General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and, of course, there is nothing as desperate as the Labour Party in free fall. We had the Labour Party this weekend come out and decide that it is now going to compete for the 5 percent that New Zealand First has got—a party that has actually shown itself to be far more mature and better behaved in Parliament and elsewhere than David Shearer’s Labour Party, led by Trevor Mallard.

What have we heard from the Labour Party this week? We heard this whole new term today, the new term of “second-hand houses”. What is that? Actually, it is a house. It is a house, Mr Parker, it is a house—a second-hand house. It is what we live in, actually. As soon as we do, we live in it.

What we are trying to address here is, in fact, an issue of not enough houses in Auckland, in particular—that is, not enough houses being built. We need 12,000 new houses or apartments in Auckland, and at the moment we are getting only a third of that.

The Labour Party policy at one stage was to build 100,000 houses. I am not quite sure where it thought it was going to get the builders to do that or where it would have the land, because the Labour Party has opposed every reform to the Resource Management Act that we have put forward to free up land. Every single time, those members are against it; you can ever be guaranteed only of that. What has their answer been? They had David Shearer on television this weekend. Well, that was a strange event, because normally they send Sue Moroney to go and represent the Labour Party policies, and I cannot understand why they did not do that this time. It must be because she is a woman. It could not be for anything else.

What does Labour’s policy actually mean? Well, apart from the fact that it said that if you are a foreigner, except for Australians—because we had to have the “Russel Norman clause”, just to make sure that it kept Russel in the loop. If you are a foreigner but you are not Russel Norman or an Australian, then, of course, you will have to turn up with your passport to prove that you should have a look through the homes, these second-hand homes, that you are looking at. The other bit of the policy, which came out on Monday, was how this was going to happen. Lawyers are going to guarantee that these purchasers of second-hand homes are going to live in them. Well, that is going to be interesting. I mean, they only had—

💬 Hon Tony Ryall: Who called them second-hand homes?

Well, actually, David Parker said it was a second-hand home. I live in a second-hand home, Mr Ryall lives in a second-hand home, and Ms Parata lives in a second-hand home. We in this party live in second-hand homes. But if Labour members are that worried about second-hand homes, why does Mr Shearer not give them some of his second-hand homes? He has got more than one—he has got several. In fact, he is one of the people who would not be able to do what he does now. And what about poor Helen Clark? She has got five second-hand homes, and she would have to sell them up, too.

This policy achieves absolutely nothing other than it does this: it scratches an itch, and that itch is all about xenophobia. That is all it does. One-quarter of all Aucklanders were born in some place other than New Zealand. What that party over there did—that party that once used to be a Government—was descend down to the 5 percent lot. That is what it did. For Rajen Prasad, the former Race Relations Commissioner, to still be in that party is an utter disgrace. Then we have Raymond Huo, who said he has got five houses—extra, rental ones. Why does he not sell them? Of course, I do not know whether he was actually born in New Zealand. Does that make him a foreigner? No. It is disgraceful, what that party did to a quarter of all Aucklanders.

The thing is: would it actually even work? Would it even work? The answer is no. What we need is freeing up the land supply. We also need people to be able to access capital. That party over there has now become the party of protectionism, the party that does not want foreign capital. It does not want anybody with foreign money coming in. I heard on the radio or the television that, apparently, some foreign banks are lending to foreigners. Well, it is a shame that most of our banks happen to be Australian. It is a good thing Russel is still able to stay in. But that is what we are dealing with. It is utter rubbish.

We have got to free up the land supply, we are reviewing the development contribution compliance cost, and we have brought in a 6-month consenting limit. We have brought in all of these measures to free up the land supply, not like that lot, who are just xenophobes.

You always know you have hit the jackpot when Government members have a go at your policy. I can tell you, Mrs Collins, that if you go out there and talk to New Zealanders about overseas speculators they will have a very different opinion from the one that that you just came up with. They do not believe that this Government is putting New Zealanders first. The Government is putting overseas speculators in front of Kiwis. A Labour-led policy will look at building 100,000 homes, a capital gains tax on speculators, and stopping overseas speculators as well. It comes as part of a package, and it is more than no package from the other side.

But I want to talk today about the issues of the day and about our intelligence agencies. I am sick and tired of having to stand here, as other Opposition members do, and as the media do, trying to drag the truth from this Prime Minister—drag the truth. He did not know about Dotcom. He did not know about the US interests in Dotcom. He did not know anything about his department organising the raid on Dotcom. He did not know about illegal spying on Dotcom. He knew, actually, about the spying in July but did not make it public—until pressure was put on—until September last year. Then—

💬 David Bennett: Tell us about your bank account.

Certainly. Then, at the beginning of this year, there was the appointment of his friend Mr Fletcher. How many days did it take to drag that information out of this Prime Minister? His first instinct is to say: “What can I get away with here?”. It is not to come clean, not to give us the honest truth, but to say: “What can I get away with?”. What has happened as a result is that public confidence in our intelligence agencies is at an all-time low—at an all-time low.

