General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Last week—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: Crooks and frauds, Mr English.

Labour Party members talking about electoral fraud—you have got to be joking. Do they not remember writing out their cheques for the pledge card? Do they not remember the $800,000 the taxpayer had to get back from the Labour Party? But now, of course, under the new leader of the Labour Party, the pledge card, like his CV, will be a living document—kind of like the Treaty but without the principles. It will be a CV that changes as time goes on. If you ask yourself the question of where David Cunliffe got his numbers for regional economic growth in New Zealand from, I think he got them from the same place as he got his CV—that is, some little compartment in the back of his mind that has a tremendous power of imagination.

So it was that the Mother Teresa with the MBA from Harvard got it completely wrong on Taranaki. In this last week the International Monetary Fund put out its figures that said that New Zealand would—

💬 Hon Annette King: How nasty.

Yes, this is nasty for the Labour Party. New Zealand is the fifth fastest-growing economy in the developed world—[Interruption]. Very good. Out of 35. That is a tribute to all of those New Zealanders who have shown so much resilience over the last 5 years in the face of recession and in the face of earthquakes, bad weather, and the headwinds of a high exchange rate. And with the support of the Government they have made this economy grow, delivering more jobs and higher incomes.

💬 Kris Faafoi: That’s with a straight face.

And the Leader of the Opposition said with a straight face—and I have followed a bit what he has been saying—that, basically, Auckland is struggling, Wellington is stuffed, the provinces have had it, Christchurch is stagnant, and Taranaki is gone. Taranaki is gone because “People are leaving in droves.”

Well, let us look at the headline from today—“Taranaki leaders are hailing new population figures that show the region is booming.” Now we are finding out why the Labour caucus did not vote for David Cunliffe. Those members know what we are finding out, that he just makes it up. How stupid could he be to pick the strongest-growing region in New Zealand, and make that his poster boy for failure—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order!

So this is the logic. Mother Teresa with the MBA from Harvard University—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! If I get another interjection from Annette King, she will be leaving the Chamber as well. I am sorry to interrupt the member.

The member wishes she had stood for mayor. Why did that member not stand for Mayor of Wellington? Because she would have lost—that is why.

So here is the logic. The Labour Party is running a campaign on regional development—a campaign on regional development. And what it does is take its shiny new leader, and it says: “David, pick the fastest-growing region with the highest per capita GDP in New Zealand, and use that as the example of the failure of the Government’s economic policy.” Incomes in Taranaki went up, as they have in every other region of New Zealand. In the period 2007 to 2010, with the high exchange rate and a worldwide recession, the population in Taranaki went up in every region except Gisborne—in every region except Gisborne. The Government’s policy is working. The economy is growing, and the regions are among our star performers.

Freedom of speech—great! Bill English, the Deputy Prime Minister of this country, is a man who is propped up. The only reason he has his job today is because he is propped up by a rotten pile, by a member of Parliament who is already a convicted criminal, who already has a criminal conviction to his name, and who is now about to stand trial for election fraud. That one person is, of course, the Hon John Archibald “Brown Bag Banks”. That is it.

The Deputy Prime Minister is propped up by a rotten pile. That member is a sort of Basil Fawlty of Parliament, with Fawlty Towers being his Government. Under his watch, with the Minister for State Owned Enterprises, he bumbled around like Basil Fawlty, blaming everybody else, stumbling in the dark. He is aided and abetted by Manuel over there, the Minister for State Owned Enterprises, who says: “I no complain. I see nothing. I know nothing.” He let Solid Energy go down the gurgler. He let Solid Energy go down the gurgler.

When it comes to the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, he stands accused of mismanagement and of negligence. This is, of course, the man who said he would not let Solid Energy fail. Then weeks and months later, as the negotiations with the banks continued, he undermined his own chairman—he grins away—and did not even tell Mark Ford as he dropped a bundle on him and said: “Well, we may let it tip over.” Those are great negotiating tactics. Then, of course, he announces—in his own slipshod way, bumbling around in the dark—that we have a deal, like a sort of second-rate game show host, saying: “We have a deal. It’s done. It’s zipped up. Everybody’s falling in line.” That was 10 days ago.

But 96 hours after that—96 hours after that, Basil—the Bank of Tokyo drops the ball on him and goes to court. When I was in the private sector, a deal sort of went like this: you got round the table, you got an agreement, you got the ink dry on the document, everybody agreed, and then you announced it to the world—but oh, no, not Bill English. He shot his mouth off, he shot his bolt, and now he is about to get shot by the Bank of Tokyo.

Of course, this is the man who negotiated a fabulous deal with Rio Tinto. It was totally negligent. This is the man who came to this House and said that the $30 million free gift was to secure Southland jobs. That is what he said over and over and over again. On Kathryn Ryan’s show with me he must have said it five times. When the deal is on the rocks, we then find out that there is no guarantee of any of those jobs, not even up to 1 January 2017. Then we asked whether the Minister bothered in the heavy duty negotiations—or Manuel over there—to actually ask for a guarantee. You know, if you do not ask, you do not get. That is the normal sort of modus operandi. He did not have the gumption. He was negligent. He mismanaged it.

This is the guy, of course, who then went over the top of his board in the Meridian Energy deal per se—a $30 million free gift, and he sits there every day, misleading the New Zealand people, saying that he secured the jobs. Not 4 days before that deal was done, before the ink was dry on the cheque, they were sacking maintenance workers at Rio Tinto. He got no guarantee, and he did not have the brains, as he bumbles around in the dark, to ask Rio Tinto—or to beg Rio Tinto—for $30 million, or for 30 million pieces of silver to actually secure those jobs.

Then there is Mighty River Power. Well, what a botch-up. That guy over there and the Minister for State Owned Enterprises will go down as the most useless, feeble, and negligent Ministers and shareholding Ministers of State-owned enterprises. They over-egged the pudding with Mighty River Power. They were greedy. They wanted more money—10 percent down on the price. Then, of course, we had free shares in respect of Meridian, and a set of steak knives thrown in.

