Urgent Debates — Justice, Minister—Compliance with Cabinet Manual

Honourable members, I have received a letter from Grant Robertson seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the statements made by the Hon Judith Collins about her involvement with the company Oravida. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, in which there is public interest. It is very important that the public have confidence in the conduct of Ministers and, to this end, that any conflicts of interest that they may have are well managed. A senior Minister is involved, and there is not a general debate today. Having carefully considered the application, I have decided to allow the debate.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. The reason we have conflict of interest provisions in the Cabinet Manual is so that there is something to prevent personal gain—gain by family, gain by friends, or gain by a political party—from the actions of a Minister. And it is quite clear to all New Zealanders that Judith Collins, in her actions, in visiting the offices of Oravida in China, and in holding a dinner with the chair of Oravida and a Chinese Government official, has a clear and demonstrable conflict of interest. And it is a failure of leadership from the Prime Minister that today he stood in this House and defended Judith Collins. He stood in this House, and the most he could say was that there was a perception of a conflict of interest. There has never, in my time in this House, been a clearer conflict of interest than Judith Collins’ role with Oravida.

Let us work through the time line of this situation with the National Party and Oravida. Let us be absolutely clear. Judith Collins’ husband was appointed to the board of Oravida in October 2012—October 2012. Not long after, Oravida announced its partnership with Sanford for exporting seafood to China—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who owns Sanford?

—Sanford being more than 50 percent owned by Peter Goodfellow, President of the National Party. Interestingly, some months before that, in July 2012, a delegation was brought to New Zealand from China, at Oravida’s behest. They met with Peter Goodfellow and described him on the Oravida website as the chairman of the National Party. Those are the beginning signs of the links between Oravida and the National Party being used to ensure that Oravida benefits.

But we have to take one important step back, and that is to the 2 days either side of the 2011 election, because on the day before the 2011 election, Oravida New Zealand Ltd donated $1,600 to the National Party. Then, curiously, a couple of days after the general election in 2011, Oravida New Zealand Ltd donated $55,000 to the National Party. That was $56,600 in political donations from Oravida New Zealand Ltd to the National Party. That happened at the end of 2011. The delegation came in 2012 and met Peter Goodfellow, and Judith Collins’ husband, David Wong-Tung, joined the board of Oravida at the end of 2012. Early in 2013 John Key was reported to have played golf with the chair of Oravida, Mr Stone Shi. There is a little flurry of activity, and we found out in just the last couple of days that Stone Shi and John Key have played golf on a number of occasions. So that link is in there as well.

Judith Collins, who had already made a trip to China in 2012, a trip where she did meet some businesses, talked in her trip reports to Cabinet about the businesses that she met, which was something she did not do after the 2013 visit. But in 2013 Judith Collins sought approval from John Key to go to China in October 2013. She did that in August 2013. Interestingly, at that time, she sought approval for her husband to also travel to China on that trip in October 2013. We will come back to that in a moment.

Not long after, in October 2013 but before she went to China, Judith Collins officiated at the official opening of Oravida’s offices in Auckland. That is attended by—let us list them—Dame Jenny Shipley, Sir Don McKinnon, Peter Goodfellow, Melissa Lee, Paul Goldsmith, John Banks, Anne Tolley, and, of course, Judith Collins, who got the opportunity to cut the ribbon. She cut the ribbon of the offices of a company that her husband is a director of. And let us be absolutely clear here. There are only three directors of this company: Stone Shi, Julia Xu, and David Wong-Tung, Judith Collins’ husband. There are only three directors of this company.

So Judith Collins officiated at the opening of the Auckland offices. Three days later she received an invitation to visit the Shanghai offices of Oravida Ltd. In that invitation the company said: “We would be honoured for you to visit us in Shanghai on 23 October 2013 during your official trip to Shanghai.” So let us be absolutely clear. Oravida knew whom it was inviting. It was inviting a Minister of the Crown to come and visit it. At that moment, if she had not done it at any point up to then, Judith Collins should have declared her conflict of interest—at that moment then. She should have known, frankly, that she should go nowhere near the Shanghai offices of Oravida. She should have known straight away that that would give rise to a conflict of interest if she visited the Shanghai office of a company that her husband is a director of and that has donated $56,000 to the National Party. That was 9 October but then on 15 October, mysteriously, David Wong-Tung withdrew from the trip to China. All of a sudden, he was not going any more. But, as we now know, when Judith Collins did go to China and did go to Shanghai, she took up that invitation to visit the Shanghai offices.