Nobody believes that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is functioning as it should. Nobody believes that this Government has the balance right between the security of New Zealand on one hand and the protection of our privacy on the other. What they are seeing is what they believe is an erosion of their privacy and their rights. That was brought out in submissions on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill by the Privacy Commissioner, the Human Rights Commission, and the New Zealand Law Society. All of those submitters believe and understand that this Government is undermining the privacy and rights of New Zealanders. Tomorrow we will have the second reading of that bill. We will have the second reading of that bill in light of what has gone on today, which is about the GCSB assisting the inquiry into the leaking of the Henry report.

We know that Parliamentary Service turned down two requests for information—two requests for information from the Henry inquiry—until Mr Eagleson, the chief of staff of the Prime Minister, got on the case and pulled that information in. That letter that the Prime Minister put on the Table today is just one of the pieces of information that need to come forward. It is the same old story, which is that we are trying to pull information out of this Prime Minister bit by bit, rather than him coming clean. He will not come clean. He keeps on saying that he gives the answer, and then we find there is another answer behind that one, and there is something else, and something else.

The public have lost confidence in our intelligence agencies, which the Prime Minister heads, solely because of the way he has behaved. Tomorrow we are going to have an ad hoc piece of legislation coming through to Parliament, but it should have been introduced following an independent inquiry, which everybody in this country wants. Thank you.

I am not going to dwell on that sorry excuse for a speech, but to hear the Leader of the Opposition talking about the Prime Minister not coming clean, and about him saying “What can I get away with?”—well, that is rich, from a guy who will not tell us how much money he has got in Chase Bank accounts. “Rich” is the right word for it, actually, because I suspect that the reason the member will not tell us is that he is rich, and that does not fit the narrative that he wants to leave this House with in his short time remaining as leader.

But, actually, I want to start this speech today by congratulating Shane Jones. There has been a huge amount that Shane Jones has said recently in relation to resource development that I wholeheartedly agree with. He has talked about mining creating job openings for low-income Māori families, and how he is tired of the “hostile rhetoric from the Greenies”. He has talked about how his visit to Taranaki provided the opportunity to reinforce the importance of the mining industry, and the need for the future Labour-led Government to assuage whatever anxieties might be there in the minds of employers or future investors. He has talked about offshore oil and gas drilling being an essential feature of domestic and export growth, and said that businesses enabling that would get full Government support. He goes on and on.

But the small problem is that just as Shane Jones does not talk about his movie tastes with his colleagues, neither has he sought their views on resources, let alone asked the real policy drivers in the Labour-Greens coalition—the Green Party MPs—what they think. How else can you explain what his colleagues have said and done? Annette King and Grant Robertson, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, put out a pamphlet last year asking to stop south coast oil drilling. They then sought donations to campaign against oil drilling. Moana Mackey, the member who is—many of you watching on your box sets may not know this—the spokesperson for the Opposition on these matters, has put out a press release: “Exploration not such a golden opportunity”. She has talked about drilling and mining development being a flawed economic development strategy. “This is not where New Zealand’s economic future lies.”, she says. [Interruption] You are right to ask, Ms Tolley. Are these people in the same party as Mr Shane Jones? Let alone what the Greens have said. Catherine Delahunty said on mining: “It’s unforgivable devastation.” On the Crown minerals legislation: “It is a declaration of war.” Gareth Hughes said it is a “dirty, old-fashioned 19th century economic agenda”, and “It is not an economic strategy for this country.” He says that oil and gas is not the answer, and it is time to “stand up to foreign oil industries.” Well, what an insult to the 14,000 to 15,000 people and growing in this country who work in that industry.

But here is the kicker: the rank—actually, disaster porn—scaremongering from the Green Party, which presumably Moana Mackey and Grant Robertson support. After the Wellington earthquakes, Green members were on social media all over the show with their anti-science, anti-evidence rhetoric, linking the two. Clearly the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, and all science has passed that party by, because without a skerrick of evidence and without any basis, it is linking oil and gas to the earthquakes. Well, the 19th century had a word for that, I say to the Green Party. They called it “quackery”.

💬 Hon Phil Heatley: What’s that?

Quackery. I am not talking, Mr Heatley, about Trevor Mallard; it is actually much worse than that. It is the false and fraudulent promotion of fraudulent science. This House, actually, in 1908, you would be interested to know, passed the Quackery Prevention Act. I am not suggesting that we use it on the Green Party, but maybe New Zealanders should simply know that Shane Jones is out on his own in the Labour-Greens coalition—that coalition of quacks—when he talks about the support for the 15,000 hard-working New Zealanders in that industry, and the billions of dollars, the $4 billion, it brings to this country. So I say to New Zealanders who want to back resources and jobs to vote National at the next election.

