mr Liu is dragged into Parliament—

The member’s time has expired.

There are two words for the member who has just resumed his seat, or it may actually be one word: Tranz Rail—Tranz Rail shares. If that member, Gerry Brownlee, wants to get up and talk about forgetfulness, about overseas transactions—this side of the House knows very well the record of his leader on that. The record of his leader on brain fades when it comes to issues like Kim Dotcom—when he was briefed, what he knew—exceeds anyone else in this House for forgetfulness. I am going to miss Mr Brownlee from our Friday evening chats, which he has pulled out of because, apparently, I was all over him and he could not get a word in edgeways. Well, sorry about that, Gerry—bad luck! We will see you back any time you like on the radio on Friday.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. No one is going to call me a coward for getting away from Grant Robertson being all over me.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order. That is a debatable matter.

In your dreams, Gerry! In your dreams!

New Zealanders rightly expect a standard of transparency, accountability, and fairness from their Government. They think that when somebody gets into Government, they will take seriously their responsibilities as a Minister. What we have seen in the debacle over the Government Communications Security Bureau’s involvement in Operation Debut, the Kim Dotcom case, is a complete lack of oversight from the Minister responsible for the GCSB, John Key.

We are asked to believe that an operation that has been described by the police as an unprecedented role for the bureau was not even reported to the Prime Minister. That is what we are being asked to believe. We are being asked to believe that when spying went on at the behest of the FBI the Prime Minister did not know. We are being asked to believe that our spy agencies, having worked out on 22 February that they were spying unlawfully, did not tell their Minister, the Minister in charge. That is what we are being asked to believe.

But the bottom line is that, whichever way we look at it, at best John Key’s oversight of this agency has been loose and lax, and at worst he is part of a cover-up, because what we see in the papers that have been released by the court is a pattern of behaviour that sought to minimise the actions that were being undertaken. There is not much that is more serious in our country than the power to spy on people. That is why the Government Communications Security Bureau Act says that New Zealanders and New Zealand residents, in particular, are not allowed to be spied upon.

The Government Communications Security Bureau went into this surveillance operation without even sorting out the residency status of the person who was under surveillance. That is incredibly sloppy. It is not the kind of thing that New Zealanders would expect. Twice during the process—once in mid-December 2011 and once in early January 2012, when the surveillance was still under way—the police became aware that Mr Dotcom was a resident and, therefore, should not have been under surveillance. That is bad enough, but then, on 16 February, a meeting was held where Ian Fletcher, the director of the bureau, somebody who reports directly to the Prime Minister, was present at a briefing where Kim Dotcom’s residency status was discussed and immediately after which it was realised that the spying had been unlawful. That is, Mr Key’s chief spy was there in the room, a person whom Mr Key may well know very well in other ways as well, and he did not report this to Mr Key. That is what we are asked to believe. If it is true, it is a kind of oversight that New Zealanders would be ashamed of. We expect our Prime Minister to actually act on behalf of New Zealanders and play the role that he is meant to play in overseeing the spy agency. He has shown no signs of taking responsibility for his actions.

This is a Government that is more interested in deals with its mates than it is in governing in the interests of New Zealanders. It is a Government that is so mired in scandals and so focused on its own mates and lining their pockets that it has lost its focus on what it is meant to be doing, which is helping make New Zealanders’ lives better. Well, I can be absolutely clear with you today that help is on its way. The Labour Party sees this Government in decline, and in 2014 New Zealanders will get the Government they deserve—a Government for the people of New Zealand, not the mates of the National Party.

If that was not so sad, it would be funny. I mean, that really was an appalling attempt to pull out the old leaf of the Labour Party playbook, which is that when you are in desperate trouble, when your leader is in a bit of a difficulty, then you reheat an old allegation from months ago, drag it out, and pretend it is new stuff—new stuff from Mr Robertson, but only because his leader is in trouble of his own. That is the reality of it, because the Labour Party has got a problem. It is a shrill, out-of-touch Opposition party, and it has decided that what it needed after getting a trouncing in the 2011 election was a fresh public face to speed it back into office in 2014. It wanted a short cut. It did not want to change any of its policies. In fact, it did not want to change any of its long-standing members. What it wanted was a short cut back to the Treasury benches, so Labour members cast around the caucus. They found a guy. He could not actually string several words together, but they found him, and they said: “He can be the modern face of the party. Send him out there.” They got him to talk about the fact that he was not a politician, that he was an anti-politician, and that he would not play gotcha politics and would actually just talk about what New Zealanders wanted. And it did not work. He did not say anything. He did not do anything. He was a rabbit that they could not get to run.