All the time they were trying desperately to get the sale of these State-owned enterprises off the ground. That was not because they wanted to maximise the returns to shareholders—they are not the shareholders; the taxpayers are. They have to sell these State-owned enterprises simply because it is the Prime Minister’s political vanity and political pride on the line. If he was still working for Merrill Lynch, the Prime Minister would tell his shareholders not to sell, and that it was not the right time—no time is actually the right time—to maximise shareholders’ returns.

So now it comes down to it. “Brown Bag Banks” is up on fraud charges, propping the Government up. He is propping the Government up. That is what it is down to: the rotten pile from Epsom propping the Deputy Prime Minister up. Well, I hope that over there they are all very proud of themselves.

On this incredibly prestigious day, when Eleanor Catton has won the Man Booker Prize, I want to make the theme of my speech one a bit more to do with a literary theme. I want to tie it to the recent announcements about regional numbers, and I want to use a couple of things I was not able to use even at question time. For example, I was giving the House a briefing about how seriously wrong David Cunliffe had got his regional forecasts—seriously wrong. His calculator and his crystal ball must both be broken, because he got them wrong. He put out press releases saying that there was a mass exodus. “Census shows regional exodus under Nats” was the headline of his press release. Another one that came in was “Cunliffe blames Govt for the Taranaki exodus”. But, as I said, in keeping with trying to be literary, I found a poem and I thought the poem would really bring it to the House’s attention. The poem is called “I am census and census is me”:

Regional growth has been so poor,

It is the last one out who should close the door.

The Nats have dealt the regions such a blow,

And now only the big cities are able to grow.

The Waikato and the ’Naki are down but not out.

“It’s Labour to their rescue.” as their leader I did shout.

When the census is released, the truth will be felt,

Just what a blow to the regions has been dealt.

It’s so very sad to see such regional decline.

Places that once sparkled now wither and die on the vine.

The big just get bigger and Australia does beckon.

This is the worst Government ever—what do you all reckon?

Oh no! Gosh! Gee! Bugger! Damn!

The actuals are out and my predictions are a sham.

The regions are actually growing, they’re actually on fire, they’re alive,

And as Labour leader, it’s unlikely I’ll now survive.

That is a poem I found called “I am census and census is me”, and it puts it in a nutshell. It puts it in a nutshell.

How can a party, a once-proud party, have a leader get up and make such statements? They are not mine; these are his statements. “Census shows regional exodus”—that is what the headline of his press statement is, and every region in the country but one has grown. And then to pick Taranaki. I reckon this is my personal favourite—this is my personal favourite: “Taranakians are leaving the province in droves because they’re being forgotten by the National Government, Labour leader David Cunliffe says.” Well, that is interesting, because here I have got a Stuff article from today, 16 October, by Helen Harvey, the headline of which says “Headcount springs a big surprise. Taranaki leaders are hailing new population figures that show the region is booming.”

How does that work? How can you be the Leader of the Opposition with a phenomenally big resource budget and a research unit, which has obviously sat down and done its work, and forecast to the nation what is going to happen—actually, it would put a bit of a frightener on some us; my God, if Taranaki has collapsed like this it is going to be quite serious and quite damning—and then the reality comes out that he got it so wrong. He got it so wrong. Waikato is another good example of where there is phenomenal growth—phenomenal growth.

Under this Government the regions are actually booming, and remember that that is under two enormously big caveats for the nation: a global financial crisis that put the whole country into a state of financial difficulty and a massive earthquake that cost billions, if not tens of billions, to the economy.

So then I got some numbers from the research unit to have a look at things like: “Well, OK, if the population is growing, let us have a look at whether, say, incomes are growing.” Again, we will hear from Mr Cunliffe as Leader of the Opposition, who said that, well, people are so much worse off. Here are just a couple of figures that I think this House should dwell on. After-tax wages in New Zealand since 2008—and those are the ones that matter—have gone up by 22 percent.

💬 Sue Moroney: So people are wealthy?

And before the Labour Party calls: “Oh, well, what about all the cost rises?”, that is at the same time as inflation went up by only 9 percent. I know that most people can work that out. A 22 percent increase in after-tax wages while their cost of living CPI is up by only 9 percent—it is a fantastic outcome. The regions should be hellishly proud of themselves, and one day they should stop listening to David Cunliffe, like most of his own caucus has already done.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Paremata. I have not got a rhyming couplet series in this speech, but I want to talk about a really true story that is important to this country. While the Prime Minister was heading off to Bali to further strip our country of our sovereignty and its resources by our free-trade deals, three young men entered the Australian consulate and asked for amnesty, for peace, and for the right of journalists to visit the country of West Papua. Australia ignored their pleas, and also dumped seven desperate people from West Papua who were being hunted by the Indonesians into a refugee camp on the border with Papua New Guinea.

But what has New Zealand done lately? What has this Government done lately for this beleaguered country? Well, we have colluded with the powerful against the vulnerable, and we have committed $6.34 million over 3 years to run yet another community policing programme to train the police to play nice in West Papua, based on the supposed great success of the previous pilot. This pilot in 2008-10 was, interestingly, assessed and was supposedly a success in the minds of some of the well-intentioned people who believe in community policing, but if you ask West Papuans about it, what they have experienced from their police in the 2 years since New Zealand did this wonderful training has been nothing short of desperate genocide. There have been police involved in numerous incidents of human rights abuses, shootings, killings, torture, and attacks on communities. These have involved deaths and the vigorous application by the police of treason laws that include arresting people for praying for peace at church services, for holding rallies, and for supporting the Freedom Flotilla from Australia. So thank you very much, New Zealand Government, but this is not helping. Community policing is a very good initiative when the community has got some kind of basic rule of law, but right now we are sending our community police to train in a war zone—a war zone where peace has not been declared.