This has been a very important period in defending the basic democratic values that underpin our country. We have had a Government that has engaged in attack after attack on some of the fundamental freedoms that we as New Zealanders have taken for granted. We have had the Government Communications Security Bureau, a spy agency that has been illegally spying on over 80 New Zealanders. In spite of its legislation, which makes it very clear that the bureau is not to spy on New Zealand citizens and residents, that is exactly what the bureau did when it purposely and immorally broke the law that governed its own organisation. This comes in spite of the fact that when this law went through this Parliament, Tony Ryall and many others from the National Party said expressly in this House that the bureau was forbidden from spying on New Zealanders. Then the bureau went ahead and did it anyway.

Secondly, we have seen that the New Zealand Defence Force has decided that journalists are subversives and, hence, they are the target of covert surveillance. People might not know this, but under the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act, the SIS is responsible for protecting the security of New Zealand and, under the Act, that means protecting the security against subversives. When the New Zealand Defence Force describes journalists as subversives, it is providing a lawful basis for the SIS to engage in covert surveillance of journalists, so it is no surprise that when this Defence Force manual came to light as a result of the great work done by Nicky Hager, the Government had to back-pedal pretty quickly to step away from this manual. And it is, of course, a source of great disgrace that this manual predates the current Government, even though it is probably the current Government that was engaged in spying on Jon Stephenson. It is a pretty sad state of affairs that the New Zealand Defence Force sees it like that.

Then, of course, we have had the Prime Minister’s office using his power to put pressure on the Parliamentary Service to release information about members of Parliament and journalists. We know that the Prime Minister’s office leaned on the Parliamentary Service to release Peter Dunne’s parliamentary emails without Peter Dunne’s consent. Peter Dunne gave no consent. Wayne Eagleson, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man—his right hand, effectively—said to the Parliamentary Service: “You must release those emails of Peter Dunne.” Even though Peter Dunne never gave consent for those emails to be released, they were released anyway.

Then we have Andrea Vance. Andrea Vance is a journalist. She works in the press gallery. She works for Fairfax. Her movement records—so, the swipe card access of her movements around the parliamentary complex—were winkled by the Henry inquiry, by the Prime Minister’s office. The Prime Minister’s office went to the Parliamentary Service and said: “Hand over the movement records, the swipe-card records, of a journalist.” That is what the Prime Minister of New Zealand did and what his office did, just recently. In 2013 we have the Prime Minister, the highest officer in the Government, demanding and getting the records—the movement records—of a journalist.

Then, on top of that, there is the dispute about whether the Henry inquiry was also after Andrea Vance’s phone log. We know that it went after Peter Dunne’s phone log; the question is whether it went after Andrea Vance’s phone log. Certainly, it had Andrea Vance’s phone log and, according to Peter Dunne, the Henry inquiry—David Henry—told him that it intended to compare Peter Dunne’s phone log with Andrea Vance’s phone log, which would make sense, therefore, only if it had Andrea Vance’s phone log. We know that it had it, but it tells us: “Yes, we had it, but we sent it back without looking at it.”, or “without using it”, which were the actual words.

So now we have a situation where the Prime Minister’s office is going after the email and movement records of MPs in this House—in this Parliament—and journalists. This is a fundamental breach of our constitution. The constitution has a separation of powers between the executive, headed up by the Prime Minister, and the Parliament, and it has a further separation between the Government and the fourth estate. We need the fourth estate, or the media, to be free from this kind of surveillance and intrusion and bullying and menacing by the Prime Minister’s office. We need Parliament itself to be free of the kind of intrusion that the Prime Minister has been perpetrating against Parliament to access our email accounts and our movement records. It seems to me that, following all the Green Party’s written questions, we have finally unearthed what is going on here—

Now that the Labour Party is reaching the dizzying heights of 28 percent in the polls, I think it is worth contemplating what a Green-led Government might look like. We know that the Greens are putting out policy proposals on a fortnightly basis, which the Labour Party members are picking up here, there, and everywhere. They are not doing any particular thinking about them, but they believe that because the Greens are set to overtake Labour in the polls, it is well worth picking up their policy choices—for example, the capital gains tax. The Labour Party says that it is a tax that will not affect the family home. I am not sure about what Labour calls second-hand homes and whether they would be affected, but we know that that capital gains tax will also be applied to every business owner, every shareholder, every farm owner, and those whose assets increase. It could be anything to do with anything they own. I do warn listeners that should you get a Greens-led Government, it might be worth looking at any asset that increases in capital value, because it could be subject to that tax. I myself am saying to my son: “Hide your stamp collection. Hide your stamp collection because there could be a capital gain and that might be taxed.” Anyway, the fact of the matter is that we are looking at a poll result where the Greens could be in charge of New Zealand in a Greens-led coalition.

I would like to correct Judith Collins. She did say that when Labour members do not want to appear on TV, they send Sue Moroney. That is not actually true. Statistically, they send a spokesman from the Green Party. We see Russel Norman, Metiria Turei, and other Green Party members speaking out on Government policy a lot more than we do David Shearer. As I say, we do know that the Green Party is eyeing up Cabinet positions. Russel Norman wants to be finance Minister. That ambassador for the printing press, Russel Norman, wants to make sure he is finance Minister. He wants a third of Cabinet Ministers to be Green Party members. You can understand why that is, because, essentially, the Labour Party caucus, as we know, is so small now that it can fit in a corporate box. So it is going to actually have to draw on Cabinet Ministers from the Green Party.