Let us deal with a couple of the misleading statements Judith Collins has made about that. She “popped in for a cup of tea or a glass of milk”. Like some sort of “Countess Homogenised”, she shows up at this office and says: “All I’m here for is a glass of milk.” That is not true. That is clearly not true. Anyone who has seen the photos on the Oravida website can be absolutely clear. There is a huge line of people who are there to meet Judith Collins. There is a very formal setting on the table. Anyone who has done business in China will tell you that these things do not happen by accident. These things do not happen on the hoof. This was a pre-planned, well-organised photo opportunity for Oravida that Judith Collins participated in.

She was invited on 9 October. The meeting occurred on 23 October. There is no doubt that that represented two clear breaches of the Cabinet Manual. It represented a breach in terms of a Minister’s job of not endorsing products, and it represented a breach because the Minister’s husband is a director of the company. The Cabinet Office could not be clearer about the need for Ministers to avoid conflicts of interest of that sort, and in that moment Judith Collins clearly breached both of those. She was there in China on a $36,000 taxpayer trip—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: How much?

Thirty-six thousand dollars for that taxpayer trip. There are families in New Zealand who have to live for a year on $36,000, and Judith Collins spends that going to China to promote the business that her husband is a director of. But what we learnt today is that that was not the extent of it. Judith Collins has spent the last week minimising everything about this, arrogantly dismissing the concerns of anyone who would raise them, and saying that there was nothing wrong with what she did. And today we learnt that in addition to visiting that company, which her husband is a director of, she met with and had dinner with the chair of the company, Stone Shi, and a senior Chinese border control official. Let us just pause on that for a minute. Let us ask the meat exporters of New Zealand just how difficult it is to get products into China. Let us ask any New Zealand company that exports into China how difficult it can be. So what benefit might there be for Oravida to have a meeting where a Chinese official from the border control agency meets a Minister—a Minister? Stone Shi can say: “Look, this is how influential I am. I have got a Minister of the Crown here.” I do not think there is much more serious in this story than Judith Collins holding that dinner. Today in this House Judith Collins told us that there were not any discussions at that dinner about the business activities of Oravida. I do not believe that, and I think Judith Collins will have to come back to this House to correct that statement.

So when we put all of those things together, what we have is a tale of a Minister who has quite clearly breached Cabinet Office rules, a Minister who does not think that the rules apply to her. Sadly, that is typical of the National Party, which works in the interest of its wealthy friends rather than in the interests of all New Zealanders. That is what a Minister travelling overseas is there to do. Judith Collins said it herself: “I’m there to work for ‘New Zealand Inc’.” No, she was not. She was there working in the interests of her family’s company and the interests of the National Party’s donors. It is the wealthy few in this country who benefit from the National Party.

But then we had the reaction of John Key. We had John Key’s response to this—a man who told us that he would lift the standards of behaviour by Ministers. Well, that is not what we have seen. What we have seen is a continuous run under his leadership of poor behaviour by Ministers. But today—not like Nick Smith, who had to resign over a letterhead, not like Richard Worth, not like Pansy Wong—Judith Collins gets away with it. That is because Judith Collins is too powerful in the National Party caucus for John Key to deal with.

Today is the low point in John Key’s leadership. Today is the day that he failed his own test by not getting rid of Judith Collins. If she does not understand that this was a conflict of interest, she is not fit to be a Minister. This visit and the endorsement that happened at it benefited Oravida. This visit and the endorsement benefited the directors of Oravida, one of whom is Judith Collins’ husband. This visit and the endorsement benefited the National Party via donations. That is where we have reached with this National Government. It is cronyism. This Minister should resign and this Prime Minister should be ashamed of himself.

That is a bit rich coming from a man who has been white-anting David Cunliffe around Wellington because of his leader’s appalling misjudgment over the donations to his leadership campaign. I will give Grant Robertson credit for consistency. The things he is saying about Judith Collins he is also saying about David Cunliffe. I will give him credit for that.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: And David Shearer.

Well, no, he did not say those really nasty things about David Shearer. He just said David Shearer was hopeless. He did not say he was untrustworthy or had bad judgment; he just said he was hopeless. Therein lies the contrast between the way that this issue with Ms Collins has been dealt with and the way that David Cunliffe, as potentially the leader of another Government, has dealt with his personal issues around the trust that he has set up.

