General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. What a week for David Cunliffe. What a week for the Artful Dodger over there, the Leader of the Opposition. Let us see where he started the week. He started the week with poll numbers that, frankly, made the David Shearer days look like the golden age of Labour. If he thought that was a bad starting point, it was all going to go from bad to worse for “Tricky” David Cunliffe.

The question on everyone’s lips this week, the question that everyone is trying to get their heads around, is who is David Cunliffe? Who is he? Which of the many faces of David Cunliffe should we believe? Is it the “Politics of Envy” Leader of the Opposition, who tried to tell New Zealand that he lived a very middle-of-the-road, middle existence in his little doer-upper in the suburbs, when, of course, it turns out that he is one of the very wealthy in New Zealand and lives in a mansion in what can only be described as one of the most exclusive suburbs? Is it “Mr Doublespeak”, who promises to the unions that they can expect that they are on their way back to the good old days of the 1970s, or is it the guy who turns up in front of the businesses and the boardrooms and promises that all will be all right under the free market Harvard graduate going back to Milton Friedman?

No, I do not think it is any of those. Perhaps it is “Devious Dave”, who came out with his child payment policy and promised New Zealand that it would apply to nearly 60,000 families, and then had to quietly correct it to say: “Oh, when I said 60,000, I actually meant more like 30,000. But it is all in the numbers—just a small error.” Interestingly enough, he tried to blame staff for that one as well, but he had to accept responsibility for that. Perhaps it is “Dodgy Dave”, who New Zealand is now learning funnelled his donations through a secret trust. Is that not interesting? This is the same David Cunliffe who was part of the Labour Government that reformed the electoral finance laws in relation to donations and railed about transparency and honesty and accountability. But when it was his turn, what was the advice he took? It was: “Let us have a secret trust so we don’t have to tell the public who is really backing us.” Is that not interesting?

You have got Shane Jones, who is quite prepared to be open with the public. Even Grant Robertson did not mind telling the public who was behind him. So what is it with David Cunliffe? Why is it that he could not be straight with New Zealand and tell them who was funding him? You have to wonder. Now he has come out and when a bit of pressure comes on he is prepared to name three of the donors. He was quite happy to take the money of the other two, quite a substantial amount, thousands and thousands of dollars—he was happy to take it—but now that the heat is on, he would rather just give it all back and make it go away. Well, I think New Zealand wants to know who they were. Who were they? Maybe it was Kim Dotcom. Maybe it was his union mates. How will we know? This doyen of transparency and reform of electoral finance law is now suddenly “Shady Dave”—“Shady Dave”, who does not want to tell us anything. You have to say that since David Cunliffe became leader of the Labour Party, it has been gaffes galore. It has been one shipwreck after another.

That is only the start of them. Who remembers his electoral law breach during the by-election, when David Cunliffe broke the electoral laws, breached the rules and said “Oh, sorry, it was an error.”? We are hearing a lot of excuses. I think we have heard “It was an error.”, “It was a mistake of judgment.”, and “In hindsight it was a bad call.” We have heard “technical glitch”, we have heard “oversight”, and we have heard “That was my staff. I didn’t know it was happening.” Just this week he managed to throw one of his own MPs under the bus when he let them take the rap for his own office’s disclosure of draft policy to us. His own office disclosed the draft policy, and he was quite happy to throw one of his MPs under the bus. So we can add another one: he is also “Disloyal Dave”. He is “Disloyal Dave” as well as everything else.

He came out, of course, after the Grammys and congratulated Lorde. He could not spell her name right, withdrew the congratulations, and blamed it on an error. He could not get his CV right. That was a mistake, all of that padding and stuff that he had forgotten he had not actually done. He copied Grant Robertson’s candidacy announcement—another glitch. He misled the public on Shane Jones’ stance in the leadership contest. I think the thing is this. What New Zealand knows is that if you cannot run a party and you cannot run your own affairs, you sure cannot run a country. We do not want any part of “Tricky Dave”.

The Green Party in Government will put children at the heart of every decision that we make, at the heart of all of our policies, and at the heart of all our work. What did we discover last week? The Government has been masking, hiding, the number of children who are living in severe poverty in this country. It missed out on 20,000 kids last year—20,000 children and their families were ignored by this Government. The Green Party will not ignore those children. We will work to bring them out of the poverty that they suffer. Let us just have a think about the legacy of John Key. John Key, since he has been Prime Minister, has seen 45,000 more children living in poverty than before he came to power. There are 45,000 more children and their families in poverty under John Key. The Green Party will change that if we get a chance to be at the heart of a progressive Government after this 2014 election.

This Government is failing New Zealand’s children, and it does not need to be that way. We can make a difference for each of the 285,000 children in poverty. We can change the lives of each of those children and their families. This is how we can do it. The Green Party will put children and their needs at the heart of all our decisions. We have already come up with three major sets of solutions to help address the poverty that our kids are suffering. Step one is to bring about a living wage for families, to raise the minimum wage, and to make sure that working families have enough money to get by on. Not only will we do that; we will raise benefits, because we know that most of the kids who live in poverty are from benefit-dependent households, and that is because benefits are too low. Given that work does not solve poverty, actually, under this current Government, we must also raise the minimum wage, move to a living wage, and make sure that benefits are decent enough for families to live on.