I took the time to read Green Party policy and a little bit about the Green Party members of Parliament. This is on the current Green Party website. It talks about that potential Cabinet Minister Catherine Delahunty. In her words, she says this: “Left-wing Wellington in the 70s was full of schisms and isms and frankly it made more sense to me to become a hippie. We had aspirations”, said Catherine Delahunty, “that we could completely drop out, and we lived in a fairly fractious state of collective confusion but we grew great vegetables!”. That is from Catherine Delahunty, a future Cabinet Minister. “I met my partner on a toxic tour of the country”, she says, “and I’ve been passionate about toxics ever since.”

David Clendon, a future Cabinet Minister under a Greens-led Government, is also on the Green Party website. It says: “Before entering Parliament, David worked at the coalface of eco-enterprise”, which I thought was an unfortunate turn of events for a party against mining—for him to be working at the coalface. He goes on to say: “My only real fear [of being a parliamentarian] is that I won’t take sufficient advantage of this opportunity but ultimately there’s such a lot to learn and I need to figure out the place before I can play the game.” David, you certainly do need to, if you are going to be around Cabinet.

And it says of Gareth Hughes on the Green Party website: “The 31 year-old admits to being ‘a bit of a munter who was into cars and girls’ in his younger days. However, his outlook on life underwent a major overhaul ... ‘The world opened up when I went to Victoria University,’ he says. ‘I started out intending to study commerce, but after stuffing up my enrolment I decided to drop any papers that sounded boring.’ ” Good on you, Gareth Hughes, future Cabinet Minister with the Labour Party and Greens. He says: “No doubt people will call me young and inexperienced but I would rather be judged on my merits, not my age. I don’t have parliamentary experience … but I have ... energy”. We all do, Mr Hughes.

So there we have it: a little line-up of what the Labour-Greens coalition would look like.

I am sure we are all grateful for the lessons from Mr Heatley on being in Cabinet. He knows a lot about being in Cabinet, and a lot about being out of Cabinet, as well.

There is a saying that many of us would have been told by our parents: “What a tangled web you weave, when at first you set out to deceive”. What we have seen from this Prime Minister, John Key, in this Government is what we call the web of deceit. This is it here, for the benefit of my colleagues, on this placard—the web of deceit. Members of the House will notice that at the centre of the web of deceit is John Key, because he has been at the centre of every single cover-up, every single mistruth, and every single lie by omission that has happened in this House around the security and intelligence agencies.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: He’s donkey deep.

Donkey deep, he is indeed. That started right from the beginning of this term of Parliament when it comes to John Banks, the member who could not remember visiting this gentleman, Kim Dotcom, and his giraffe. I would remember visiting Kim Dotcom and his giraffe in a helicopter if that had happened to me, but this member, John Banks, could not remember that.

Right beside him in our web of deceit is Ian Fletcher. Let us be absolutely clear. It took 10 days for the Prime Minister to acknowledge his role in appointing Ian Fletcher to the job of Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau.

Then, beside him in our web of deceit, is Peter Dunne. He is at the centre of what is one of the most serious things that I have heard in this Parliament—that is, the spying and intrusion upon a journalist who works in this building.

The material that was tabled in the House today is very instructive. It is very instructive. What that material says is that what was being sought were calls to and from not only Andrea Vance’s parliamentary extension but also her mobile phone and her landline—her mobile phone, her parliamentary extension, and her landline. The Prime Minister stood up here in this House today and said that everybody would have expected the terms of reference of this inquiry to be understood. Well, what Mr Key has to answer is how it is that his inquiry—the Henry inquiry—was asking for Andrea Vance’s mobile phone and personal landline calls as well as calls from her parliamentary extension, as if that was not bad enough.

But it is the role of the Prime Minister and the role of his chief of staff, Wayne Eagleson, that is clearly part of the web of deceit that has been woven by this Prime Minister. Wayne Eagleson is the person who intervened to make sure that phone records, swipe-card records, and emails were released. The Parliamentary Service said no when the Henry inquiry asked for that—twice. It was Wayne Eagleson’s intervention, as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff. We are told that if we are talking to Wayne Eagleson, we are talking to John Key. He is the person who intervened and said that those records should be released. It is John Key who is responsible for this inquiry. It is John Key who is responsible for a massive breach of trust with the press gallery in this building and with parliamentarians. John Key has no right to be ordering that emails, phone records, or mobile phone records of journalists or parliamentarians be released, but that is what he has done.

This is just a continuation of this Government’s record of riding roughshod over the democratic process. Be it through the teapot tapes and bringing the police into the media outlets and the journalists; whether it is the casino bill, which rode roughshod over good process, and where the Prime Minister intervened; whether it is the protest-at-sea law, where the Government says that you cannot protest within 500 metres of a boat; or whether it is the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, which plainly extends the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau to go well beyond where they are now to infringe on the privacy of New Zealanders, this Government has no respect for democracy.