What about aid? What about addressing poverty? What about human rights? What about HIV programmes and community development? The Green Party is a great supporter of positive aid, but we are very concerned about human rights. We know that human rights in West Papua are abused daily. We know that our Government in this country is now ignoring the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act on family care, for example, and has introduced mass surveillance, thus showing a willingness to adopt more totalitarian methods. However, to spend $6.34 million of very, very precious aid money on something that is not going to work is actually disgraceful.

The training policy that has been introduced is in a contaminated context and it is doomed to fail. It is very interesting to read the review of this pilot that was supposedly the great success. One of the quotes from the review is that “The degree to which the project contributed to improving human rights and enhancing respect for the rule of law is unknown.” The Government does not know. Now it is throwing more money at a problem that we will not take responsibility for in the true sense, and the problem will not be fixed by yet another waste of community policing training.

This is incredibly disappointing. In fact, what it is like is handing out pretty umbrellas to people in the middle of a cyclone. That is what we are doing. The New Zealand Government aid programme in West Papua is handing out the pretty umbrellas in the middle of a series of police and military attacks on citizens, which is a disgrace. So the Green Party is calling for a much more positive response from the Government. We know it loves mass surveillance. It is in with the right people, if that is what it likes, but Indonesia requires something more in terms of response. We need to challenge Indonesia to start a peace dialogue with the people of West Papua to create some safety, some human rights, and some basic legal rights in that country.

If New Zealand wanted to take leadership, that $6.34 million would be better spent on negotiating with the parties to create a peace environment with some independent mediation, which we ought to be capable of, rather than having all these other ridiculous programmes that are not working. We are very disappointed with this waste of money.

The economy is growing, inflation is down, interest rates are at record low levels, and the regions are strong. The regions are strong and they are full of National-voting citizens. You see, the Government has a plan, it is working, and we are sticking with it. The Government is in touch with New Zealanders up and down New Zealand. By comparison, the Labour Opposition is out of touch with all parts of New Zealand, and especially the provinces. You see, one need think back to only the last election to reflect and one would realise that the National Government holds every single provincial seat in this country but two. It holds every single provincial seat in this country but two, and I will come to those two in a moment.

Every day National constituent MPs are out working hard, helping their constituents, listening to New Zealanders, and dealing with the real issues that they face. By comparison, the approach of the Labour Opposition members, who are out of touch, to engagement with the provincial part of New Zealand is the occasional bus tour up and down the country. There have been three fantastic tours in the 5 years we have been in Government. There was the Phil Goff motorbike tour of the country. There was the David Shearer guitar-playing, surfing, hippie tour of the country. And now we have the David Cunliffe “promises that I’m not going to keep” tour of New Zealand.

You see, to become Leader of the Opposition, David Cunliffe made every promise to every person that he had to. He made promises all over the place. Anything someone else proposed, he said he would do too—he promised. He promised everything to everyone all of the time—well, except for Trevor Mallard, of course. He did not promise everything to Trevor. I have got to say, I think that the Leader of the Opposition has got it wrong, because I saw the Hon Trevor Mallard on TV the other night with one of his constituents, dealing with an immigration problem, and I have got to tell you that I have actually changed my mind about Mr Mallard. He is the only person over there whom I have seen who has any evidence that he is actually in touch with local people, and certainly the—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Although I appreciate the member’s assistance, this is destroying what is left of my reputation. I ask him to cease.

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

I would apologise but he wrote a wonderful article about me in a newspaper once, so it is only fitting that we do the same for each other. But my point there was that this is the only member of the Opposition whom I have actually seen evidence of being out there talking to constituents.

Let us think about what the new Leader of the Opposition has said. He said that census data will depict a widespread exodus from the regions. And what have we seen? In every region in New Zealand but one the census data shows that the population has gone up. It is more than that. In fact, we look at one of the two areas in the provinces on the West Coast where Labour holds a seat, and the new Leader of the Opposition, David Cunliffe, did not even bother to talk to that MP, Damien O’Connor, because in the area that Damien O’Connor represents on the West Coast there was a growth of population by 2.6 percent. So I guarantee you that Damien O’Connor not only was not asked but also is one in the majority in the party opposite who did not vote for its new leader.

Up and down the country, National MPs are working hard. Let us have a look at this. In Northland, where we hear Shane Jones going on about the doom and gloom—Northland’s MP is the hard-working Mike Sabin—real after-tax income, wages, over the last 6 years went up by 18 percent. The population went up by 2.2 percent. Well, that is not evidence of the great exodus that David Cunliffe said we would see in the census.

Let us come a little bit further south from there to the Waikato, because with the exception of a few seats in Auckland, National has all of the rural and provincial seats in between Northland and the Waikato. It is very clear that in the Waikato—including Louise Upston, the hard-working member of Parliament in Taupō—we had an increase in after-tax wages of 7 percent and in population of 6 percent. In the Bay of Plenty, where we have Simon Bridges, Anne Tolley, Tony Ryall, and the hard-working member of Parliament for Rotorua, we hold every single seat in the Bay of Plenty. Of course, it had a 14 percent increase in income and a 4 percent increase in population. In Taranaki and New Plymouth, where we have Chester Borrows and Jonathan Young, the area we actually heard would be the worst in the country because of everything that is going on there around oil exploration, we had a 14 percent increase in after-tax wages and a 5.3 percent increase in population.

Up and down this country, the provinces have been growing and we are doing well. Why is this? It is because we have National MPs every day out working hard and representing—

John Key must stand down John Banks as a Minister. The District Court in Auckland has called Mr Banks to trial for knowingly filing a false electoral return. John Banks has lied to the Prime Minister, he has lied to the people of New Zealand, and he has knowingly filed a false return.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What happened to a fair trial?