So very quickly the old Labour Party reasserted itself and started getting him to say some things that were palpably going to be contradicted, and this one is the one that has caught him this week. On Thursday, 26 July last year, he said in regards to John Banks that because he had forgotten something: “On the basis of his memory lapse alone, John Banks is not fit to serve as a Minister.” That is the standard that this Mr Shearer set. Then, of course, we have the issue of the last few days, when quite palpably he cannot meet that standard himself, because he has had to go out there and correct his pecuniary register. There is no problem with that. Members do make mistakes with their pecuniary register and they have to go and fix it, but this member has made the mistake 4 years in a row. For 4 years in a row he has not actually got around to doing it, and, weirdly, he was able to tell the Inland Revenue Department he had this offshore bank account for each of those 4 years, as he filed his tax return. So he did not remember it for his pecuniary register, but he remembered it for the Inland Revenue Department. And that, I am sorry, is very hard to believe.

But, OK, maybe he is the sort of person who has a lazy $50k lying around somewhere—maybe he is—but if that is the case then why will he not tell us the amount that is in the account? That would actually help us understand whether he was just forgetful. Maybe it is OK to forget $50k, but is it OK to forget, let us say, over $100k, as he sort of admitted last night on Radio Live? Or is it maybe $200k or $300k? He is saying it is between him and his family. What he is saying is that it is embarrassing and he does not want to talk about it any more. So his problem is he is hoist by his own petard. Nobody is saying it is the world’s worst thing, except he was the guy who turned round last year and said of John Banks that on a memory lapse alone he should not be in Parliament. He also said, by the way, that John Key was in trouble because he had a brain fade. Well, this is the biggest brain fade I have seen in 4 years in this Parliament, because it is not once; it is twice, it is three times, it is four times.

But that is not so bad, because the other attempt of the Leader of the Opposition has been to play gotcha politics on Office of the Auditor-General reports, and has that not ended badly—has that not ended badly? He has been spending his time harrumphing away about the convention centre report and going on about how it is terrible. Then, weirdly—not the same issues—another report came out that sort of suggests that actually there was a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” former associate immigration Minister, who did not ask why it was that he disagreed with officials, who did not want to know, and who did not ask the questions. He was sent in to do one citizenship application, which, weirdly, was for a donor of the Labour Party. Then that person miraculously got his citizenship, and the next day was presented with a citizenship ceremony at Parliament. And somehow that is OK—that is just fine—whereas compared with the convention centre that is a million miles off being fine. That is absolute rubbish and it is—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

The Government has made the Christchurch rebuild a top priority. It is putting great weight on the rebuild to drive the economy. Indeed, it has little else as an economic strategy to reinvigorate the economy. The fact is that if the rebuild falters, New Zealand falters. We must get the rebuild right, or the cost to the nation will be enormous. So it is time for some scrutiny of the Government’s approach to the rebuild.

After 2 years of policy stagnation, inaction on insurance issues, grossly unfair decisions on red zone property owners, lack of progress on road repairs, poor progress on home repairs and rebuilds, unaddressed health issues arising from silt pools under homes in many parts of the city—and other health issues—the sheer number of complaints about the performance of the Earthquake Commission, and the similar number of complaints about Fletcher’s performance, including allegations of fraud and corruption over the monitoring of home repair contracts, the only fair assessment of the Government’s performance is that it has failed in its duties and has failed to provide the leadership needed. Some serious wrongs are being committed, too. They say that power corrupts, and there is a real sense of hubris attaching to the Minister responsible for the Christchurch rebuild. Minister Brownlee is behaving increasingly like a Soviet-style commissar whose word is above the law. His arbitrary edicts are punishing the innocent.

Holders of vacant sections in the red zone have been robbed—robbed of 50 percent of their land value and robbed of the compensation any other Kiwi would get if the Government effectively took their land. The Government can no longer sustain some of its shoddy policy-making over red zoned land. The use of outdated, inaccurate 2007 rating values was bad enough, but the treatment of owners of vacant sections is utterly unconscionable. In New Zealand it has long been accepted that if the Government compulsorily takes land, then it pays the fair market price for that land. That means the pre-earthquake, pre - red zone value for that land. Most Kiwis accept that it is a matter of simple fairness that the Government would not take advantage of a disaster situation to acquire land at less than its fair value.