This Government is not acting in the way that New Zealanders would expect or that New Zealanders would want—that is, a Government that looks after its citizens. John Key needs to hear the lesson. This country is not some company that he gets to play and trade around with; it is a democratic country, where the rights and the rule of law count. This Prime Minister does not respect those—he should go.

Continuing on a theme of justice, I suppose, for this afternoon, I wanted to draw some consideration to two key statements around the administration of justice. Most of us in the House would know, or would have heard of, the statement that is often quoted: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”, which has become code for injustice. In effect, it means that if justice is not carried out right away, then even if it is carried out late, it is not really justice, because there has been a period of time when there has been a lack of justice. The second words of wisdom come from the black human rights champion Martin Luther King. He said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

One might think that these statements are statements of intent for how various arms of the justice system should operate, so I want to raise three particular cases to have a look at. I am talking about the situation for the Nēpata brothers and their treatment by the defence forces; I want to talk about Operation Eight with particular reference to the New Zealand Police; and, thirdly, the experience of Teina Pora through sentencing in the courts and his subsequent incarceration. As a starting point, most of us here would say that everyone is equal before the law, and, in perhaps another, bigger context, that we should take recognition of the recommendations from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and its report to decrease racial discrimination within New Zealand.

So let me start with the Nēpata brothers. I know this family. I know these two gentlemen. Damien Nēpata was serving as a lance corporal in the New Zealand Army when he suffered extensive burns from an accident that occurred while he was driving a tank at the army camp at Waiōuru in 1994. He suffered burns to 40 percent of his body. His brother George Nēpata was serving as a private in the army when he was seriously injured in a training accident in Singapore in 1989. He now lives as a tetraplegic. The Nēpata brothers have presented petitions to this House on two previous occasions, in 1999 and in 2003, for compensation up to the level of entitlement that they would have received had they enlisted after 1992. The downside is that both petitions were rejected by the Government. The Māori Party could neither tolerate nor accept the lack of action for this whānau, so we wrote to the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, the Minister of Defence, and the Prime Minister to request adequate compensation for the injuries suffered while under the duty of care of the army. We also referred the case to the Māori Affairs Committee, and we are delighted that the committee gave the issue urgent priority. Just to cut to the chase, these injuries and injustices date back two decades.

Moving on, then, to Operation Eight. If ever there was an incident of institutional discrimination, that was it. I have spoken at length in this House about the need for justice and fairness for the whānau, the hapū, and the iwi of Tūhoe Pōtiki, and, in particular, the people of the Ruātoki valley in Tāneatua. The Māori Party will not rest until the police recognise and acknowledge their failings, and take steps to rebuild the broken relationship. It is not good enough that the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority report have not been an immediate trigger for the police to re-engage with affected whānau and look to repair the grievous harm that has occurred. One immediate step could be to amend the police policy manual for encountering children and vulnerable people while executing search warrants. Another could be the mechanism to undertake community impact assessments for operations in any future situations. Although one would hope that we would all learn from the appalling circumstances of that time around the raids and the subsequent delays, there is still work to be done.

Finally, I raise the case of the situation of Teina Pora, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994 and who has been waiting for a staggering 20 years for the criminal justice system to come up with real evidence. The lack of accountability from the State over this time has meant that Teina and his whānau continue to dwell in an unjustified nightmare. The Māori Party has supported a royal prerogative of mercy from the Governor-General, which provides for a special avenue for criminal cases to be reopened where a person may have been wrongly convicted and sentenced. It is a constitutional safeguard in our criminal justice system when new evidence raises serious doubt about a conviction. However, if the whānau of Teina Pora wishes to go to the Privy Council to have their views heard, we will also back them 100 percent.

Labour’s policy of putting the brakes on foreign speculators pushing up Kiwi house prices is a good idea; it just is not its idea. New Zealand First announced the housing policy in November last year. Back then we proposed to “introduce restrictions on non-residents/non-citizens entering the New Zealand domestic housing market.” On Sunday, David Shearer said: “Labour will restrict the ability of non-residents to purchase New Zealand houses,”. In any other walk of life that is called plagiarism, but it is good to see Labour adopt New Zealand First policy. An important difference is that we would not allow exemptions based on nationality. Labour says it will exempt Australians, but Australians happen to be the single-largest group of investors in New Zealand houses. So how is Labour trying to achieve anything by exempting the Aussies?

New Zealand First would apply this policy fairly across the board. There will not be any exemptions based on nationality or race or any other form of discrimination. We will stop all non-residents from buying both existing houses and sections for houses. We would allow special cases to be approved only upon application, where extraordinary circumstances such as humanitarian factors and similar genuine needs could be proved.

Our two largest trading partners already have similar policies in place. Australia restricts foreign investment in residential property to the creation of new housing stock, and China bans the sale of land to foreigners altogether. There are many other countries where foreign ownership is restricted or prohibited, but it is important that no race, nationality, or other category be singled out.