He says: “What about the trial?”. This is what the judge said, Dr Smith. The judge said that John Banks had closed his eyes to the obvious. He had signed an electoral return that he knew was false. Why? In the District Court yesterday, the Chief Executive of Skycity, Nigel Morrison, said—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As the member has correctly observed, this matter is now going to trial before the courts. The court has made the decision that this matter is now before the courts. There is a very clear Standing Order that states that members should not comment on matters before the courts, as that is seen to prejudice a fair trial for a member of this House. I think the member needs to be constrained, given that crucial fact.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have kind of been internalising—I think that is the word—where this debate might actually be going. The first comment I would make is that a word that refers to the use of terminological inexactitude has yet to be proven, and I think that the member should desist from that. The second point is that I would deem the detail around what the court case might be to be off limits because of the rulings that we have substantially in this place about matters before the courts. So I think that the member should not be referring in detail to the case. I understand that this is a finely balanced argument. I am trying to assist the member in trying to apply the rules of the House.

Speaking to the point of order—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I—OK, we will extend.

I thank you for your advice on this matter, Mr Deputy Speaker. My understanding of the relevant rulings is that I am at liberty in this House to make comment on matters that are before the courts. However, I do have to show the kind of judgment that I think you have reflected. So I just want to make it clear that I am not prevented from referring to those matters, in my understanding of the Speakers’ rulings.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is about where I think I got to. The member should not try to deal with the detail of the case. There is a matter that I think the member is referring to that relates to integrity, but it is actually delving into the detail of the case. So I just caution the member on that part.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: But you’re allowed to refer to the judgment.

Yes, and I want to quote from the public statement of the judge. This is what he said: “Mr Banks has closed his eyes to the obvious.” What he is referring to there, in matters that have been dealt with many times in this House before, is that Mr Banks signed an electoral return that he says he did not read. That is the excuse that he has brought up in this House and in the public arena many times over the last year—that he did not read it. Well, that excuse is not available to a small-business owner who is filing a tax return. They cannot get away with it, when the Inland Revenue Department comes knocking, by saying: “Oh, I’m sorry. My tax return was false because I didn’t bother to read it.”, but that is what John Banks did. That is—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to refer you quite specifically to Speakers’ rulings on matters that are to be adjudicated by the courts. They are very clear, and they say that, pending adjudication in the courts, they must not—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can the member just refer me to the precise Speaker’s ruling?

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes. I am referring to Speakers’ rulings 30/1, 30/2, 30/3, 30/5, and 30/6, which quite specifically say that if a matter is “pending adjudication in the courts [it] must not be debated in the House,”. What the member is directly proceeding to do is debate just those issues.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. I think the member has now gone beyond what I ruled when he started quoting the matters that will be before the courts when he reached the judgment and was passing comment on that. I think he went beyond, and I was trying to assist the member. So I would ask the member—in principle, yes, but detail, no.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to clarify with you that the judge in the District Court has issued a ruling today. I must be at liberty to be able to quote from that.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You can, but you cannot comment on it.

Yes, right. That is right. How long do I have left?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just over 3 minutes.

The judge has not only said today that Mr Banks did close his eyes to the obvious but also said that the evidence shows—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The decision by the court today is that Mr John Banks will stand trial on these issues—that is all. What we know from the court is that it has said that there is sufficient evidence for this to go to trial. I do not think that the shadow Leader of the House can proceed down the road where he is going relative to the Standing Orders, which are just so clear in this area. If a matter is to come up before the courts, this Parliament should not debate it, because that would prejudice the proper trial that the court must have.

Speaking to the point of order, Dr Smith says that all the judge did was say that the matter should go to trial. That is not correct. The judge made a number of comments today that are in the public arena and that I am entitled to refer to.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. I am taking my advice from Speaker’s ruling 30/3, which is why I have ruled that the member can quote, but not comment on. If you look at Speaker’s ruling 30/3, you see that it states that “the law in general may be discussed, but one may not discuss the application …”, and that is what I have taken from it. I have said that the member may quote, but not comment on. The judge’s determination, which the member is quoting, is in the public arena, and I have said that the member is at liberty to quote that, but not comment on. That is the ruling that I have given.

What the judge has said is that the evidence in the case shows an apparent intention to treat as anonymous the donation given by Kim Dotcom. That donation was a donation that Mr Banks met with Kim Dotcom—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member immediately ignored your ruling. He was quite entitled, as you said, to simply quote what the court said. The moment he finished that, he then went on to a commentary on the evidence, specifically in respect of Mr Kim Dotcom. The member cannot litigate. The Standing Orders and the Speakers’ rulings are very clear that the member cannot litigate the matters that are now to stand trial with regard to Mr John Banks.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: There is one point that Mr Smith failed to make, which is that he cannot litigate your ruling. He is not the Speaker; you are the Speaker. You determine what is in order, not him.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not actually need to be reminded of that. Can I firstly say that I was distracted while the member was speaking. I am sorry; I was doing some research on the matter. This is actually a matter of balance. I think that the question that the member is raising pertains to a member’s relevance in this House—that I understand. But I have been very clear that the member cannot litigate comment on the judge’s ruling. The difficulty I have also is that I do not actually have in front of me the judge’s ruling to know what the member is quoting from and whether he is maybe adding to it. So I am cautioning the member to very clearly understand what I am saying, and I will listen with greater attention now.

How long have I got now?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has 2¾ minutes.

John Banks has consistently said in the public arena that he did not know—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

No.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I want to directly read the Standing Order. Standing Order 112(1) says this: “Matters awaiting … any New Zealand court may not be referred to in any … debate,”—may not be referred to in any debate.

Did I refer to it?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: The immediate point that the member went into was a debate specifically about what John Banks had said publicly on the very matter that is now going to stand trial in Auckland. It is not appropriate—it is not appropriate—for this Parliament to assert the right that the court now has to resolve this issue.