Here is part of an email I received only today from a distressed owner of a red zone vacant section, who is distraught about the coming 31 March deadline: “With the red zone section owners’ deadline of March 31 fast approaching, and both Brownlee and Sutton refusing to justify what is happening but saying ‘Take 50 percent or we can force acquisition at a lower price.’, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I understand there is some sort of parliamentary finance committee looking into the situation, and its submissions close April 15. But we have to accept the offer by March 31. This is just one example of the ridiculous situations we have had to deal with. Two years of stress waiting for any decision is equally ridiculous. I understand you are busy, but this insane situation is reaching a climax, and the 100 families facing financial ruin—bankruptcy in some cases—are desperate for help before March 31.” That says it all, really.

The other big area of Government failure is, of course, insurance. It is high time for the Government to sort out the insurance debacle. A great volume of contested insurance claims continue to fester, causing untold grief and anguish to totally innocent parties. Blameless people are facing the guile, the manipulation, and the artifice of well-practised insurance companies. Why is the Government not proactively supporting people who have paid their insurance bills in good faith for most of their lives? Why has no support system been put in place by the Government to help insurance-stressed people? Many cannot afford to buy advice.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am just searching through Standing Orders, and I ask for your assistance. I believe that where a member is impugned in a speech there is an immediate right of reply provided for in Standing Orders. I believe that that most outrageous speech from the previous speaker, Denis O’Rourke, did make such unparliamentary references, and I would like to have that right of reply.

Can the member point me in the right direction for the Standing Order, please. The general debate is a debate, at the end of the day. I did not think the comments were that offensive to the member.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, but you can’t stand up and just tell abject lies and misrepresentations like that.

The opportunity for the member to—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: I know it’s his method. It’s what he does all the time. There’s no question about that.

Order! That is not a point of order. If the member took offence, he should have raised it at the time.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The general debate has traditionally been a very robust debate. In fact, Gerry Brownlee himself made a very robust contribution in which he made a number of allegations about other members that they also may well have found to be very offensive.

💬 David Shearer: I know.

The member in front of me is actually the person whom I was referring to. So if Gerry Brownlee wants to have one set of rules for himself and one set of rules for everybody else, perhaps he is actually illustrating the point that Mr O’Rourke was making.

Order!

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Mr Speaker, point of order.

No, I do not need any further assistance at all.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: I’d like to debate the point of order that’s been raised.

Order! I do not need any further assistance whatsoever. This is a general debate. It is a robust debate, it occurs every Wednesday, and it is a good opportunity for politicians to have a strong debate. I take that to be a very strong debate. I think the member who raised the point of order, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, is probably referring to Standing Order 355, which is around the impugning of a member during oral question time. This is a debate. There are other calls for the National Party. If the member was really offended, he had the opportunity to make that comment at the time but did not do so. We are moving on with the next call.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to assist, I think you might also refer to Standing Order 107, which gives the member the right to reply if a member is misrepresented, misquoted, or misunderstood. But I think also that Mr Brownlee is out of order to apply—

Order! [Interruption] Order! I do appreciate that contribution, but we have moved on. I have made a ruling.

It is no secret in this House that I am very fond of Dr Seuss. I have to say that the debacle around David Shearer led me back to good old Dr Seuss, and I just want to start with a quick quote from Oh, the Places You’ll Go!. It says: “You’ll get mixed up … as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act … never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.”

If we are talking right feet and left feet, you could not ask for anything better than David Shearer’s left and right suggestions. On the one hand he is saying: “I think the fact that Banks forgot $50,000 is laughable. He should stand down.”, and on the left of this picture, with his left foot in his mouth again, he is saying: “I honestly forgot the spare $50,000 in my US bank account.” The story that we are asked to believe and that New Zealanders are asked to believe is that David Shearer fills in a tax return every year and declares this US bank account. Every year he fills that out. We have to take his word for it that he does actually put it in. But when he comes to filling in Parliament’s declaration of pecuniary interests—for listeners, that is just a list of the interests, the assets, the debts, and the gifts that you have received as a member of Parliament—he forgets to put in his US bank account with, I do not know, $50k, $100k, $200k, or however much is in it.

I am a reasonable person, and I want to believe that David Shearer is honest and that it was a genuine mistake, but he did not do it just one time. He did not do it just twice. He did not do it just three times. He did it four times—four times. He filled in his tax return and he filled in his pecuniary interests and it was not there. Hallelujah! So now you have to say that there are huge double standards displayed here, and that is no surprise, because Labour members are at it all the time. We have come to expect that from them. But I have to say that even the most generous person could not possibly think that you could make that genuine mistake four times—4 years.