The justification for tough restrictions is clear. We know that some foreign investors can get very cheap loans not available to Kiwis and that these people can, therefore, outbid Kiwis in the house property market. But to make matters worse, the Government allows parent reunion category immigrants under tier 1 to have fast-tracked entry to New Zealand if they bring in at least half a million dollars with them. They often invest this, of course, in a house. So National’s witless immigration policy also makes the Auckland housing problem worse.

New Zealand must regulate the foreign ownership of residential property if it is to fully address the Auckland housing crisis. It is in the national interest to do so. To that end we are pleased that our policy is gaining cross-party support, except, of course, for the National-led Government, because National does not really care about the impact that foreign buyers are having on the Auckland housing market. It pretends that there are so few foreign buyers that there is no problem, but New Zealand First is getting many contacts from Aucklanders who say just the opposite. Even if they are only 10 percent of the market in Auckland, that is still significant. But we have good grounds, based on information from Auckland real estate agents and others, that the proportion is, in fact, much higher than this.

So why is the Government doing nothing about it, when the Aussies have already taken action, and so have many other countries? The answer is that National puts business first, not ordinary Kiwis, and especially not first-home seekers. Our philosophy has always been to put New Zealanders first. The Government must stop the practice of foreign investors buying up residential property and taking the rental profit or capital gains offshore. This practice inflates house prices and effectively shuts Kiwis out of the market. That is especially the case in Auckland.

Offshore property speculation is a full-fledged assault on the Kiwi dream of homeownership. Thousands of New Zealanders are being forced to live in substandard houses and to give up the dream of homeownership, while people stepping off a plane can obtain any number of properties for purely financial gain. We in New Zealand First believe that access to quality housing is a fundamental right for all New Zealanders to enjoy.

Rather than respond to that last call, I thought I might talk about the likely face of a new Government if there were to be a change. If there were to be a change, what would it look like? What would it look like if we were to have an election and there were to be a change of Government? It would potentially be a Green-Labour coalition, based on—

💬 Tim Macindoe: Who else would be that?

Well, who else is there? That is exactly right—very good question. What is it that the Greens and Labour would do? What is it that they have said that they would do?

Well, let us touch on the areas that the Green Party in particular spent a lot of time campaigning on: environmental issues. Let us have a look at what some of its rhetoric in that area, compared with what it actually does itself, has been like. For example, just recently there was an environmental award handed out to the Taranaki Regional Council for the fact that it has planted 90 percent of the stream banks in the Taranaki region, which, incidentally, add up to more kilometres than the whole coastline of New Zealand—the whole coastline of New Zealand—in riparian margin planting, in consultation and in collaboration with other organisations, including, of course, the farmers, who were the main leaders.

What did the Greens say when the council won that prize? What did they say? They said that it was “an undeserving winner of that prize.” In fact, what Dr Russel Norman said was there was an academic scientist from Massey University—I am not going to name the gentleman because I do not want to malign the gentleman—who would have been a far better recipient of the prize. That pretty much sums it up. What the Greens do talk about what they would like to see done, but they do not actually acknowledge those who do it—they do not acknowledge those who would do it.

So let us have a look at some economic facts around some of what they have talked about. We know that the world population is growing. We know that New Zealand is a low-carbon producer of food. We know that there is going to be a growing demand for food. We know that currently there are 2.5 million children a year who starve to death. We know that there are 850 million people who are living below the poverty line around the world. The Greens are going to impose a suite of policies on New Zealand agriculture that could lead to only one thing, and that is a decline in the production of healthy, wholesome, sustainable food. Where does that fit in with their philosophy of being a caring, compassionate group? Where does it fit in with Labour’s policies?

Well, if you look at what Labour has said it would do, in conjunction with its Green coalition partners, is it would introduce a capital gains tax. It would introduce and immediately bring into effect an emissions trading tax on animal emissions. It would introduce higher income tax. It would introduce higher company tax. It would put a limit on livestock numbers in our agricultural industries. It would limit the use of water. In fact, when you talk about the greatest potential for increasing food production and economic well-being not only for “New Zealand Incorporated” but for the feeding of the world as the population grows, Labour would introduce limits on water use, the No. 1 driver of production.

It would also introduce a limit on nitrogen use on the basis that somehow or other this is going to stop environmental damage. I have here two photographs, which I will table at the end of my speech. One of them is a dairy farm in Taranaki with a river running through it with the riparian margin planted. The other one is Zealandia reserve here in Wellington. I invite members to take a look at these photographs and tell me which one they would prefer to drink or swim in. Both of them are waterways within New Zealand. One is in the middle of an urban area; the other is in the middle of a dairy farm in Taranaki. Yet if you listen to the Greens, this one in Zealandia is apparently pristine, unpolluted, and without problem. But that is nitrate. That is pure nitrate. That is what that algae is growing on—pure nitrate. And that one is in the middle—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: And why?

Not because of agriculture. And why, and why? Well, there you go. Father Time over there, who has been in the Parliament for 35 years, says: “And why?”. Well, I will tell the member why. It is because it has high nitrate running into that reservoir—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Your time has expired.

I seek leave the leave of the House to table two photographs demonstrating—

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is. Leave is not granted.