Speaking to the point of order, I had got out only about half a sentence on that occasion before Dr Smith stood up. I had not mentioned anything about the court at that point, at all. What I was about to refer to were statements that John Banks has made in public relating to his campaign for the Auckland mayoralty. I was going to go on to talk about statements that John Key has made about whether a Minister’s lying would constitute whether or not he should keep them on as a Minister. Dr Smith did not even give me the chance to get to that point. I have listened to your ruling and I am going to speak in accordance with it.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. I will again read Standing Order 112(1), which is pertinent to legislation, and that is my interpretation on it: “Matters awaiting or under adjudication in, or suppressed by an order of, any New Zealand court may not be referred to in any motion, debate, or question, including a supplementary question, subject always to the discretion of the Speaker”—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: And the right to legislate.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: —“and to the”—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: So what the Standing Order is saying is that this requirement not to debate issues does not prevent Parliament from being able to get on and pass law, and I agree with that. But can the member debate the very matters before the court that will be subject to a court ruling today? And the answer is very clear from that Standing Order that we must let the High Court do its job and make the judgment as to whether Mr Banks broke the law or not.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: And that is why I have said that the member can go as far as quoting, but not debating. That is what I have said. Now let us see whether we can make some progress.

And where are we at now?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: 2½ minutes.

Very good. John Key came into the office of Prime Minister saying that he would hold his Ministers to the highest ethical standards. He also came into this Parliament and said that he would stand a Minister down if that Minister lied to him. Those are the standards that John Key has set and those standards have been broken by John Banks. This is a shoddy, tawdry Government, propped up by a member of Parliament who has consistently misled New Zealanders and whose memory is such that he cannot remember getting in a helicopter, flying to the Coatesville mansion, and having lunch with Kim Dotcom and a woman whom he described at the time as the most attractive woman in New Zealand. He cannot remember that. He cannot remember asking for a $50,000 donation to be split into two. He cannot remember getting a donation passed across the table—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is immediately breaching your ruling by getting straight back into the debate on the very issue that is going to stand trial. I think you need to hold to the standards of the House—long established—that you cannot debate a matter before the courts, which is what this quite clearly is.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I did make a point before, Mr Deputy Speaker, and—I mean no offence—you may have misinterpreted it. I was actually trying to defend your position. That member needs to read the Standing Orders. You are the sole judge—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I do not need this. I do not need—[Interruption] Order! Thank you very much. Look, I am trying to steer a course of balance here and uphold the Standing Orders. I have made it clear that the member can refer to but not comment on, and I think that the member was getting into that order. He was fine until he got to some of the detail around that, so I will give him 1 minute and 20 seconds.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The case that is before the District Court is around the question of whether or not Mr Banks had knowingly filed a false electoral return. In the period when I was speaking, before Dr Smith interrupted me again, I was speaking about a set of facts that are actually not relevant to whether or not a return was filed. Whether Mr Banks has forgotten that he had flown in a helicopter to the Coatesville mansion is not a matter that is currently before the court. So, knowing that, I will carry on with—how long is left?

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just over a minute.

Just over a minute? This Government relies on John Banks’ vote to pass critical legislation, such as the legislation implementing the Skycity deal. That is what stands between the Government and passing its law, and that is why it has such a desire to protect John Banks. Nick Smith spent about 20 minutes trying to protect John Banks. He is doing that because this Government knows that it is standing on only the record of a man who will stand trial for electoral fraud.

John Banks should not be a Minister, because John Key should have stood him down when the police report came out about this last year, but John Key would not even read the police report. He closed his eyes because he did not want to know the truth. Now he will have to face up to the truth. John Banks will stand trial for electoral fraud. This Government will stand on the basis of that tawdry, shoddy behaviour. John Key must stand John Banks down.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. We have seen some gripping television on our screens this week. We have seen the Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust Board credit card scandal. Tonight and on Twitter we are going to see it about the member Banks, now we have seen the judgment from the District Court. We are going to see this Government questioned, because this Government is hanging by a thread on the single vote of this member, who we now know, resulting from a District Court judgment, is off to court to make his case. But on Monday night was the gripping television and the trending Twitter that I want to refer to. On Monday night we saw a Minister out of his depth. We saw live, on Campbell Live, a Minister have his own uncontrolled blowout, live on television, and Kiwis around the country—particularly in the regions affected by deep-sea drilling, like the Kaikōura region—are questioning how this Minister, if he cannot control himself on television, is going to control a well blowout 2.7 kilometres down, off the Kaikōura coast? How is the Minister of Energy and Resources going to control that?

The fact is that the Minister cannot point to even a single person in Kaikōura—cannot point to a single person—who supports the Government’s “drill it, mine it, frack it” agenda, the agenda to put at risk our environment. In fact, we have got a Minister who thinks his job is to go on television and defend the reputation of Anadarko, not defend the beaches, the economy, and the climate of New Zealand. For an agenda the Government says is so popular, it is intriguing that the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams, has proposed to make the exploratory stage—the riskiest phase; the stage we saw release 600,000 tonnes of oil into the Gulf of Mexico’s environment—a non-notified activity. If this Government wants to stand by everything it is doing for the oil industry—and there is an awful lot, because this Government is all about cosy deals for its mates—and if this Government is so proud of its agenda, why is it blocking out the public from getting a say whatsoever?

What we saw last week, however, was some more advice that the Government should be taking. We saw the Secretary-General of the OECD, Mr Angel Gurría, call for no—no—new fossil fuel emissions by 2050. It is inconsistent for this Government to be going out there in the deep waters off the Kaikōura and Canterbury and Taranaki coasts to be looking for new oil when the OECD is saying we need no new emissions. We saw the week before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change release the most authoritative scientific update on climate change. What we know from that report is that there is more carbon dioxide, more methane, and more nitrous oxide than at any time in the past 800,000 years—probably much longer. We know from the world’s top scientists that climate change is happening. It is happening because of us. It is happening faster and worse than feared in previous reports, and it is going to have huge costs—huge social costs, huge costs on communities and people, and huge costs on the economy.