I went and looked up David Shearer’s CV. It says lots of nice things about him, and I have always thought he was a nice man.

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: He’s a nice guy.

A nice man—yes, a really nice man. What a shame he is the leader of the Labour Party, but, you know. He says in it: “My belief in social justice naturally led me to the Labour Party.” He says lots of other things. He has got experience in running large-scale relief operations. He has got considerable managerial and financial skills. He has got all of those skills and that is all very nice. He remembered to fill in his tax returns, he remembered to put into his pecuniary interests his Westpac account, but he forgot a stash in New York of $100k.

💬 Hon John Banks: A secret stash.

We think it is $100k—a secret stash. He forgot to put that in.

He espouses social justice. He berates John Key—one of the most successful businessmen in New Zealand, who has become Prime Minister—for being rich and successful, but he forgets that he has got a secret bank account in the US—

💬 Grant Robertson: No secret.

—with more than $50k. Well, it was secret for 4 years, because nobody else knew about it. Shearer refuses to believe that another parliamentarian could forget $50k—he refuses. Hold that picture up: “I think the fact that Mr Banks forgot $50,000 is laughable. He should stand down.” So he is not prepared to accept that a parliamentary colleague could forget $50,000, but he forgets maybe $100,000 or $500,000. Who knows how much it is? He will not tell us. It could be an enormous amount. He demanded John Banks’ resignation. In fact, he demanded that the Prime Minister dismiss him because he could not remember $50,000.

We all know that a general debate is an opportunity for both sides of the House to talk about the important issues of the day. We just had 5 minutes—5 minutes—of Anne Tolley attacking the Labour leader around a bank account that was used for his pay while he was working with refugee children for the United Nations. All I have to say is that in a general debate, when there are issues of the magnitude that we are seeing currently, if that is what that Government is obsessed with, then we are all in trouble. It is typical of that Government, which is so focused on its own cronyism and so focused on being hands-off and ignoring that there are any problems out there in New Zealand that it would focus in that way on that particular issue.

On this side of the House we are much more interested in asking questions around what is happening out there for everyday New Zealanders who are struggling to get by, who are struggling with the costs of living. I know that members on that side of the House get the same question that we get asked as politicians. We all get asked constantly: “Why are you in politics?”. I would ask the Government that same question: why are you in politics? As a Government, what are you here to achieve? I would welcome any member—any member—from that side of the House answering that, because the evidence gives cause for concern.

With unemployment at 6.9 percent, 175,000 Kiwis looking for work, and 85,000 young people not in employment, education, or training, clearly, this Government is not here for job seekers. Clearly, it is not here for those who are currently trying to better themselves and their families by finding work. We are now more unequal than we have ever been as a country. On this side of the House, we are concerned about that. We are not here to sit idly by while the gap between rich and poor grows and we all suffer the consequences of that. Well, meanwhile, the Government again throws its hands in the air and says that it does not really matter. That Government is not here for everyday families and particularly vulnerable children who are in the homes of those who are suffering under the inability to find work, get ahead, or even work a job with a minimum wage, and who cannot survive. That Government is not here for those families. Today we are about to again debate the welfare reforms. As much as the Minister for Social Development, with all of her rhetoric and political spin, tries to claim that she is here for the vulnerable in society, I am yet to hear her give me one example of how her welfare reforms improve the lot of anyone—anyone—on social security, because, frankly, they do not.

So why is that Government here? Well, again, I do not need to ask the rhetorical question when I have got the evidence. It is here to sell assets. And to whom? Apparently, to mum and dad investors. Well, if you mean mum and dad investors in Australia—some of whom might actually be New Zealanders, given that we have got 50,000 of them fleeing the country every year—if that is whom the Government is trying to sell assets to, then perhaps it might be here for Australian mum and dad investors. Perhaps the Government is here to do a deal on pokies with Skycity, because we have heard endless discussion, not the least by the Auditor-General, about what a dodgy deal the Government handled with regard to the New Zealand International Convention Centre. Perhaps it is here to spend more on consultants, because anyone who is involved in financial reviews right now knows the huge amount of money that is being spent by our public sector on consultants. The Government is determined to pretend that it is cutting back on the civil service, whilst throwing money at consultants at the same time. Just today we heard that the Families Commission spent over $400,000 on one individual for not much more than 12 months. That is the amount we tend to spend on the White Ribbon campaign on anti-violence, and that was spent on one contractor at the Families Commission.