Another thing I take issue with in regards to Grant Robertson is that Mrs Collins has worked assiduously in the interests of every New Zealander, and the best measure of that is the lowest crime rates that New Zealand has seen in 30 years—the lowest crime rates we have seen in 30 years—and 25 percent fewer young people going through our courts. The member is simply wrong—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have granted an urgent debate on a specific matter. The fact that room is being freed up in the cells for people involved in this is, I think, irrelevant.

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

Let us be clear about the difference between the handling of this issue and the handling by David Cunliffe. Mrs Collins has made full disclosure and has accepted that her actions demonstrated some poor judgment. That has been underlined by the Prime Minister and his view that these actions were unwise because they gave rise to a perception of a conflict of interest. Mrs Collins was working as a Minister of the New Zealand Government and, as we expect all Ministers to do, being supportive of New Zealand businesses doing business in a difficult market, a challenging market, in China.

What is very clear, though, is that she has made full disclosure and accepted that a misjudgment was made. That has all been dealt with quite transparently. Let us contrast that with the actions of the leader of the Labour Party. First, he did not declare his trust. How did that come out? Well, we do not know. We think it came out because fellow members of the Labour Party caucus or organisation leaked it to the media. Certainly, unlike Mrs Collins, the leader of the Labour Party did not reveal the actions that he took. Mrs Collins’ actions are clear, both from the response to the Official Information Act request and from her public statements made today. David Cunliffe never brought to public light that he had set up a secret trust. We found that out by virtue of leaks from the Labour Party. Then David Cunliffe said—

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have granted an urgent debate for the House on a matter that is of significant public interest related to Minister Judith Collins. It has nothing to do with David Cunliffe or any members of the Labour Party, and yet the majority—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. That is a repeat of an earlier point of order that was not a valid point of order. I am listening very carefully to the debate. The Minister is attempting to respond to the challenge outlaid to him by Grant Robertson, and he is within the rules. I do not want to have another interrupting point of order that is invalid from this side of the House.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to put it on the record that I resent your suggestion that my point of order was invalid. You might have ruled against it, but it does not—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I have ruled.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: You’ve ruled wrong.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Trevor Mallard will stand, withdraw, and apologise. [Interruption] Order! Stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I withdraw and apologise.

All the actions of Mrs Collins are clear from the public record. David Cunliffe failed to reveal, as he is required to by the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament, the existence of his secret trust—[Interruption]

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! The level of interjection from the Opposition side of the House is totally unacceptable. It will inevitably be a robust debate; that I expect. But when the level of noise and interjection gets to the level it has got to now, I will have no choice but to ask somebody to leave this House.

It is pretty clear that the Labour Party does not want to hear the contrasting behaviour of David Cunliffe when he made a severe misjudgment. He did not reveal publicly his secret trust. Judith Collins, through an Official Information Act request and her public statements, has revealed all the actions relevant to the potential conflict of interest. We know about David Cunliffe’s trust only because of leaks from the Labour Party—from the “Anyone But Cunliffe” brigade, led by Grant Robertson, trying to white-ant their leader. That is how we know.

We do know that Oravida, as a company, used the appropriate legal procedures to donate money to the National Party. That is on the public record. We do not know who donated to David Cunliffe, because he devised the mechanism to keep it secret. He asked the donors whether they would reveal their identity. Some of them did; two of them did not. How do we know it was not Kim Dotcom? We do not know, because the Labour leader, unlike Mrs Collins, has kept in place an arrangement designed to deceive the public—designed to deceive. As of today, he still will not reveal those donors. So I challenge David Cunliffe to meet the standards Mrs Collins has met and go out to the front steps and reveal those donors. He said he did not know who they were, and then said he would give them the money back. How does he know who to give it back to if he does not know who they are? So I want to see David Cunliffe meet the same standards as Judith Collins—go out to the front steps of Parliament and declare who the secret donors are. Until he does that, the Labour Party has no credibility criticising a Minister who has revealed all the relevant actions and all the relevant participants in dealing with this perception of a conflict of interests.