We will make sure every family has access to a warm and dry home for their kids through our Home for Life programme for progressive ownership, so that ownership of their own home really is within the grasp of young families. We will make sure there is a warrant of fitness for all rental properties—not just a few, like this Government has done, but all rental properties. We know that most of the children who live in poverty live in cold, damp homes. There will be security of tenure so those who are the most vulnerable in their housing, including State house tenants, know they will be able to live in a home, rent that home, and have some security for themselves and their families when times get hard.

Finally, there will be school community hubs. Schools are at the heart of their communities, and we can make sure they can support their communities and their kids better by relieving teachers and principals of the social obligations, if you like, and the social difficulties that families face. We will have a full-time facilitator in every low-decile school, a dedicated school nurse, a free school lunch fund for those schools, and free after-school care for those families. We know that so many kids miss out on extending their education because their families cannot afford after-school care and programmes.

We will build 20 new community-based childhood education centres, not private but not-for-profit, on school grounds. I have talked about this before. I know a young woman really well who has two kids—one at preschool, one at school—with no money and no car. When she has no food, where can she get help? Well, she will be able to get help at the school. She will know that her younger child can go to early childhood education there and that her older child will get a great public education at that public school. It is close by, so she can walk to it. The children will be fed through a national lunch fund that the Green Party will put in place when we are in Government. We can make a difference for every single one of those children who live in poverty. We will make that difference when we are part of a progressive Government after this election in 2014. Thank you.

In the last week or so we have been watching the unfolding of a Shakespearean piece of work on the other side of this House. I am still unable to work out whether it is a tragedy, a drama, a thriller, a comedy, or a documentary, or all rolled into one. It all centres on the leader of the Labour Party.

The good news about having been in this House for a long time is that you actually get to a point where you think you cannot see anything new under the sun. But there is something new, and I want the Labour Party members to listen up. It goes like this. I have never seen ever, in the history of the New Zealand Parliament, a political leader of a party who was not voted to that position by his own team. I have never seen that—I have never seen it. In fact, I do not know of any country around the world that has a political leader of a party who did not enjoy a majority. So, Mr Cunliffe, I suggest to the House, starts from behind the eight ball. That is what you would say in the old vernacular. He starts from behind the eight ball, where less than one-third of his team actually wanted him.

One of the things he could do is win support. He could get out there and have some real big hits. Can Labour score some hits? Yes, it can. Shane Jones has shown that. Shane Jones has shown how to have a really big hit. He has done it. Oh, and guess what? He did not brief his leader on it and did not discuss it with his leader. Wow! That is team playing for you, Mr Jones—that is team playing for you.

But Mr Cunliffe’s tragedy cum drama cum thriller cum comedy keeps unfolding. In any other sport, be it baseball, softball, or whatever, even in some of the legal things with regard to offending, we all know of a thing called “three strikes and you’re out”—“three strikes and you’re out”. No wonder Mr Cunliffe did not support the “three strikes and you’re out” policy, because I was actually going to get up to give this speech, saying that he has had his three strikes. There was “baby bonus - gate”. We all remember “baby bonus - gate”, where he badly screwed up the announcement of that. Then there was “leafy suburb - gate”. We all remember “leafy suburb - gate”. He is an ordinary common man of the people, and then it turns out that he is earning in the top 0.1 percent of 1 percent of income earners and lives in a house worth more than most of us put together. That was fine. But then we got “trust-gate”. “Trust-gate” I thought was a real clincher.

But there are some more. I have had something handed to me just today. Poor Clare Curran has been blamed—has been blamed—for the leak of the information and communications technology policy yesterday. It was her fault—that is what we were all going to say. It was her fault. Poor Clare Curran. But I have just been told that David Cunliffe’s chief press secretary, Simon Cunliffe—a relation, I presume—

💬 Chris Hipkins: That’s a bit low.

What is wrong? Did you hear that? “Chippy” over there says that it is a bit low to say that he is a relation. Is he that bad now that you do not want to even claim that you are a relative of the guy? How bad is that, when he does not want to even say he is a relation of his? That is bad.

Let us go to “trust-gate”. What was “trust-gate” about? It was about getting money into the coffers for your leadership challenge and not telling anybody where it came from—and not telling anybody where it came from. Well, we have got some speculation on this side. We think it was Kim Dotcom. We think there is almost no doubt, but we do not know, you see. They go “Oh, no, no.”, but we do not know. We do not know where that money came from. It could be from Kim Dotcom. It could be from Owen Glenn—it could be from Owen Glenn.

💬 Hon Member: Putin.

No, no. My friend up there got carried away and said it was Putin, but that is not right. It could be Matt McCarten. There is a really good one. The Unite union got him into power because the caucus did not want him. The caucus did not want him. They still do not want him. They want him out.

I want to tell that Labour Party that you have got to be very careful when you are on the slippery slope. One of the bits of history that I remember was 1990. In 1990 Labour’s then leader, its then Prime Minister, Geoffrey Palmer, just was not cutting the mustard. I used to talk to Labour backbenchers and they used to say: “Jeez, I don’t know what we’re going to do here.” Well, do you know what the Labour Party did? Six weeks before the general election it said: “We can’t go on with him.” and it cut him. It went to Mike Moore and do you know what? The old adage of “Cheer up; things could be worse.”—well, they cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse. Labour went out on a slippery sliding hiding to nothing.