The quote was so good that I have got to repeat it again. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!”. That was said over 200 years ago by Walter Scott, but how appropriate that quote is today to describe the mire and the muck that the National Government has got itself into.

What we have seen is one cover-up followed by another cover-up followed by another. We have had a daily dose now of exposé as we uncover the deceit that has been going on. You know, it is a bit like watching the dance of the seven veils. Slowly each cover-up and deceit is being exposed, yet to find another one. So the veil of secrecy is being lifted. But it is not being lifted by an open and a transparent and an honest Government—no. It is being opened by the work of investigative journalists, by Opposition politicians, by commentators, by the media, and by the public. It is like drawing blood from a stone to get the answers out of this Government of what it has been up to.

The whole spying issue of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), and of who was spying on whom, who knew, and who did not know, reads like a whole series of John le Carré novels. It could be the one that is called A Delicate Truth, or maybe it is the one called A Most Wanted Man, or what about Our Kind of Traitor? Or then there is the one called A Perfect Spy, or there is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. And if you have ever read those books you will know that the intelligence service has the code name of the Circus. Well, what a great name for what has been going on in the National Government over the GCSB bill and all the goings on of their spies and counter-spies. In fact, it would make Maxwell Smart look like he was smart, the behaviour that is going on.

Of course, the head of the service in those books is called Control, and the “Control” of this whole debacle is the head of the web of deceit: John Key. John Key is at the head. He is at the centre of this web of deceit that they have spun around themselves, and he is responsible for much of what we are seeing going on now because he is the master at covering and hiding what is happening within our spy services. He is the one who refuses to let us have an independent review of those services. He has resisted. All he wants is one vote—just one bought vote—the bought vote of Peter Dunne. That is all he wanted to get it over the line, to get his bill passed.

And sitting on his shoulder is his puppet. Sitting on his shoulder is Wayne Eagleson, the person who is the mouthpiece of the Prime Minister—when you are talking to him, you are talking to the Prime Minister. I find it absolutely outrageous that Wayne Eagleson was seeking the telephone records of journalists from within Parliament here. That is what the person on the shoulder of the Prime Minister, in the name of the Prime Minister, was doing.

So how did this all start? It all started with John Banks having a cup of tea with the Prime Minister to stitch up a deal to get him back into Parliament, and we got the teapot tapes. Then, what happened? We had Kim Dotcom raided by the police, who rings up his best friend John Banks, to whom he had given $50,000 in a donation, plus a brown paper bag of money from Skycity, and who would not give him any help. Then John Key denies all knowledge of the person who is living in the mansion in his electorate. In fact, there you have in the web the electorate office, because the electorate office rings the Prime Minister and says: “Hey, there is a German living in the electorate. We do not know anything about him, but he is a big German living in the electorate.” The Prime Minister says that he knows nothing about it.

So what do we have? We have the GCSB illegally spying on 88 New Zealanders. We have the Defence Force spying on journalists, calling them subversive, and thinking it is legal that it can spy and look at their telephone records and their metadata. We have the Prime Minister, through Eagleson, asking for the phone records of not just their parliamentary phone line but their home phone line and their cellphone—the home phone line, the parliamentary line, and the cellphone of Andrea Vance. That is the Prime Minister.

Then we have Peter Dunne. He is here. He leaks a story to a journalist about a report into spying, and then he is being spied on.

I am afraid, members, that I do not have a visual exhibit to display today. Unlike the front bench of the Opposition, I did not have much time on my hands to sit around engaging in a little bit of graphic design. But I have got some firm facts and figures here that clearly demonstrate that any potential coalition between the Opposition parties would be as the Minister Simon Bridges—[Interruption] I will take that picture. Thank you. It belongs in the rubbish. Thank you. As the Hon Simon Bridges, the Minister of Energy and Resources, said, we are staring down the possibility of a Government made up of the coalition of quackery or, as I call it, the cock-up coalition. I will tell you why it is the cock-up coalition. It has actually been a pretty dark week in New Zealand politics thanks to an announcement from the Labour Party. I was quite surprised, having worked for this country overseas for 9, nearly 10, years to promote New Zealand as a destination that is sensible, that is welcoming, that is open to foreign investment, to see a pretty dark policy announced by the Opposition. In fact, “policy” might be a generous term, when, in fact, it is just a slogan and there is no research underpinning it, there is no basis, and it certainly is something that will not work.

Let me tell you, the BNZ survey on housing affordability and, in fact, on house sales to foreign buyers showed that only 3 to 4 percent of purchasers of homes were foreigners. Barfoot and Thompson has also put the number of foreign buyers at 4 percent. So I think it is pretty clear, and anyone with any common sense would see, that the policy that the Opposition is proposing will be completely ineffectual at taking the heat out of the Auckland housing market. But there is a dark side to it. There is a hint of xenophobia to this policy. We could see that, in fact, when the Leader of the Opposition appeared on radio. He actually did not use the terms “foreigners” or “non - New Zealand citizens”. Twice in an interview on radio the Leader of the Opposition specifically referred to Asian buyers. How do you think that makes members of the Asian community feel?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

How do members think that that makes members of the Asian community feel—those hard-working New Zealand citizens who happen to be of Asian origin, who pay their taxes and contribute to this country, employ people, and are generally obeying the law and being good citizens in this country?