It is a bit rich, but typical of the Labour Party, to over-egg this situation, and typical of it to apply to others standards it will not apply to its own leader. David Cunliffe’s trust issue remains unresolved. He set out deliberately to create a device to deceive the public by hiding the trust and, actually, he hid it from Parliament. He did not declare it in the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament. So now he can rise to the challenge put by his deputy leader, Grant Robertson, because, after all, those two are meant to be working together, not separately as everyone else believes they are. When Grant Robertson says everything should be revealed, well, I believe that David Cunliffe should reveal everything. Until he does, no one will take any notice of what the Labour Party is saying on this issue.

Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. You can tell that Judith Collins is in trouble when all that the National Party can do is talk about the Labour Party. I did not hear any sort of cognisant defence of her, any explanation, or any rationalisation. All I heard was the National Party throwing mud. All I saw was a party that could say only “But, but, but, but Labour …”. That is why Judith Collins is in trouble—because the party cannot even defend her. All it can do is throw mud.

I want to speak to the people of New Zealand because what we saw in question time today was three parties throwing mud at each other. This is why young New Zealanders and many other New Zealanders are turning off from our politics. They are sick of the scandals. They are sick of Ministers not taking responsibility. They are sick of the conflicts of interest that we have seen numerous times. They want a different type of politics. We need to change the climate of politics. We need a good Parliament that takes responsibility and acts transparently, and that is what the Green Party is going to champion.

When you look at the Judith Collins case, which we are debating today, it is all over milk. The Minister early on last week had a cup of milk and said: “I drink milk. What’s the scandal?”. But like a cup of milk left out in the sun, every day it has started to smell a little bit more. Every day that sour, rancid smell has continued, and what we see is something smelly. It does not pass the sniff test. In fact, what we see is something rancid when it comes to this case.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: It stinks.

It stinks. This debate is around the Minister’s actions in China. This was a $36,600 taxpayer-funded trip. This is a Minister who was invited. This was not a casual popping in to the airport. This is a Minister who was formally invited to visit a company in which her partner has a directorship—a clear and demonstrable business relationship with the Minister and her spouse. We also saw this company, Oravida, on its website, post what could be translated as an endorsement of its product.

This is about perceptions and realities in a conflict of interest. The Minister’s husband is a director. This is a company that donated $56,000 to the National Party. This is a company whose chief executive plays golf with the Prime Minister. This is a Minister who this week, as that cup of milk started to smell more and more, has revealed that she also had dinner with Stone Shi.

💬 Hon Annette King: The dance of the seven veils, it was.

The dance of the seven veils, Ms King says. What we know is that as more detail has come out, it has got smellier and smellier.

John Key today said of Ms Collins that he was “very disappointed” in her. He said she had handled the situation “very poorly”. And she says that she got it wrong. We have seen a conflict of interest. The National Party is saying that it is only a perception. I believe that it is a clear conflict of interest, which the Minister should have disclosed.

One of the questions for the Government has to be why it will not release the Cabinet advice. If it wants to clear this up, if it wants to clear the air, it should be releasing the advice. Why did the Minister, who had sought approval for her husband to travel with her, decide not to take him? Was advice offered to her and her husband? These are the critical questions this Government has to answer.

What we have here is a senior, very experienced Minister with obvious legal training who has breached Cabinet rules—clearly breached Cabinet rules with a conflict of interest. It is critically important that particularly Ministers of the Crown are held to a high standard. When it comes to business interests, we do not want our Ministers out advertising, promoting, and shilling for corporate brands. We want integrity in our politics. We want conflicts of interest, where they arise, disclosed and managed responsibly.

Other New Zealand businesses rightfully feel that they are not on a level playing field, that they are not getting a fair go, because of this Government’s relationships with certain corporates. It is not just Oravida or the Prime Minister playing golf with Stone Shi. You can see it in the Bathurst Resources case. You can see it with the secret meetings over Skycity. You can see it with the Prime Minister taking time out the day before the last general election to have a meeting with Anadarko—big oil—which has just left the country. What this country needs is a Government that is going to focus on real people and real Kiwi businesses, not just the Choruses, the Tīwai Points, the Anadarkos—real people and real Kiwi businesses.

But although this debate is about Judith Collins, the buck stops with John Key. He is the Prime Minister. He is the one who defended her initially but is now backtracking. The buck stops with Key. Remember when Key, before he became Prime Minister, said he would bring a higher standard for Ministers and politics? Do you remember when he said that? Do you also remember when he forgot that when it came to the discredited ACT leader, John Banks, and when it came to Peter Dunne, who still will not give a categorical assurance that he was not the leaker? You see it with the dance of the seven veils when it comes to Colin Craig and some of his far-out views.