This leader is gone. He is dog tucker. He has had his three strikes and he should get out.

Sunday was Children’s Day. To celebrate the day we went out and asked Kiwis just what their dreams were for Kiwi kids. The responses were not something to celebrate. The responses were, in turn, heartbreaking and infuriating. It was a hard lesson in just how tough it is for New Zealanders and their families, and just how tough life has become for so many under this Government. It is like this response from Eleanor, a teacher who claims that kids fall asleep in class because their house is so cold that it keeps them awake. Or the response from another Kiwi who dreams of a day when “I take my kid to the supermarket and he wants a lollipop or chocolate, and I can get it for him because I have got enough money and a good job. I want to see him happy and not crying because I can’t afford it.” Those are New Zealanders’ dreams for their children under National’s New Zealand—to be able to afford a lollipop when they take them to the supermarket.

This response is from Angela, who wants kids simply to have clean waterways, green grass and parks, to enjoy the Kiwi lifestyle. Another person dared to dream of a New Zealand in which kids could “have their parents around, not working all hours just to make ends meet.” It is like the woman in Papakura, whom I met a few weeks ago, who works 16 hours to support two teenage boys and who has not had a pay rise since Helen Clark was the Prime Minister. She is on less than $14 an hour. Shame, shame, shame! Or this from Byron, who wrote: “I have nightmares about being able to afford my son’s education, and pray that I will be able to help build the finance.”

Then there are the endless, endless dreams of warm houses, of kids not going hungry, and of parents with decent jobs: “I want to be loved, fed, and secure. I want my kids to have their basic needs met. I want a family that I can feed and raise. I want breakfast, lunch, and dinner; warm clothes to wear; a full tummy; a warm, dry home; nourishing food; warm, clean clothing; and parents who have time. I just want to be valued.” That is where National is taking New Zealand—to a point where making our kids warm and fed and safe is not a policy, it is a dream. Even more damning is the fact that under National so many of those dreams will continue to be unfulfilled as the gap between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider.

Let us not forget that in the last fortnight we found out that another 20,000 New Zealand kids are living in poverty because the Government got its numbers wrong, and that it knew about it before it declared it to this Parliament. There are now 285,000 children living below the poverty line, growing up in poverty—more than the populations of Dunedin and Hamilton combined. It is a disgrace that so many children and their families are in poverty and left dreaming of meeting the basic needs of life because this Government has washed its hands of them.

Well, Labour has not walked away. We have a dream that we will make a reality. It is one that we share with Curtis and many other kids who have written to us. We stand for kids being able to follow their dreams, no matter where they are or how much money is in their parents’ wallets. Both the Prime Minister and I had those kinds of opportunities, but the difference is that his Government is pulling the ladder up after itself while we are extending it for all New Zealanders. That is why we will be extending the number of jobs out there and making sure New Zealanders in all our regions have the opportunity for better jobs and higher wages. That is why we introduced the Best Start package for children.

I note that National is yet to attack the substance—I wonder why. It is yet to attack the substance because either it would like to do it or it does not want to be seen arguing against the principle of feeding our kids. Giving $60 a week to the families that wrote in here will make a difference—so will paid parental leave, so will early childhood education, and so will decent care for the mothers. We want a future for all New Zealand’s children, not just for some.

In the months ahead the New Zealand public get to see two teams lining up toe to toe. They will see the A-Team, clearly led by a very strong, confident, optimistic, positive Prime Minister, John Key. We are delivering for hard-working New Zealanders every day a stronger economy, more jobs, higher wages, safer streets and communities, higher levels of achievement in education, and, of course, better access to health care. And then we have the B-Team—or should we say the C-Team? Actually, that is probably a bit generous. I think it is the D-Team—D for David. Or is it “Tricky David”? Or is it “Clumsy Cunliffe”? Or is it “Which-way-is-up Day” today? Because New Zealanders right now—actually, do not even worry about New Zealanders, because the members of his own caucus do not know which way he is heading. They do not know what he stands for and therefore they do not know what they stand for.

In terms of talking about standing, it is really interesting to see that we have seats in Timaru—for example, the seat of Rangitata. Only a few months ago David Shearer was saying that Labour was clearly going to retake the provincial seat of Rangitata. Well, actually, you cannot even get a candidate, so in terms of trying to get members on your team, you are obviously struggling—so good luck with that. At the end of the day they have to be able to hold the ball and not drop the ball, and not drop it more than twice in one day.

It is really interesting if you talk to and listen to constituents on the street. [Interruption] Do not mind me, Mr Robertson—just have a little tête-à-tête across the House. Hard-working New Zealanders have got things that they are interested in hearing about. One of them is jobs. We talk a lot in the House about jobs and I want to talk about some of the things that this Government is doing in provincial New Zealand. Dream on—actually, we should add to David Cunliffe’s title “Dream Chaser”, or today it was the “Chief Fantasy Officer”, in terms of some of the things that he is dreaming up.