What happens when we do have a situation where things are going badly and some Government intervention would not go astray? Solid Energy might be an example. We see the Government throw its hands in the air and equally deny that it had anything to do with it in the first place, which we know from Official Information Act request details that we have got is not actually the case. I ask again why it is here and whom it is here for, because if we look at all the need in New Zealand—if we look at all the families who need its help, the job seekers who need its help, the young people who are seeking a better future—it is certainly not here for them. New Zealand should be asking that National Government whom it is here for.

By the look on David Cunliffe’s face, it was him who found the lost cash. It was him who found the lost cash. David Cunliffe is so happy he has found—is it $50,000 or $100,000? He looks so happy he has found the lost cash. I want to ask my National Party colleagues a simple question. How much money does a Labour Party leader need in a bank account before the Labour Party leader knows he has money in a bank account?

💬 Scott Simpson: $1 million.

One million dollars? Fifty thousand dollars? Five hundred thousand dollars? I want to ask the Labour Party heavyweight-lightweight, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, this question: where did this money come from? Where did Mr Shearer’s money come from that was in the secret bank account in New York? Where did Mr Shearer get this money from in the first place? [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Can I just say to members that chaos may be fruitful in furthering some forms of management, but it will not be parent to good order in this House. What I want is good order.

I want to ask the deputy leader of the Labour Party this question: is he absolutely convinced that this cash in this secret bank account was absolutely legitimate? Was this cash in this secret bank account absolutely legitimate? Was this cash in this secret bank account money earned? What was the origin of this secret cash in this secret bank account? Otherwise, why would you not tell the parliamentary register that you had a secret bank account? Why would you tell the Inland Revenue Department—and, by the way, I do not take it on face value that Mr Shearer has told the Inland Revenue Department; Mr Shearer says he has told the Inland Revenue Department—but not tell Parliament? Mr Shearer has told the Inland Revenue Department he had $100,000, $500,000, $1 million, or whatever it is, in his secret bank account, but at the same time he did not tell Parliament’s register that he had $500,000, $1 million, or whatever in a secret bank account. So I want to know that from Mr Shearer.

He demands accountability. He said last year that any member with a memory lapse was not worthy of public office—any member with a memory lapse was not worthy of holding public office—and the rooster is still in the job today. David Cunliffe is upset, although he looks like he has found the cash, because he knows there is more knife-sharpening here today in the Labour caucus than there is at The Mad Butcher.

For 4 years David Shearer remembered to tell the Inland Revenue Department that he had a secret bank account in New York. And what about his ability on finances? He tells the register he has got a home in Mount Albert with a mortgage on it. He will be paying 5.75 percent interest. He has got a secret bank account in New York getting 1.5 percent interest, and he does not pay off his mortgage in Mount Albert. And he wants to look after the mortgages of this country. That is the financial reasoning behind that member.

I have got a question today. I want to ask Mr Shearer, the leader of the Labour Party, a simple question. Come to this Parliament and produce evidence in this Parliament of where he received that money that is in the secret bank account that he has been hiding in New York for 5 years. Where did he get the money from? Produce evidence that it has been legitimately earned by him and placed in a secret bank account. Why else would he hide the money? Tell me. Give me one reason why else the leader of the Labour Party would hide $50,000, $100,000, $500,000, $1 million—we do not know—in a secret bank account in New York if he was not hiding something.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Because he forgot.

Oh, because he forgot. But he did not forget to tell the Inland Revenue Department that he had a secret bank account in New York; he forgot to tell the parliamentary register. This is what he said. Listen to this carefully—[Interruption] Listen to what he said. Listen to what he said. [Interruption] Listen to what he said. He said that any member who has a memory lapse is not worthy of holding public office, and the rooster is still in charge of the Labour Party chickens today. I mean, that is—[Bell rung]

I seek leave of the House to table the police report into the investigation into John Banks’ donation, which shows that he broke the law.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I sat 5 metres from the honourable Minister and I could not hear a word he said in the last 2 minutes of that speech. I did not want to interrupt him, and I do not want to interrupt Clare Curran, but you did give a warning to members opposite that the noise was obviously excessive, and they continued with that noise level. Some members in here do want to listen to the speeches, and I ask the members opposite to just lower the tone of their voices.

Thank you. It was a rather robust debate, and I thought the member handled it quite well.