We know that the policy is planning to exempt Australians, which, again, I have no problem with. I like our Australian cousins and brothers, so I am delighted that it is exempting Australians. But what about Cook Islanders? What about Niueans, Tongans, Samoans, Irish, Scots, English, Canadians? I am pretty appalled by this policy, but it is reasonably reassuring to know that there is very little chance that a policy like this will be implemented, given the likelihood of the coalition of quackery, the cock-up coalition, being formed after the next election. That said, there is that sinister element. Despite the inefficacy, I would have to say that perhaps it is not so much the Leader of the Opposition being the New Zealand Enoch Powell but more a case of “Eunuch Powell”.

There are several other policies we could talk about, but I think the housing policy is another case of borrowing from the Greens and New Zealand First. According to the Greens, it was unfortunate that the man ban was reversed. Metiria Turei was highly critical of the move to reverse that ban. So I am just wondering how long it might take others on the liberal left to actually convince the Labour Party that a xenophobic policy, a policy that is discriminatory, a racist policy, is bad for the Labour Party. It is bad for New Zealand. It certainly impacts on our look overseas, and it has consequences in terms of our free-trade agreements that we have signed up to with some of the economies. We know, and academic experts have discussed this point, that with the free-trade agreement with China we actually have to be equal in setting restrictions, so we cannot exempt Australians. It is an unworkable element of the policy, and I think it is something that the Labour Party will drop when, inevitably, I am sure, it drops this policy in its entirety after the next election—after the coalition of quackery is defeated and after the cock-up coalition is out.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understood that bags, suitcases, or other man arrangements were not allowed to be brought into the House. I notice that Tau Henare appears to be carrying a handbag. My understanding is that those things are not allowed in here, even if they are brought in by boys.

Speaking to the point of order—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Can I just remind members that when there is a point of order on the floor, it is to be heard in silence. It is to be short, succinct, and to the point. All members are honourable.

If it is good enough for a female member of the House to bring a bag into the Chamber—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s wrong too.

💬 Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: Maggie Barry.

I will not say anything more, because there are too many interruptions.

Order! I was going to say that one offence does not make it any better, if it is related. But the member is leaving the House anyway, so thank you.

We saw some photos before of a couple of streams, and one of them showed a very dirty, murky stream. I want to talk about some other murky waters, and they are around fisheries and around foreign charter vessels and the exemptions that have been put through that have some, let us say, perceptions of cronyism. We will make it “perceptions” in case some think that joining certain dots of ownership of companies that get the benefits of the exemptions that are put into the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill somehow might be litigious or something. There is certainly a perception of some very, very murky waters.

One exemption, the one for tuna fisheries, really looks after just one sole company. That company is the New Zealand Japan Tuna Company, which has just a couple of directors. One is Charles Hufflett, and the other is Eric Barratt, the managing director of Sanford. The New Zealand Japan Tuna Company is 53.2 percent owned by Solander, fishers of bluefin tuna, and 46.7 percent owned by Sanford. We all know that the president of the National Party is, essentially, the dominant feature of the ownership and certainly a director of Sanford. I am assured by some in National that he has integrity in his dealings regarding policy within National. However, that tuna exemption is totally unnecessary and totally goes against the intent of the bill, which is to reduce slavery, to improve conditions in terms of both the type of boats and quality of boats and the quality of the workspace, and to address a number of other issues regarding fishing in the exclusive economic zone. The tuna exemption is not needed. An exemption is not needed. Any exemption goes against the intent of the bill. And when it so clearly advantages so very, very few, and, in fact, disadvantages other New Zealand fishers, we have to ask these questions.

We were shown in the Primary Production Committee that the level of New Zealand domestic fishers who were not relying on foreign charter vessels was increasing year on year. If we rule out any exemptions, it is clear that we will see from New Zealand fishers fishing New Zealand waters an improvement for the New Zealand economy, and, ideally, doing it in a sustainable way. This exemption smells fishy, it is fishy, and it is in very murky waters.

The other exemption that is a bit murky is the one around settlements and the annual catch entitlements that go there. That was dropped into the select committee. It is going to be in front of this House. It is totally patchy and murky. It needs kicking out as well. There are some issues around iwi and their justified access to quota and how they might manage that, but, again, if you look into those annual catch entitlements and see who is fishing them, Sanford pops up again. That is the nature of how that exemption has been drafted. It needs a total rehash. In fact, ideally, it needs kicking out.

We need no exemptions to this legislation that is coming through, which has actually got a fantastic intent—exemplary intent. It also has very good points around increasing observers under the legislation. But these exemptions threaten the viability of this bill. They threaten the actual advantages that the bill intends. Up to one-third of the foreign chartered vessels can theoretically operate, it seems, under these exemptions—

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.