In hard-working rural and provincial New Zealand, in a seat like Taupō, what counts is jobs and the things that this Government is doing to create jobs. It is attracting major international events and keeping them in provincial New Zealand, like the Ironman New Zealand competition, which celebrated its 30th anniversary, through the Major Events Development Fund, which supports these sorts of activities. There has been an $8 million extension to the Cycleway Fund, which helps to maintain significant infrastructure in places like Tokoroa, Pūtāruru, and Tīrau, where jobs are created as a result of the Waikato River Trail. The fact is that there are tourists and visitors who come into that area who have never come before. If you look at the new, soon-to-be-opened Great Lake Trail in Taupō—

💬 Sue Moroney: How many jobs?

💬 Hon Annette King: How many jobs do you get from an Ironman?

—that is another thing that brings visitors into our towns and creates jobs. You are asking about jobs. The number of jobs that came from people who were previously unemployed in the south Waikato who got jobs because of the Waikato River Trail is a record that I am proud of. I am proud of people who come off unemployment benefits and go into work. That is what this Government is doing, and it is delivering on it every day.

Just last week I was in the electorate with Minister Paula Bennett and we were in one of the local Work and Income offices talking about one of the challenges that they are hearing. Do you know what that challenge is? It is that organisations are saying that they do not have the same number of volunteers they once had because some of the people who were volunteering before now have jobs. They have got jobs they need to turn up to. So I think that is a good problem that we have as a country. There is silence from the other side now because they do not like the fact that we are talking about jobs and that we are talking about getting people off benefits and into work. Whatever job it is, we think that it is important. This side of the House values work. We think it is important that we are getting people off benefits and into work. I, for one, am proud.

Next month at the velodrome, the home of cycling—in Cambridge, not in Hamilton, as was reported by one of the daily newspapers—we will welcome the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Not only is it for high-performance sport, which this Government is funding, a large number of the people who will use that facility are the community members who are learning to ride. It backs up another initiative that this hard-working Government is delivering, instead of the dreamers on the other side.

There is a reason that the Cabinet Manual has strict rules in place about the declaration of conflicts of interest. It is because New Zealand taxpayers expect that when Ministers go about their business, particularly when they go overseas, they will do so in a way that is fair, that is good value for money, and that will not in any way advantage them or anyone they know. It is my view, and I believe it would be the view of most New Zealanders, that Judith Collins taking a trip paid for by the taxpayer to the Shanghai office of a company in which her husband is one of only three directors, going to that office, having her photograph taken, and having that photograph appear on the company’s website, and that website saying she was endorsing their products constitutes a breach of the Cabinet Manual. It constitutes a conflict of interest that John Key today says is no problem to him. Well, I say to him to release that advice. Release that advice today, because for most New Zealanders Judith Collins’ actions are a clear conflict of interest.

It is not as if this visit to the Oravida office in Shanghai is Judith Collins’ only action in this regard. She also opened the Auckland office of Oravida in 2013. Her husband went on the board in 2012. Oravida is also the organisation that donated over $55,000 to the National Party in 2011.

💬 Dr David Clark: How much?

It was $55,000. So Judith Collins, knowing all of that, goes to that office and promotes the products of that company. That is a conflict of interest. Judith Collins is not above the rules. She is not above the law. This National Government might be arrogant enough to think it is above the rules and above the law, but it is not. New Zealanders want to know that when Ministers go overseas, it is taxpayer money well spent. What they have seen here is a Minister prepared to flout what a conflict of interest is to most people.

This company is not one that just Judith Collins has a deep involvement in; this company is also one that reaches far into the National Party. I will table at the end of this speech further information from the Oravida website that makes clear that when Oravida sponsored a group of business people from China to come to New Zealand in 2012, they met with Peter Goodfellow, who was identified by Oravida on the website as the “National Party chairman”, to discuss the exciting opportunity of extensively developing a foundation for bilateral collaborations. That is Peter Goodfellow, as the president of the National Party, meeting in that position—not in his role as a businessman, apparently, but as the president of the National Party—to help extend the relationship with this company, Oravida. What I can also tell the House is that Mr Goodfellow’s company Sanford supplies fish products to Oravida. So we now have a situation where the president of the National Party—meeting in that position; giving an endorsement, effectively, to the relationship between that company and New Zealand—is also supplying products and benefiting from that.

Here we have a company where a senior Cabinet Minister’s husband is on the board. He is going about his business as a director in a way that will benefit him and will benefit that company. The Minister goes to China, appears in photographs, has a statement that she is endorsing this company, and opens its office. We have donations to the party. The National Party is in donkey deep with its cronies once again here, and there are questions to answer for Judith Collins and John Key about whether they think it is acceptable to have this level of conflict of interest.

💬 Hon Annette King: What about Pansy Wong?

This is Pansy Wong all over again.

What a dreadful start to the year it has been for the beleaguered Labour Opposition and its oleaginous leader du jour, Mr David Cunliffe. No wonder the heads were down on the Opposition benches. Those members could not even pretend to be interested or supportive as he was putting questions to the Prime Minister this afternoon. This is the “Member for Herne Bay $2.5 Million Do-uppers”, who is trying to pretend to the nation at large that he is a man of the people, that he has got the interests of the public at heart, and that he understands the common man, or whatever the term might be these days. Half of the Labour Opposition looked to be suffering severe pain while he was speaking and the other half looked like possums trapped in the headlights. Most of those members did not want him. You have got to give them credit for that—at least they understood that. They tried to tell Labour’s members and they tried to tell the unions, but those other parties in Labour’s overall cluster said: “No, we know best, and you have got to have him.”, and he is proving to be even worse than they feared he would be.