We also saw a report out from the International Energy Agency. What we saw in the report was the International Energy Agency saying that we cannot burn 70 percent of all the oil known about in the world if we want to achieve the Government’s own target of avoiding 2 degrees warming this century. The International Energy Agency is saying we cannot burn 70 percent of the oil we have already discovered, let alone this Government going off and trying to find some more deep in the waters off the Kaikōura coast. But this Government is all about deals for the oil industry. What we have seen is this Government provide $46 million in tax breaks in the last financial year. We see the Government constantly changing legislation to support the industry. We see this Government literally calling out the navy when iwi protesters get in its way. We see the Government taking away the public’s say. We see this Government’s job as acting as cheerleader-in-chief for the oil industry, going on telly and defending Anadarko’s reputation. It is incredible that Simon Bridges would go on TV and say: “Well, you’re being unfair and biased if you don’t have anything positive to say about the worst ever oil spill in the world’s history.”

I am sure Phil Heatley was sitting at home, watching Minister Bridges on TV on Monday night, with his palm over his face wondering “What is this Minister doing? This young guy is absolutely out of his depth when it comes to oil.” The fact is, though, that we have seen a consistent pro - oil drilling agenda from this Government. The better idea, of course, is to listen to the OECD say “No new fossil fuel emissions.”, and to listen to the International Energy Agency say “Keep the oil in the ground.”, and to listen to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and act to protect our climate. This is where the jobs and prosperity will come from in New Zealand. A richer New Zealand is not going to come from hoping someone finds something in the bottom of the water and does not leave too much of a mess. The prosperity is going to come from a smart Green economy.

John Key must stand down his Minister John Banks. That is clear. The allegations against Mr Banks of electoral fraud are so serious that it is not appropriate that a Minister of the Crown remain in that position. The allegations against him are now going to be taken to court. John Key must act now to stand down John Banks. This is a Government being propped up, passing controversial legislation against the best interests of New Zealanders, by one man who is now facing charges of electoral fraud.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Rotten.

That is rotten to the core. Prime Minister John Key must act now to restore the credibility of this House and this Parliament. When John Key became Prime Minister we heard a lot about how he was going to hold his Ministers to the highest ethical standards, and if they did not meet those standards, then he would stand them down. Well, he has failed that test today. There should be no question as to whether John Banks remains a Minister in John Key’s Government—no question at all—given that these are allegations of electoral fraud. For a member of Parliament to be facing those allegations is devastating, but, as a Minister of the Crown, it is not appropriate that he remains in that position. We wait, still, to hear what the Prime Minister, John Key, is going to do, and what has happened—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: He’s only had an hour.

—to those highest ethical standards he once held. This is a case that has not just been in the last hour, Dr Smith. This goes back many, many, many months—many, many, many months.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: He’s already been convicted once.

As my colleague says, he has already been convicted once. So we should not be put in this position, with the credibility of this House being undermined. But, unfortunately, what we have seen from this Government has been low standards for Ministers right across the board.

The previous speaker, Gareth Hughes, mentioned the Minister of Energy and Resources and his performance on Campbell Live the other night—his extraordinary performance. Phil Heatley would never have behaved like that on Campbell Live as the Minister of Energy and Resources. It was an extraordinary performance. I think anyone tuning into that performance would have been asking themselves “Who is this ‘Miss Anna Darko’, and why is the Minister Simon Bridges so taken with her?”. It was the most extraordinary performance from a Minister of Energy and Resources who is meant to be neutral. Remember, this is the man who now has half the decision-making power over whether these activities go ahead in the Department of Conservation estate.

Does anyone seriously believe that Simon Bridges is ever going to say no to an oil company? Is he ever going to say no after that performance on Campbell Live, where he completely dismissed the very genuine concern of the people of Kaikōura—the very genuine concern? This is the community that Phil Heatley, when he was the Minister of Energy and Resources, promised would be able to have a say through a public submission process on any deep-sea drilling. Phil Heatley promised them that. Good old Phil Heatley—a good Minister of Energy and Resources. Then we get Simon Bridges, who comes along—along with Amy Adams, the supposed Minister for the Environment, although she is the Minister constantly acting against the environment—takes that away, and makes a lie of Phil Heatley’s promise to the good people of Kaikōura that they would have a say on any deep-sea drilling that was going to go on off their coast.

The reason this is so concerning is that the legislation Amy Adams has put in place governing this activity is so utterly bereft of any protection for the environment—any protection for the environment—that we have a very real risk of something going wrong. We saw what happened when something went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico. We saw what went wrong. The Minister Amy Adams got some advice from her officials when she asked what the impact of an oil spill would be on New Zealand, and she came to the House and said: “Well, the officials said it may well be significant.” Well, we got those documents, and what the officials said was that it will very likely be catastrophic. I think there is a bit of a difference between “very likely catastrophic” and “may be significant”. [Interruption] Amy Adams says that is quibbling over words, but my concern is what those words represent, and what those words represent is the very real impact on our coastal environment of an oil spill under legislation that is so weak that it does not provide the basic environmental protections that the international conventions we have signed up to require us to provide.

This is a Government that is so desperate to grease the wheels for industry at any cost that it does not matter whether it is the rights of workers in New Zealand, access to low-cost pharmaceuticals, or our environment, which we rely on entirely for our economy—those are all up for sale under a National Government.

This week two words come to mind. One of them that we have heard a lot of is “exodus” and the other one is “droves”. We have heard that categorically there is a widespread exodus of people from the regions, and that people are leaving the regions in droves. My own region in Waimakariri is up 17 percent in population growth. It is hardly an exodus. Even Canterbury—where we have had the devastating earthquakes, and some areas have been more affected than others—as a whole, as a region, is up 3.4 percent. We have heard of the income going down in the regions, etc., but if we look at the official statistics in Canterbury, my own region, the real after-tax median income, inflation adjusted, has increased by 14 percent. So it is hardly an exodus from the regions and hardly a neglect of the regions.

If we look at the progress under our growth strategy in what have been somewhat difficult times, it is actually not a bad picture. We have got economic growth that is comparable with Australia’s. It is higher than almost every other developed country. We have got wages that are growing, we have got cost of living increases that have been modest, and we have interest rates at 50-year lows. I remember my own first mortgage was at 21 percent. It is a lot lower than that now. We have heard that New Zealand is the fifth fastest-growing economy in the developed world. After-tax wages are up 22 percent since 2008, which is over twice the inflation rate. Gross wages have increased 14 percent. This means that real after-tax wages have increased 12 percent since September 2008, and I think that is a good picture that we are painting. There are more than 60,000 more jobs—that is 60,000 jobs—in the economy than there were 2 years ago.