What we need is transparency. What we need is better management of conflicts of interest when they arise. What we need also is a Prime Minister who is going to take responsibility, who is not going to pass the buck, and who is going to stand up and demand that the Minister is held accountable. I recall that early on when Key was still talking about a higher standard, we saw the Pansy Wong case, which has some parallels with what we see here. What we need are answers and responsibility, because what we are talking about is taxpayers’ money and the status, the role, and the responsibilities of Ministers. What I want to see are Ministers, no matter what political affiliation they hark to, who can handle conflicts of interest, who can stand on the New Zealand and world stages with integrity, and who are not putting special corporate business interests first. I want every New Zealander and New Zealand company to know that they are going to get the same hearing from the Minister because they are individuals, not because they donate to a particular party, not because they are married to a particular person, and not because they play golf with the Prime Minister. Every New Zealander and every New Zealand company are going to get a fair go—that is what I believe that New Zealanders want, and that is what I believe we should feel proud of. We are one of the least corrupt countries in the world. We cannot just stand by while this type of activity happens. We need to keep fighting for higher standards and holding Ministers to account when they breach those rules.

I want to finish with two solutions. Hopefully, we can learn from this. What we need is a better lobbying disclosure regime. This is something the Green Party has championed. It is something we are now pushing through the Standing Orders review. What we need is a better regime when business lobbyists are lobbying Ministers and MPs.

Secondly, although there has been some reform around electoral donations, there is more that needs to be done. We need greater transparency so that the public, when they see us in this House, can feel confident knowing who has contributed to each party or to their election campaign. Every New Zealander has the right to have confidence in their elected officials to serve in the country’s interest, not in the corporate interest or a particular company’s interest. Something is smelly and rancid when it comes to this, and I just hope the Government can show some responsibility, take responsibility, and answer the critical questions we have before us. Kia ora.

There is a raw irony about the events surrounding Judith Collins, because on 31 October last year she was in China to give a speech to the China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong. There she gave a very lofty speech about a matter that is dear to all of our hearts and hitherto had been to hers. She said in that speech that she was there to contribute to a culture of openness and transparency. She went on to say: “[The] law provides mechanisms for the public to find out what different branches of the Government are doing. We believe that this builds trust and confidence in our system.” She was talking about the glory of New Zealand’s political system and no doubt her role in it. Then what do we then find on the Oravida website? The translation is as clear as daylight that here is a Minister who is over there not on a justice and ACC trip, which are her portfolios—no, she is on a trade trip, engaged in a family operation and she was not merely, as she tried to blithely say, having a cup of tea on the way to the airport.

💬 Hon Members: With milk.

With milk. And she said: “What’s wrong with milk? I like milk.” Apparently, she likes scampi as well. She left that part out. That was the Sanford connection. Sanford is owned by whom? Why, the National Party president’s family. Just like Skycity, it is tawdry and ugly. It is terrible, venal behaviour. [Interruption] I know Gerry loves it, because Gerry was once, for about 5 weeks, a director with Goodfellow on the new Christchurch casino. Yes, Gerry wants us to forget that, but there was Gerry, taking a job as a director—he and Goodfellow—on the new Christchurch casino proposal. How venal is that?

💬 Andrew Williams: Donkey-deep.

Donkey-deep is the word for it. It is John Key - deep, in fact. Can I just say that this is what Mr Key said—earlier this week he said that the Collins case differed from that of his former Minister, Richard Worth, because there was no personal gain involved in Judith Collins’ visit to Oravida. That is demonstrably false. There was every personal benefit involved and that is why she had the Ambassador to China, the consul-general from New Zealand in Shanghai, border officials, and taxpayers’ money all involved in promoting her husband’s business. If you read that website, and the Chinese translation into English, you will see how much she was involved. In fact, it went on to say that she tasted Oravida’s fresh milk and the New Zealand scampi and could not stop praising these products.