Let us see what that veteran New Zealand Herald columnist John Armstrong, who has been around for a long time and who knows the scene, had to say today. Under the headline “Two Cunliffe mea culpas in four days smacks of clumsiness”, John Armstrong wrote: “That he cannot seem to stop his fingers hovering over the self-destruct button is no surprise to anyone who has watched him for any length of time.” What a devastating comment that is from a man of John Armstrong’s experience. He goes on to say: “It is a great mystery why someone overly blessed with essential political attributes gets it wrong with such frequency. Maybe it is overconfidence. Maybe it is an inability to see the line between being bold and being foolhardy. He got away with it when he held lower ranked positions in the Labour caucus. The role of Leader of the Opposition offers no escape from the spotlight.”, and so it goes on. A devastating critique—devastating because of its unbelievable accuracy.

This is a leader who relies on dodgy CVs, a leader who relies on secret trusts, and a leader who relies on blatant bribes for voters with promises that do not stack up and could not possibly be afforded. He is so desperate to win support from a few of his caucus that he is promising them a bonus if they would just go forth and multiply. How ridiculous it is to suggest that the new benchmark for poverty in this country is just a little bit more than a backbench MP’s salary. Boy, that is going to be a winner on the hustings this year! It is about as credible as suggesting that a $2.5 million home in Herne Bay is just a modest do-upper in middle New Zealand. Yet it is consistent with all the other nonsense that has been coming out of a party that is hopelessly divided, hopelessly bereft of sensible or constructive ideas, and hopelessly out of touch with the electorate.

The Labour Party hopes to convince New Zealanders later this year that it was not responsible for getting this country into the recession when it was in Government, and yet, somehow, it has also got the best policies for continuing to lead us out of it. Well, as the Prime Minister noted in question time today, our economy is the envy of most other countries and commentators in the developed world. Why is that? Well, the National-led Government’s programme to build a faster-growing economy, with more jobs and rising incomes, is being shown to deliver.

💬 Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?

There are lots of jobs being created in my electorate, and I invite you to come and see it. In fact, a lot of the jobs are now in your electorate, because Haier has just announced 65 new jobs in Dunedin. Yet your leader, that rather confused Mr Cunliffe, was opposed to something that has actually turned out to be very good for your own electorate.

I would like to put on record a few of the contrasts between what we inherited from the Labour Government and its record and what we have got now. The current account deficit when National took office after 9 years of Labour was 9 percent of GDP. Today the current account deficit is 4.3 percent of GDP. Net external debt under Labour blew out to 84 percent of GDP. Today it is down to 71 percent of GDP. It is still too high and we are getting it down, and we must continue to do so. Inflation was running at more than 5 percent under Labour. Today under National it is 1.6 percent. Mortgage interest rates averaged nearly 11 percent. Today they average about half that amount. And so it goes on. These are the important things that matter to New Zealanders, these are the things that we can campaign on this year, and these are the things that New Zealanders want us to continue to deliver.

I said that I would table a document at the end of my speech, so I seek leave to table a document from the Oravida website—it is not easy to obtain—from June 2012 about a visit from the Shanghai municipality to New Zealand—

Order! I think the document has been described. I suspect it is actually relatively easy to source, but I am in a very generous mood. I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table this particular document from the website of the company. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

We heard earlier this afternoon in question time about some improvements in the delivery of drug and alcohol treatment to inmates in our prisons, and that is a good thing. I suspect that it will not be sufficient, but it is a step forward, and I acknowledge that this Minister of Corrections has made some genuine efforts to improve the situation around imprisonment and incarceration. It is too little, but at least there are some good ideas and some good initiatives being seen.

Sadly, in the overall picture, however, we have a very long way to go. I believe that some New Zealanders would be disappointed and surprised, and even ashamed, at some of the events and some of the conditions that are observable in some of our prisons. We have had two recent documents from watchdogs, independent bodies with no political axe to grind, that are very clearly and very graphically outlining some of the appalling conditions that people are being subject to in our prisons—something that is way below the mark for a country that prides itself on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

A report from the Human Rights Commission in December, Monitoring Places of Detention, talked about the dreadful conditions in at least two of our prisons to which segregated prisoners are being subjected. It talks about particularly bad living conditions for segregated inmates at Auckland and Mt Eden prisons. It refers to accommodation for prisoners currently undergoing periods of segregation as being “well below standard and could be considered cruel and inhumane for the purpose of the Convention Against Torture.” I believe that it would shock and disappoint many New Zealanders that we are subjecting inmates in our prisons to conditions that could be considered cruel and inhumane under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. It is simply not good enough, and it is something that we need to pay some real attention to.

There were general shortcomings found in the whole matter of segregation in that document, in that report. We are told that part of the solution is a rebuild of the maximum security wing at Pāremoremo prison, but that will not begin until some time later this year. I ask the question: when there is such a patent need for decent humane accommodation for these inmates, why has that work at Pāremoremo not been advanced ahead of the $900 million white elephant currently being constructed at Wiri?