If we look at what we inherited, we inherited an economy where the current account deficit was almost 9 percent of GDP, and now it is only 4.3 percent of GDP. So that is from 9 percent down to 4.3 percent. Good progress. We inherited an economy where the net external debt had blown out to 84 percent of GDP, and now it is 71 percent of GDP. So that is 84 percent of GDP down to 71 percent of GDP. Again, good progress. Inflation was then running at 5.1 percent and now it is running at 1.4 percent. As I have already mentioned, mortgage interest rates averaged 10.9 percent and now they average about 5.9 percent. So under our growth strategy I think we would have to say that reasonable progress has been made.

Then I thought, well, what is the growth strategy of the Opposition? And I found a speech that was delivered recently. There were two versions of this speech, mind you. One was inside the conference and one was outside the conference to the media. I am not sure which one prevails, but none the less I think I got the gist of what it was, and it was a bit like this: the 90-day trial will be gone by lunchtime. This is a trial period that has actually proved to be successful. In its first year of operation it was credited with creating 13,000 new jobs. At the time, 5 years ago, we were told that there would be queues of people, queues of exploited workers, who would come to us and say that it does not work. So we said: “Bring them to us. Give us the details of who those exploited workers are.” Did we get one? No, we did not. So a successful policy—which created 13,000 jobs each year—would be gone by lunchtime under Labour, and Labour members think they care about jobs.

Then we heard that the minimum wage would be immediately raised to $15 an hour. Well, I think that is about 5,000 jobs. So at the stroke of a pen: $15 an hour. It does not matter whether it is affordable or not; another 5,000 jobs are gone. That is about 18,000 jobs. Then we hear about this living wage. I am not sure what this living wage is. It is the policy that is being delivered by somebody out there who should know better. A living wage: $18.40 an hour. We are not quite sure what it is pegged to, but I think that is 26,000 jobs—

There can be no surer sign that you have a lame duck, an incompetent Government, opposite than when what we can discuss in this House is governed by what is currently before the courts. We have a Minister of Education who cannot and will not answer questions on her failure to run a real process around the closure and merger of schools. We now have Nick Smith taking about 20 minutes out of this general debate trying to shut down discussion—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member cannot refer to points of order that have actually been addressed.

We now are limited in what we can discuss about the fact that there is a Minister who is facing charges in a court about his conduct around electoral fraud. So we have Ministers from this Government all over the place. One is up the river in a cabbage boat.

The one whom I want to talk about today, to continue on that transport theme, is the one who is being a significant roadblock in the recovery of Christchurch. Eight months ago Gerry Brownlee, the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery—and the Minister of Transport, I will add—went out and promised that we would have a workable transport strategy for the recovery of the central city of Christchurch. That was, according to Minister Brownlee, going to be an important milestone in the recovery of Christchurch. Well, Minister, we are still waiting. Your milestone is nothing but a millstone. You have not delivered it. In November of last year you released, to much fanfare, a transport strategy for discussion. People duly submitted, as they do when there is a plan out, and in February that all came back. Minister Brownlee was to have taken that to Cabinet in March or April of this year. He has not done that.

Let us go through the time line. On 27 June the Minister announced the cost-sharing arrangement with the Christchurch City Council for this transport strategy. There was money already allocated in Budget 2013 for the Crown’s share of getting the transport system in Christchurch right. On 1 July Brownlee’s office received advice from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority that the office needed to crack on with this, and that what it was doing was slowing down the recovery of Christchurch. Minister Brownlee received a briefing that showed that the approval of the transport plan was now urgently required to enable the commissioning of key works needed to support the early delivery of the anchor projects in the central city. Was this enough to spur Minister Brownlee into action? No, it certainly was not. Minister Brownlee, despite advice on 1 July that he needed to crack on with things, still has yet to take that paper to Cabinet. Meanwhile Christchurch’s recovery and Canterbury’s recovery are significantly stalled.

What do we have from the Minister now? Well, the Minister hopes—he hopes—to sign this off by Christmas. So imagine this: it is 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and Gerry Brownlee is frantically running around trying to deliver the last of the Christmas presents on his list. “I know,” he thinks—

💬 David Shearer: Ho, ho, ho.

Ho, ho, ho. Thank you, Mr Shearer. “A workable transport system for the Christchurch central city is perhaps something I should deliver on. I have been promising it for quite some time now, but I cannot bring myself to wrap it and let it go.”

Well, Minister Brownlee, Christchurch’s recovery is being slowed down by your failure to deliver this paper and to deliver this plan. You have got the paper sitting there—you have not, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the Minister has the paper sitting there. It needs to be signed off. We cannot afford to have the kind of slowing down in Christchurch, both figuratively and literally, that the Minister’s failure to act on this is delivering. An approved transport plan at the centre of our city is not a “nice-to-have”; it is fundamental to our recovery as a city and as a province. His own officials are telling him that it is urgent. His own officials are telling him to crack on with it, get on with it, and not allow the slow-down. Every person who drives around Christchurch knows we have a broken transport system.

There must be hundreds of Labour voters across the country—in fact, I think there are possibly thousands of Labour voters across the country—but I would imagine that most of them are feeling pretty disillusioned because the Labour Party, even after 5 years, just does not look ready to govern. In the last 5 years the Labour Party is up to its fourth leader. There have been four leaders in 5 years: Helen Clark, Phil Goff, David Shearer, and now leader No. 4, David Cunliffe.

The difficulty, of course, is that although the Labour Party keeps changing its leaders, it has done nothing about the issue of renewal. I remember this when we went out of Government in 1999. There was that period of renewing and refreshing. What the Labour Party does is it changes its leader, but the MPs behind them are old and tired, so it is a bit like painting over rotting timber. They coined a phrase back in 1999—I think it was “dead wood”. The problem with the Labour Party is that it keeps painting the dead wood, the rotting timber on its fourth Labour leader.