Judith Collins instructed that she is expecting to continue the cooperation exchange between Oravida and New Zealand. She is on a trade trip now, is she not? And based on this, that is to develop bi-mutual relationships further. She is in there donkey-deep, and yet the National Party members have, of course, got their heads down. They should be ashamed of themselves. How glad I am that I left that party. How glad I am that I left that party, because I can go to bed at night feeling good about myself and not have to walk down the street and be ashamed, and when the voters talk to me, cough and splutter and change the subject like Gerry does. No, siree.

Then John Key said this: he made it clear that if the Cabinet Office advice suggested a problem, he would take action. That is what he said. The Cabinet Office advice was given not with knowledge of the Chinese translated into English. No, it was with just a few sentences of English. Do not tell me that Cabinet officials are so bad now that when asked to investigate something, they did not walk downtown to get a Chinese interpreter to find out what they were investigating. Mr Key is now caught red-handed—totally red-handed. Look, here we go—here we go. He refuses to release the Cabinet Office advice on this matter, when the advice was never checked against the Chinese translation. Then he went out and told all the journalists that it was. He simply failed to tell the truth and so did Judith Collins.

Here is the real issue though—there is a smell growing on this, and it will intensify each day. The thing is there is more to come. There always is. There always is.

💬 Hon Annette King: There’s more.

There is always more. The public has now lost confidence in the Minister of Justice, because more and more is being revealed of her business connections and associates. By the way, his name is Wong-Tung—Wong-Tung. It is Wong-Tung, not Wung-Tong, as other people have been saying it. It seems like Wong-Tung did “wong”. The reality is, there is an old saying that Caesar’s wife must be above reproach—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Disgusting.

No, it is not disgusting, sunshine. That member there was a former foreign affairs official, and he knows full well that you cannot, as a foreign affairs official, be involving yourself in trying to advance a venal politician’s interest. No, Mr Foster-Bell, I can see why Whangarei did not want you, because they have got some standards up there. I know, because I come from there. He stood there and he got beaten as a sitting MP in Parliament.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Tell him, Winston.

I am telling him. The meaning is very clear about Caesar’s wife. Of those who are granted the privileges of power and position, we also require accountability. Judith Collins has twisted and turned as the whole sorry, sordid saga has emerged. As each layer has been peeled back, the more rotten, ugly, and disgraceful the whole business looks. Imagine if any of us over here had done that. National members would be screaming blue murder. In fact, I recall when we did not do that, and they were still lying and screaming blue murder. As Mike Williams pointed out over the weekend in one of the Sunday papers—and I am very grateful to him for finally telling the truth—we have had plenty of this dodgy stuff from this National Government.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: We voted the right way.

You did, and I am very grateful to the Labour Party for actually seeing the truth. Mike Williams is probably the reason why, and I am grateful to him. But there are the National Party members over there, prepared to malign, defame, and traduce someone else’s reputation without facts. They are sitting there using their majority. Today one of theirs was found to be worsening in her attitude towards honesty, and they want to cover it up. There is plenty of dodgy stuff like that—Skycity, for example. There is also the Antoine’s Restaurant meal. National has got the effrontery to attack other members of Parliament in this House and it raised $105,000 at a restaurant in Auckland, where Mr Key spoke and charged each attendee $5,000.

💬 Andrew Williams: Just up the street from his house.

Just up the street from his house.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Read the Electoral Act.

Pardon?

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Read the Electoral Act.

I have read the Electoral Act, and so has the National Party. It is just a deceitful device where sometimes—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, the law is a device?

Oh, no, Mr Brownlee. I know that you sold $5,000-plate dinners and never even turned up to eat the dinner. It is just a device—we know that. It is like the Waitematā Trust. Again, that is a heinous device that National used for darn years, and then it has the effrontery to challenge other parties on their trusts. What a disgrace National is. The members look in the mirror every time they make an allegation.

The Prime Minister is on record as having stood in this House and saying this. I asked him about decision-making responsibility and he said: “As Prime Minister I have responsibility for protecting the integrity of the decision-making process of executive Government and maintaining public trust in the executive. I have always expected and demanded that my Ministers act lawfully and in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards.” Well, Mr Key, here is the day of truth. This is the moment when New Zealand gets to see whether he stands by his words or whether they are just hot air—empty and meaningless. He says: “Personally, I’ve been of the view that transparency is a good thing. As Prime Minister I’ve tried to lead that charge.” When he was asked about that, he said: “Yes, I stand by that statement, which was made in the context of discussing reform of MPs’ remuneration, travel privileges, and transparency around expenses.” Here is the expense account of $36,000-plus, associated in part with a familial connection with a business, and the National Party has the effrontery and audacity to think it can get away with it.