I would just like to point out to the hysterical member across the House who spoke before me, John Banks, that David Shearer earned that money himself, that he did not get handed it in a brown paper bag, and that he volunteered the information of his own volition. He did not get “found out” and he did not break the law, unlike that member.

There is another debacle on this Government’s doorstep—another debacle of its own making. This was the one that was going to be the step change in our economy: Steven Joyce and John Key’s ill-thought-out ultra-fast broadband scheme, and Chorus’ inability to deliver it. It is developing into a giant stuff-up. It is a huge political risk to this Government, and it knows it. It is a classic case of overpromising and under-delivering. It is think big, without the think; it is mismanagement and shonky deals. You take $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money, you give most of it to a private company, Chorus, that has a majority of foreign shareholders, and you promise that you will have most of New Zealand signed up to your whiz-bang ultra-fast broadband scheme within 10 years. Then you get to year 5—year 5—and so far just 3,806 households have signed up. That is 0.28 percent. The Government is going to have to work hard to get them all signed up, because so far it has laid fibre to only just past 8 percent of households, and it is worried. Fibre has been laid to quite a few schools, but are they using it? No. And why are they not using it? Well, they tell me it is because there is nothing to use it for and they will have to pay the increased data costs out of their already stretched operations budgets—budgets stretched by sorting out Novopay, a debacle of the highest order also being faced by this Government. That is another giant stuff-up. So its very fast broadband scheme is very slow to take off. That is one big problem for it.

The other very big problem is that this Government wants to interfere in the price that we pay for our existing broadband—interfere in a way that borders on corruption, and, at the very least, is contempt. The Commerce Commission thinks the price that we pay on the existing copper network should drop. It said so just before Christmas. It came out with a decision, because that is its job. But the Prime Minister did not like its decision. The Government threatened to change the law. Why? Because Chorus complained to the Government. Why? Because if the price of your monthly broadband and phone on the copper network is lower than the prices on the Government’s new fibre network, then people will not sign up to it. They will not sign up to the new broadband scheme. It is the Prime Minister’s own fault. It is the Government’s fault. It negotiated the contract. It wrote the very law 2 years ago, so the Government is threatening to change its own law that it passed 2 years ago to manipulate things. And who is going to win? Well, it will not be the consumer. It will be Chorus, a private company, and its overseas shareholders.

Ross Patterson, the former Telecommunications Commissioner for the Commerce Commission, described it as “unprecedented”. These people hardly ever speak out in public, but he did. He said the Government had crossed the line of political interference. Sound familiar? Think Skycity deals. Think $43 million loans to MediaWorks. Think the change of law to suit Warner Bros in making The Hobbit. Think the conflicted role of Stephen McElrea, the Prime Minister’s own electorate chairman, who is on the board of New Zealand on Air. And think the Prime Minister’s knowledge of and involvement in the illegal surveillance of Kim Dotcom by the Government Communications Security Bureau and the FBI. An unfolding story—an unfolding story. This Government will do what it likes. It will abuse the law, it will abuse the contract processes, and if it does not like the law, it will either ignore it or change it, and then it will pretend it cannot remember or that it does not really matter.

And there is more. Chorus is now telling us that it is going to cost at least another $300 million more than its contract to lay fibre. It has got its hand out, and who is going to end up paying for it? It will be the good old taxpayer, will it not, because John Key and Steven Joyce are looking after their mates, and they have stuffed up. They have stuffed up big time, possibly even bigger than Novopay, and who is going to bear the cost? It will be the consumer. But it will not work, because changing the terms of Chorus’ contract to prop up its flawed scheme will be crossing too many lines—

Good memory and judgment, judgment and good memory, are vital ingredients of any leader. We have heard this afternoon how David Shearer lacks any memory and certainly exhibits poor judgment, along with a curious phenomenon known as bruxism. Let me explain. Let me explain. Not wishing to be personal, only objective, I have often watched David Shearer there, after being trounced by the Prime Minister in question time, slump back into his seat and begin a round rotation of his jaw. This is known in the trade as bruxism, or involuntary habitual grinding of the teeth, often connected with nightmares. I have observed this over the last few years and can conclude only that he has something serious to gnash his teeth about, and I suggest that Parliament and the gallery watch very closely in the months ahead.