The problem is that when you are inward-looking, you keep changing your leader, and when you have stopped making policies, you start making things up. That is what we saw from David Cunliffe this week. He was caught out quoting what the 2013 census would actually say, and he was caught out with his statistics. What the new Labour Party leader No. 4 said was that “real median weekly incomes have dropped since the last Census by $45 in Southland, $50 in Waikato and $24 in Taranaki.” Actually, since the census, real median after-tax weekly incomes have increased by $76 in Southland, not gone down by $45; they have increased by $43 in the Waikato, not gone down; and they have increased by $85 in Taranaki, not gone down. The Leader of the Opposition is making things up. What I was interested in was that the TV cameras probably turned off as he was quoting those facts and statistics that were all wrong. He went on to say that Jacinda Ardern won Wellington Central, Clayton Cosgrove is doing advertising for Pantene, and Grant Robertson is actually 6 foot 7! This is a Labour leader who does not give truthful statistics, and I do not know whether that is knowingly or not.

The fact of the matter is that Government spending went up by 50 percent during the Labour tenure. It is actually well under control now, despite the pressures of the recession, the global financial crisis, and the Canterbury earthquakes. Inflation was running at 5.1 percent; we are now enjoying an inflation rate of only 1.4 percent. Of course, people will remember—in fact, first-home buyers will remember—mortgage interest rates at about 11 percent. They were around the 9, 10, or 11 percent mark under Labour, but, of course, they are averaging about 6 percent at the moment. If you are a first-home buyer, you would prefer interest rates to be around 5, 6, or 7 percent, not the 9, 10, or 11 percent that you saw under Labour.

Interestingly, although the new Labour Party leader No. 4 said that population growth in the provinces was going down, I would like to say that in my area, in Northland, numbers actually went up by 3,000. The population rose by 3,000 in Northland. It was not all me. It was not all me; a lot of it is to do with Government policy and people just simply enjoying the north.

We know that offshore we have got endorsement for what we are doing. Standard and Poor’s recently affirmed New Zealand’s AA+ credit rating. The IMF is “very supportive” of what is being done by this Government. In its annual check-up of New Zealand’s health, the IMF said that National is on the right track with our plan to get to Budget surplus and that it strikes the right balance. So we have got third-party, international endorsement of what we are doing. We do not have to make up statistics. We do not have to present what are, in fact, false facts, as the Labour Party is doing. The facts speak for themselves. We are very proud of our record, and we will continue to roll out programmes that support New Zealand’s economic growth and jobs.

I was reading the Sunday Star-Times in the weekend and noticed that the fourth Labour leader threatened that his next Government would take the Wairarapa seat from National. Bring it on, I say, because he will be the fourth Labour leader to be proved wrong. Then yesterday I was reading what the fourth Labour leader was going to do next year and what advice he had on the census, which came out today. I will read from the statement, which said: “Census data being released tomorrow will depict a widespread exodus from the regions as provincial New Zealanders flee small towns forgotten by the National Government, Labour Leader and Regional Development spokesman David Cunliffe says.” He went on: “Something must be done to turn around the compounding effect on our regions of an aging population and a loss of opportunities.” It is clear that the fourth Labour leader has not visited my Wairarapa electorate recently, if ever. If he had, he would never have made either statement, as this morning’s Dominion Post shows. Can I read the headline to the House. It shouts from the paper: “Impulse buys joins cool Carterton’s boom”.

What is going on here? The evidence is in the Dominion Post. Carterton’s population has grown 16 percent since the last census. Phil Goff knows that, because in the adjournment he was deer shooting over in my electorate. And Steven Joyce, our Minister for business and regional development, knows that, because he spent part of his adjournment visiting my electorate and meeting a broad cross-section of people. He wanted to listen to their ideas, which the Government could adopt to create jobs. He met Adrienne Staples, Mayor of South Wairarapa, who told him that the population in South Wairarapa had grown by 7.2 percent over the census period. He met Masterton’s mayor, Garry Daniell. I will just for one second say what a superb job Garry has done for the people of Masterton over many, many years, most recently as mayor of that community. He told Steven Joyce that after a period of stagnation going back to 1986, the Masterton community was again growing, and in the census period had grown by more than 3 percent.

Wairarapa News writer Piers Fuller was wrong when he wrote on 10 October last year: “South Wairarapa has 9120 people now and is expected to have 9300 by 2031.” I am really sorry, but both Piers Fuller and David Cunliffe got that wrong. South Wairarapa had 9,528 people on census night in March of this year—18 percent growth in the Kahutara part of that electorate. I noted earlier that our population has been static or in decline since 1986, so why has it started to grow since 2008? It is pretty simple—the arrival of the John Key - led Government. The economic recovery he has brought about is gaining momentum, and it is driven by low interest rates, it is driven by investment, and it is driven by strong export prices.

As Steven Joyce discovered in the Wairarapa last week, business and consumer confidence is improving as companies become more competitive and exports are growing. Companies like Harvest Electronics—eight new jobs in the last 12 months, taking the company from 10 to 18 people. If you think about Metalform (Dannevirke), it has got more than 50 jobs now and they are growing and moving to Ōringi. There is a major supermarket company about to come into Dannevirke, creating 50 new jobs. Economic growth in our provincial part of New Zealand is comparable with Australia’s and higher than almost every other developing country’s. Our economy is forecast to grow between 2 and 3 percent a year over the next 4 years. That is why the provinces are not losing people.

The reason that Labour has no prospect of recovering the Wairarapa seat in the next election is, first of all, it wants to bring back a capital gains tax. That would punish business and farmers. Labour would want to promote a big gap between the companies tax rate and the top personal income tax rate, which would encourage tax avoidance. Labour would want to impose large costs on business and farms with a more punitive emissions trading scheme. The Wairarapa electorate knows and New Zealand knows that we need more taxpayers, not more taxes. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.