Well, the campaign has started and National is off to a shocking start. I want to say to those backbenchers in the National Party hiding now and probably watching TV—all those backbenchers whose knees are starting to knock—that you could stop the rot now by saying that you will not put up with this. There has to be the same accountability that was demanded of Pansy Wong and Richard Worth. They were far more innocent in this context than this senior Minister, who used to be in the Law Society, and who was one of the first to go out and give her views about other MPs’ behaviour from a legal point of view. Now she has been hoisted with her own legal, haughty petard. This is a day of reckoning for Mr Key, and hitherto he has dramatically failed.

Can I first put on record my absolute disgust at the comments made by the previous speaker, the Rt Hon Winston Peters—not only bringing members’ families into this but making fun of a partner’s name. Mr Peters, to make fun of a name simply because it is not a European name is, I think, absolutely racist. I think it is racist, and I want to put on record my disgust at those sorts of comments in this debate. I have to say that it is a bit rich to sit and listen to a number of members in this House talking about honesty, openness, and transparency. Actually, that member who has just resumed his seat could not even answer questions; he had to put a notice up that said “No”, rather than answering questions, quite simple questions, about openness and transparency. Mr Peters, what happened when you were on the end of it?

Well, I want to speak today about my colleague the Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, because she has proven that she fronts up and she is the one who gives the media full disclosure of what happened. She is the one who fronted the media on the steps of Parliament and disclosed the dinner. She did not wait for the media to dig it out, like they had with Winston Peters. It was not coming from the media, like David Cunliffe’s trust. It did not come from them. It came from her fronting the media and saying that this was what had happened. She answered the questions last week. She answered the questions that were put to her.

But right at the heart of all of this is the fact that from the day that this John Key - led Government came into Government, we have been fighting to increase the exports from this country after 9 years of a Labour Government that drove this country’s exports into the ground. This is a country that makes its money, that supports its people, by selling our goods around the world, and 9 years of a Labour Government saw internal consumption at an all-time high and exports at an all-time low. We have worked assiduously to support and promote the exporters of this country. Every Minister, every time they travel overseas, has a responsibility to be promoting New Zealand, to be promoting New Zealand goods, and to be promoting all that is good about New Zealand exporters, and this Government has a proud record of doing that. As a consequence, we have seen a growth in the export market.

Through the deepest, darkest days of a recession, we as a country were thankful that the previous Labour Government had negotiated a free-trade agreement with China, because the growth in exports to China helped this country earn dollars in order to support us through that recession. In fact, the exports to China have made it our most important market. So the growth in exports from New Zealand companies has seen this country help itself through the recession. So there has been a responsibility on us all, and I have no doubt that any Minister in any portfolio, any time they have the opportunity overseas on any sort of official trip, would do their very best to support New Zealand and promote New Zealand.

The Prime Minister talked about a higher standard for Ministers, and that has been quoted here. Yes, we have had no drunk-driving convictions on this side of the House. We have not had any people convicted of corruption, and we have had no one whom the media have had to dig out and find had hidden donations in trusts. Mr Cunliffe used a device that he knew would hide who his donors were. We do not know today who two of those donors are. The media are still working on it. Why does David Cunliffe not take a leaf out of Judith Collins’ book and stand and talk to the media and disclose fully who those donors were and how much money they gave to his leadership campaign? If we are talking seriously in this House about double standards, then it is about time that the Labour Party came to the party too.

The Hon Trevor Mallard—5 minutes.

We have now had 25 minutes available to National members taken by senior Ministers, and neither of them has been prepared to defend Judith Collins. Why? Because you cannot defend the indefensible. Mr Assistant Speaker, I remember what it felt like being attacked by one of your predecessors over Taito Phillip Field. It got to the point where you could not defend the indefensible, and that is the situation that the National Party is in with Judith Collins.

Those members should not be surprised, and Bill English, I am sure, is not surprised, because what did he say about Judith Collins? He said that she was a member pushed beyond her capacity. That is what he said about her. He said that she had an unfortunately high estimation of her own competence. Who said that?

💬 Hon Members: Bill English.

Bill English said that about Judith Collins. He said that she spent too much time cultivating the media herself and then believing the resulting publicity. Bill English said that about Judith Collins, and I think that what we know now is that Bill English was absolutely right.