The second document, the second report from just a few weeks ago, is a special investigation into the management of a prisoner by the name of Arthur Taylor at Auckland prison. Again, this finds that Mr Taylor was initially put into segregation for a period of 14 days for the possession of a cellphone, which, yes, is something he ought not to have had. That 14-day segregation was extended to 8 months. For 8 months this man was subjected, effectively, to 23-hours-a-day lockdown. He was deprived of association with, and the company of, other inmates. He was deprived of basic minimum requirements that ought to be provided to every inmate. Those findings come from our own Office of the Ombudsmen, which I would argue is beyond dispute in terms of its observation. For 8 months the Department of Corrections failed to follow its own rules. There was a complete breakdown in its checks and balances. Decisions were made in advance of information being presented. There were process failures, which have been noted by the ombudsman. There were failures to provide even minimum requirements. For many days and, indeed, weeks at a time this inmate had no access to exercise in the outside.

This situation needs a response. It is no light matter. I have signed a letter, along with others, including a QC and barristers, asking the Commissioner of Police to consider whether criminal charges ought to be brought against the management of Pāremoremo prison and, indeed, against the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections for their failure in their duty of care to inmates. They are legislatively obliged to ensure that the inmates in our prisons are treated decently and humanely. According to the evidence of the ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission, they failed in their duty of care in ways that could well put them in contravention of our Crimes of Torture Act. We have asked the police to investigate that. We need to do a great deal better in our prisons. It is not good enough, and we look to a better time with a more progressive Government. Kia ora.

Fifty years ago, in 1963, in a small town in Te Aroha in the North Island one David Richard Cunliffe was being born. Sitting on one side of the bed was the good fairy. The good fairy blessed David Richard Cunliffe with charm, intelligence, and good looks—a leader in the making. Unfortunately, sitting on the other side of the bed was the bad fairy, who made him out to be the plonker that he is today. The other side of the House knows that the bad fairy won out on that day, because it is having such a tough time doing any good work and trying to get up in the polls.

Across the House I see Grant Robertson smiling. He is smiling because he knows that he is next in line. He is next in line. Chris Hipkins is smiling, too, I can see—sitting on the other side of the Leader of the Opposition’s seat—because Chris Hipkins knows that he was right. Chris Hipkins knows that when he said that David Cunliffe could not be trusted, he was absolutely right. The Labour Party has had a heck of a year. It is going backwards, it is not going forwards, and it knows that it is not going well.

💬 Hon Annette King: You got here because of Pansy.

During question time, Annette King, who is calling out right now—also Parliament’s most famous landlady, superannuitant, and someone who has been here longer than I have been alive—called out “Shambles.” She used the word “shambles”. She used the word “shambles”. I want to expand on that. I want to use the term coined by the British political scene’s most famous spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker. He would call what the Labour Party is going through an omnishambles. It is going through an omnishambles right now—an omnishambles where it just cannot get things right.

Its leader is tricky. Its leader was blessed by the bad fairy. Donations are being kept secret, when those members are the ones who try to say that donations need to be brought out into the open. Leaked emails are coming out of the Labour Party left, right, and centre. Poor old Clare Curran got blamed for it, then a staff member got blamed for it, and then we found out that it was actually through David Cunliffe’s own office. Do you know that David Cunliffe—I was looking him up on Wikipedia today—is actually an honorary fellow of the Institute of IT Professionals? An honorary fellow of the Institute of IT Professionals who does not know how to use email properly! What does that say? What does that say? It says that the Labour Party is having an omnishambles.

It started off with the baby bribe earlier in the year. Labour members were going out there telling New Zealanders that all these people were going to get $60 a week. It turns out they were wrong. It turns out that another staff member got blamed again. It turns out that only half of those people were going to get the baby bribe. The electoral law breaches last year are also interesting. How can we have a Leader of the Opposition who does not even know that he cannot campaign on election day?

💬 Jacqui Dean: He knows.

Actually, he probably does know; he is just being “Tricky Dave” once again.

This Government is delivering for New Zealanders. That side of the House is going backwards in the polls. This side of Parliament has delivered 66,000 new jobs in the last year. Forty thousand people every year are getting elective surgery—more than what was happening when Labour was in office. Seventeen thousand people have come off a welfare benefit in the past year. Ten percent more kids are leaving school with National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. New Zealanders have a Government that is delivering. New Zealanders see on the other side of the House an Opposition that is tricky, that is having a nightmare of an election year at the moment, and that is going backwards in the polls.

I just want to finish off by saying that this side of the House thanks the bad fairy because the bad fairy is delivering for the Labour Party what Phil Goff never could. Phil Goff could only get to 27 percent. Mr David Cunliffe—David Richard Cunliffe—is going to deliver a result for the Labour Party that is even further south than that.

This Government is delivering for New Zealanders. This side of Parliament is getting the support of New Zealanders because we have got a leader who knows what he is doing. We have got a leader who is high in the polls because he is delivering for New Zealanders. He is honest, he is trustworthy, and he is not tricky like the other side.

It will not have escaped the attention of anyone in the House that Jami-Lee Ross came into this House when Pansy Wong had to resign from Parliament in disgrace because of dodgy business dealings in China involving members of her family. That is how we ended up with Jami-Lee Ross in the House in the first place. Now we have got another Minister in the gun for dodgy dealings as well—that is Judith Collins.