But there is more. What has he done about his condition? This leads me to focus on that very thing of judgment when appointing his front bench. Firstly, from the youth section of the Labour Party comes that effervescent, sparkling, ever shroud-waving veteran the Hon Annette King. She was the woman—[Interruption] Oh, there she is! She was the woman who in 9 years doubled the health budget from $6 billion to $12 billion without any increase in output. She was the woman who in 1998 called Bill English a criminal for having a few thousand people on the waiting list, and only 2 years later was busily culling 30,000 people from the waiting list with a benign smile on her face—a benign, matriarchal smile. So David Shearer certainly did not choose her for mismanagement of the health system, nor did he choose her for her sparkling youth. He chose her to tend to his jaws and soothe his nightmares. What extraordinary judgment!

But then there is the other remarkable choice in the Labour front bench. Refreshed by his “walloping”, as he put it, chastened and contrite from his big smack in the chops, comes the ever-affable Shane Jones. Here we have the apparition of instant redemption from exile galloping down from the backbenches into the front, imbued with energy. But, whoops, this is another memory lapse of David Shearer. Is that not the same Shane Jones who on the Make the Politician Work programme turned up late, staggered on to the Onehunga wharf, and then promptly fell asleep as the boat wended its way out beyond the Manukau Heads and into the fishing grounds? Then, when they came wanting him to work, they could not find him. Finally—finally—the crew was led by sonorous snoring to his bed, where his hands were firmly gripped to his bunk, and it took the captain to turn on the fire alarm to wake him up. It took the captain to turn on the fire alarm to wake him up, and this was all recorded on TV.

In fact, the only possible reason David Shearer brought Shane Jones on to the front bench was that he needed someone to act as a decoy; someone who was so enervated he could fall asleep on cue and on camera and make the leader look imbued with energy, even if this was energy devoid of both judgment and of memory. I understand that Mr Jones has vowed, if he is ever given the chance, that he will take a new approach to granting citizenship to Chinese millionaires wanted for embezzlement. He has persuaded the Labour Party campaign team that embezzlement is just another form of entrepreneurship—embezzlement is just another form of entrepreneurship. That will fit in very well with his shadow portfolio of regional economic development.

Being lectured to by that member, Paul Hutchison, is like being savaged by a poodle. Here is what the public knows about: Skycity, Warner Bros, MediaWorks, Banksie and Dotcom, the Government Communications Security Bureau and the FBI, Solid Energy, ultra-fast broadband, car-park taxes, and iPad taxes. What a nightmare. What a nightmare. And what does it add up to? Hands-on? No way. It is the worst economic record in 51 years—51 years. There is 6.9 percent unemployment, 270,000 New Zealanders out of jobs, and the biggest international debt in the Western World—worse than Greece. And we had the singular pleasure of being lectured to on financial probity and truth-telling by John Banks. That is like being lectured to on social graces by Jack the Ripper, as my colleague Mr Hipkins has said. Who broke the law, Mr Banks? Who forgot about the helicopter ride and the reported free iPad? What about the birthday party for Kim Dotcom that John Banks attended? What about the money in the brown paper bag? Let us talk about that, Mr Banks, if you can be bothered coming back to face the music.

Credit where credit is due. Let us be fair. I want to give some credit today to the National Party backbench. Look at them. It is tough work. They are the “back-down benchers”. They have had to back down twice this week already to cover for the back-down Minister of Revenue, “Peter Dunne-like-a-Dinner”. Two strikes and he is nearly out; one more and he is “Done Dunne”. On the car-park tax the back-down was inevitable because the tax made no financial sense. It cost $2 in compliance costs for every $1 worth of revenue it collected. How did that one get across the Cabinet table? That is what the “back-down benchers” want to know.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: They were hands-off.

They were hands-off. They had no hands on the wheel on that one. It was a red tape nightmare.

What about the iPad tax? The Government did not even cost that one. Or the cellphone tax, where it would have to account to the Inland Revenue Department for all its phone calls? These are 1980s ideas being foisted on a 21st century generation. What are the mums and dads who are ferrying their kids around while answering emails from the office going to say to the “back-down benchers”? Thank God, they say, that John Key killed it. Well, he damned near killed his own Minister of Revenue, because he announced that the taxes were dead as he walked into the House yesterday. But he had not told the Minister, so he blindsided Peter Dunne right before question time. The “back-down benchers” have got their eyes on that National - United Future coalition agreement. It is supposed to have things like confidentiality and collective responsibility in it. But there was Mr Dunne defending the car-park tax in the New Zealand Herald while the Prime Minister was on the radio at the same time rubbishing his own Minister’s policy.

I would not want to be a United Future member, because I am a proud member of the New Zealand Labour Party—a party that stands for step change, not small change. It is the party that is going to bring New Zealand a modern tax system with a capital gains tax and research and development tax incentives. It is going to close some major avoidance loopholes, and it is going to get the country moving. We are going to be a hands-on Government. We are going to stand for step change, not small change, and those “back-down benchers” are going to enjoy their comfy, cosy little seats for about another 18 months before they are off to the wilds of Opposition. They see the glimmer of ministerial office fading away—fading away from the “back-down benchers”. Look at them. There are the Ministers off in their LTDs and there are the “back-down benchers” eating gruel on the back rows over there, having to be beaten to a pulp by the Labour Party yet again while the public counts the score. And what the public knows is that it is like a rotting carcass on the body politic.

This Government is on its way out. When we do the rounds of corporate New Zealand we are getting the same message all the time, which is: “It’s time we got to know you guys because we know that you are going to be the Government in 18 months’ time.” This Government is, at best, a two-term Government—if it lasts that long—and New Zealanders know that it is going to be a Labour-led Government that takes New Zealand into the future.

What an interesting afternoon and what an interesting position in this debate to follow the Hon David Cunliffe—the only man who is happy and smiling as a result of the revelation of the secret bank account of his leader. The only man in the Labour caucus to gain from this is, indeed, the Hon David Cunliffe, and he was in sparkling form this afternoon—sparkling form—renewed, reinvigorated, and re-energised at the prospect of a further leadership bid. Like the Labor Party in Australia, Labour here is looking around for a new leader, and it may well find one. It has got a candidate there, waiting in the wings, ready to go. David Cunliffe is smiling from ear to ear, looking like the Cheshire cat that he is so famously attributed to be. There he is today, enjoying it in every possible way.

He, I am sure, does not have a failed memory or the same kind of memory fade that his leader has. Day after day, hour after hour, week after week last year we heard from members on that side pillorying the member for Epsom, the Hon John Banks, for what was, ironically, exactly the same kind of memory fault that their leader now so deliciously finds himself impaled upon. So I was interested to hear the Hon John Banks speak in this debate today and take what was clearly great delight from the situation that has been revealed this week.

It has been a long, hot summer in Coromandel. Our farmers on the Hauraki Plains and around the Coromandel have had a very, very tough summer. Some tell me that it is the worst drought since the summer of 1946-47. In fact, I was speaking to a couple of my senior retired farmers on the plains only last weekend, and they told me that without doubt this is the worst drought since 1946-47. They pointed out to me that that was a very tough time—just after the war, no Government support, every man and every family for themselves, and the plains were still being drained and broken in. I just cannot really think how difficult that must have been for the farmers of that generation at that time.

Times have changed since the summer of 1946-47. This John Key - led Government is one that cares about and understands how important our rural sector, our farming community, is, and how important it is to the backbone of our economy. We know that it will come through this, that the rain will come—it is predicted in the next week or two—and that the conditions will return to favourable conditions before very long. We know that the Government support is there through the rural support trust and rural assistance payments from Work and Income if necessary. We are a Government that understands and supports.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Every cloud has a silver lining, and though it has been a hard summer for our farmers, our tourist operators, such as our Hauraki Rail Trail cycleway operators, tell us that the tourists have been coming to Coromandel in droves. They have been enjoying the summer. The biggest problem that we have had on the Hauraki Rail Trail this summer has been its almost full capacity. Indeed, the Mayor of the Hauraki District Council tells me that so successful has the Hauraki Rail Trail been this summer—it was originally predicted to have in year 5 some 45,000 people riding it—that in January of this year over 12,000 people cycled it in just 1 month. So now the Hauraki District Council, on the back of that kind of success, is going to have to provide extra infrastructure in the form of parking and facilities for the numbers of people who want to ride the cycleway. What a wonderful problem that is to have. We hear reports of cafe owners and restaurateurs who are finding it difficult to cope with the demand that is coming from the cycleway.

Coromandel has been receiving great economic benefit in recent times, with two big announcements in just the last week or two. Fonterra is spending $100 million at Waitoa on a new milk-processing facility—50 jobs and untold extra contractors working there—and Summerset in Katikati is spending another $100 million on a new retirement village. It has been a long time since anyone has spent $100 million in Katikati, and the folk of Katikati welcome it, as do I as the local member.

These are good times for this National Government and these are good times for the people of Coromandel. They have enjoyed and are basking in a continued long, hot summer. Notwithstanding the issues and challenges that our hard-working farmers and their families have, they will come through it, and we will continue to prosper and work hard through this enjoyable summer. It has been a great summer for National.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.