I want to know whether the National Party will walk the talk that it has been talking today. Will it fess up and reveal where all of its donations came from? The money that it filtered, it laundered, through the New Zealand Free Enterprise Trust, the Holland Memorial Trust, the Southern Free Enterprise Trust, the Waitematā Trust, the Ruahine Trust, and—my favourite—the Nationalist Trust of Timaru? All of those trusts were being used to launder money by the National Party. Millions of dollars—not a couple of thousand, but millions of dollars—was laundered through those trusts. If those members are not willing to name all of the individual donors who put money through those trusts, then they are hypocrites—hypocrites—and no other word will describe them. That is exactly how they can be described because they used trusts to filter millions of dollars—millions of dollars.

While we are on the subject of trusts, will John Key fess up and admit that he did not tell the truth when it came to his own blind trust? This is his own blind trust that he supposedly does not know anything about, when, in fact, this blind trust was the trust that took care of the shares in his vineyard, which he personally buys wine from every year to give away as his PM’s Pinot. He claims that he does not know whether he owns those shares or not, despite the fact that John Key has perfected the art of establishing a look-through blind trust so that he can keep an eye on where all of his shares are going. He bought those shares in Highwater Vineyard just before the election, and since then he has used—

💬 Grant Robertson: And Tranz Rail.

Oh, let us not get started on Tranz Rail. He repeatedly lied to the public of New Zealand when it came to his shareholdings in Tranz Rail. He did not tell the truth. He told porkies. He was caught on television telling porkies, and the whole country knew that.

So is the National Party willing to walk the talk? Is it going to walk the talk? Will it reveal its anonymous donations? No. Will John Key now fess up and admit that he lied when he said that he did not know about the shareholdings of his supposedly look-through blind trust? And will Judith Collins now admit that she was involved—embroiled—in a dodgy deal to further her husband’s business interests?

It is not just her; the whole National Party is donkey deep in this Oravida scandal. Judith Collins’ husband was appointed to the board immediately after large donations were made by that company to the National Party. The Auckland office opening of Oravida was crawling with senior National Party figures, from Jenny Shipley down, including Peter Goodfellow, who, of course, is one of the suppliers of fish products to Oravida. He met with Oravida as National Party president to discuss New Zealand Government endorsement for its products. And, of course, John Key is involved in this as well, because it is not just Judith Collins lining up for photo opportunities with Oravida. John Key played golf with the director of Oravida and had his photo taken, and we know that that photo is being used in China to promote Oravida products. It is the Prime Minister right up there with Judith Collins endorsing Oravida products—the company that Judith Collins’ husband is a director of. This is the National Government looking after its mates. It is crony capitalism at its best—the National Party’s dodgy dealings.

So will Judith Collins do the honourable thing and follow Pansy Wong? When Pansy Wong was caught out, she had the decency to go. She had the decency to resign from Parliament. Will Judith Collins have that same level of integrity? Given her answers today, somehow I doubt it—somehow I doubt it. I am not going to be holding my breath waiting for Judith Collins to do the decent thing.

This is a Government that is not willing to walk the talk. It is not willing to walk the talk when it comes to setting high standards. John Key promised us a new threshold, a higher bar, for ministerial accountability and ministerial standards, and yet every year that he is Prime Minister, the threshold gets lowered. The standards get lowered. He is willing to have Peter Dunne knowingly leak documents, lie about it, and try to cover it up. He is willing to have Peter Dunne as a Minister in his Government. He is willing to have that crook John Banks as a member supporting his Government, and he does nothing about it.

I actually want to acknowledge the member Chris Hipkins. For a guy who got absolutely knifed by David Cunliffe, he just stood up and gave a very impassioned speech in his defence—ironic. But I have to hand it to the member. The trouble is that leadership is all about credibility—leadership is all about credibility. It is one of the biggest determiners of whether people will follow you and elect you to Government. This Government has been absolutely committed and relentless in the four key priorities that have got us to where we are now. The Northland electorate is a very good example of that. The Northland electorate has seen six quarters of economic growth. We are now the fastest-growing region in the country, with 2.4 percent growth over the last quarter. We are investing in infrastructure—the Pūhoi to Wellsford ultra-fast broadband. We are doing our best in the Treaty settlements. There is some really good work being done there. Onshore and offshore gas minerals—that is all under way. We are boosting our primary sector and doing the most we can to grow productivity. That is one small example of what New Zealanders actually expect from a Government.

The trouble with what we are seeing with the Opposition and the Labour Party is really the difference between being trustworthy and being tricky. Credibility is so important, and what we know is that David Cunliffe has lost the trust. He has lost the trust within his caucus—he probably never actually had it—and he has lost it with the New Zealand public as well. In fact, a poll on Stuff today even highlights that fact. David Cunliffe’s trickiness has now developed a life of its own. The Cunliffe narrative is now about his trickiness. In that Stuff poll, in terms of his leadership performance, 10 percent said it was good, 15 percent said it was good or bad—I am not sure what that means; somewhere in the middle—but 74 percent said it was bad. That is now the narrative. That is now the story. It is about David Cunliffe’s lack of credibility. His propensity to show a lack of judgment, also known as misleading people until one gets caught out, is now turning David Cunliffe into “David Cunningmyth”, and the New Zealand public have woken up to that. He is too tricky for his own good.

I just want to read a little excerpt from Duncan Garner, who has been in this place for many, many years as an experienced political voice, and is certainly not always a great friend of the National Party. He says this about David Cunliffe and his messiness over the trust: “[H]is apology is more than odd. He said: ‘I don’t think in hindsight that a trust structure fully represented the values I would like to bring to this leadership.’ ” Duncan Garner said: “That is weird and simply doesn’t stack up. It looks like a fake apology to me. I actually don’t believe him.”—I actually don’t believe him. “Values don’t just appear issue by issue. Values and principles are things that guide you in your everyday life. Surely Cunliffe would have known”—

💬 Hon Annette King: Say it to the Prime Minister.

—listen—“by now that having a ‘trust’ represented his values. And a trust structure completely represents who David Cunliffe is.” That is from Duncan Garner. What a condemning statement. And now the stories are all about Mr Cunliffe and his lack of credibility. We have seen three issues. We have seen the baby bonus bluff: “It must have been my staff—oh no, it was me!”. We have seen him backtracking and dilly-dallying around and trying to dodge the fact that he owns a very, very nice house in Marine Parade—a $2.5 million house. What is wrong with actually being proud of what you have worked for to achieve in life? I do not know why, but that is another example of him trying to mislead until he cannot do anything else. Then we have seen the debacle around the trust.

The point is that you cannot just pick and choose what your values are; the values are what they are in you, and when you try to please everyone by sidestepping the issue, you run into the problems that he has. He has brought in Matt McCarten to help solve the problem. What an extreme irony—that the marriage of the left and the extreme left is there to help solve them. Matt McCarten is no friend of “David Cunningmyth”. My goodness, has Matt McCarten had some things to say! When that marriage of inconvenience blows up, we are going to see a supernova of trickiness. We on this side of the House—and, I suspect, probably the media—are waiting with bated breath for that. The damage is already done. The damage is already done. David Cunliffe has been the master of his own demise. The “Anyone But Cunliffe” club was right, and the media has woken up to that. What we are hearing now, the noise coming out of the Labour Party, is: “Let’s just minimise the damage. We’re not going to win in 2014, but at least it’ll give us a chance to get rid of David Cunliffe.” David Cunliffe has become “David Cunningmyth” and is soon to become just another urban myth.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I want to talk about leadership. I want to elaborate on what leadership looks like to me. I was part of the 1975 “Not one acre more” land march that Whina Cooper started from Te Hāpua. We looked upon her as a great leader who could shift us and move us from a state of unbeing to a positive place. That 1975 land march was actually started while there was a Labour Government. I was also part of the hīkoi that came down to Wellington with Pita Sharples because Māori were not able to go to the High Court to test their case for the seabed and foreshore. That was also under a Labour Government. I was also part of a media group that worked on the Tūhoe raids when the police raided Tūhoe, and that was also done under a Labour Government.

So what we found when we came into office under this John Key - led National Government was that we had inherited an account deficit of 9 percent of GDP. We inherited external debt of a whopping 84 percent of GDP. We also inherited inflation of 1.5 percent and mortgage rates of 10 percent, and food prices were up 11 percent. But because of our great leader, the Prime Minister, John Key, we have moved from that state to a better place where we see over 135,000 homes in which a lot of Māori and Pasifika whānau live now insulated. We have also seen over 100,000 B4 School Checks, mainly on our Māori and Pasifika tamariki in South Auckland. We have also seen $2 million go into whānau and community Te Reo development.

We have also seen very, very strong leadership come from our Minister of Education, who has moved us from very uncomfortable ground. It was uncomfortable ground because under the previous Government we were not able to aspire to educational heights. What we have seen under this Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, is 25,400 Māori completing BA degrees or higher. We have also seen 76 percent completing tertiary studies, and 59 percent of Māori are achieving National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2, up from 44 percent. What we have seen from this Government is results for Māori, results for Pasifika people, and results for New Zealand.

But here is the cruncher, you see: 47 Treaty settlements. In 1975, because they were moving to the land march, there was a song, and one of the lines was “Freedom from oppression to live our rangatiratanga.”—freedom from oppression to live our rangatiratanga. That is 47 Treaty settlements today. The Māori economy is worth $38 billion, with 37 percent of the fish quota owned by Māori, 36 percent of the forestry assets owned by Māori, 12 percent of the sheep and beefs units owned by Māori, 10 percent of the dairy product owned by Māori, 10 percent of the kiwifruit production owned by Māori, and 30 percent of land production owned by Māori, and there is an estimated forecast of $12 billion per annum to New Zealand’s GDP. That is what Māori have returned to New Zealand, thanks, in large part, to the 47 Treaty settlements. That is what we call kotahitanga. Māori, because they have been allowed to exercise their rangatiratanga, have returned these assets to New Zealand, and that is what we call kotahitanga.

Thirty years ago a song came out because there was a 1975 land march, and the lines were “There is a movement on the street. Hear them talking—talking on the street”. Well, Māori are talking on the street. They are talking about the Treaty settlements, they are talking about the developments that are happening within their communities, and they are talking about the developments that are happening in the rural sector as well as the urban sector. We know that there is so much more to do. We know that that is not the end of the story. We know that we can do more. We know that we will try to do more by Māori, by Pasifika people, and by all New Zealanders. This John Key - led National Government is full of great leaders who are leading our country to a better, brighter future.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.