What we have is a Minister who is prepared to help line the pockets of her family while she is on a trip paid for by the taxpayer—someone who is prepared to take the officials of the New Zealand Government in to support a company that is paying her husband in order to do that. I, frankly, thought that Pansy Wong was the limit. I thought that Pansy Wong was the limit, but Judith Collins has gone well beyond that. She must have known at some stage that she had done wrong, because she did not put it in her report. Unlike previous visits on previous trips to China, she did not write it up and she did not admit that it happened. She was not transparent. Why was she not transparent? Because she knew then that it was wrong. She knew that it was wrong last week when she was tackled about it and said, first of all, that she dropped in for a cup of tea and that it was not planned. That was not true—that was not true. She knew before she left New Zealand that she was going there. She had dinner with the person, and possibly lunch as well. We are yet to find out whether that is the case.

The idea that it was a minor diversion, as she told the New Zealand public, was just a lie. We should not have in this Parliament Ministers who lie to the public, because our ethical standards—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

I have made mistakes in my time as a Minister. But what you do when you make a mistake is you fess up. I want to make it clear. I have never been corrupt. I have never got my family income boosted using my Government funding. But the mistakes I have made I have admitted to the Prime Minister, I have admitted publicly, and I have not lied about in the way that Judith Collins has.

The Hon Gerry Brownlee—5 minutes.

I think it is healthy for our democracy that we have a debate about perceptions of conflict of interest in the dealings that we all have as elected members of this House. But what this debate also proves is that when it comes to a debate like this, hypocrisy does not, apparently, limit the way in which people offer their thoughts in the context of the debate. There is no one better in this House than the Hon Trevor Mallard at outlining all sorts of spurious facts, joining them together in a loud, tub-thumping way, and making them seem more than they really are. It is truly a skill that he has and I want to acknowledge him for it.

If the Labour Opposition is so outraged by finding out from public sources exactly what Judith Collins was up to on her trip to China, why is it not outraged that its own leader is using—as Mr Peters, his potential coalition partner said—the law as a device for deception? That is what Mr Cunliffe is doing by not telling the public of New Zealand who tipped the money into his leadership campaign. We know that it is the Unite union that is causing the most problem—we know that—but the member David Cunliffe needs to stand up and admit it and, as the Hon Bill English said, get out on to the steps of Parliament and tell us who put the money into the trust that he used and is now saying that he does not have to tell anyone about because he is giving it back. Well, I think there is a huge lapse on the part of the Opposition here when it comes to, effectively, waving out a flag and saying: “Oh, look, here’s what we can publicly see. That’s an outrage. By the way, put your head in the sand, pretend you are an ostrich, and don’t look at the mess that we have got into over on our side of the House.”

Ms Collins has said that in hindsight she feels that she could have been more open about what she was doing, but in the context of a whole lot of things that Ministers do and the public disclosures—which are clear, because we are having this debate—I think that it is a mock debate that the Opposition is trying to mount this afternoon. I think that it would also be useful for us to perhaps recite all sorts of other situations where members on both sides of the House have got into difficult situations, and then try to line them up and judge them. But that does not take us anywhere. What is really important here is that this debate would not be happening if it were not for the demands for transparency that the Rt Hon John Key has put on his Ministers. And it is only because there is transparency that the Opposition has a basis for a debate. So I think that what we are seeing here this afternoon is a whole lot of outrage from the Labour Party that has very little basis to it.

I want to echo the comments that were made by my colleague Anne Tolley, because I was quite disturbed by some of the comments and behaviour that I have seen in the House this afternoon that were of a racist nature, which I do not think I have ever witnessed before. That is not just the example that Anne Tolley gave of the comments that the Rt Hon Winston Peters made but the comments and the mocking of one of the National members of the House earlier in question time that were very clearly racially motivated, which I found quite disgusting.

In terms of this urgent debate, you know, members opposite are looking for an argument. They are trying to find something to argue about. It is somewhat ironic that we are having this debate on this day, because if you look at Minister Judith Collins, clearly we have had a situation today where she has reflected on a couple of the issues, she has had a discussion with the Prime Minister, and she has fronted up to the public. She has fronted up to the public on one minor issue—one minor issue. On this very day—this same day—that same Minister has gone out into the public and said what a stunning result that she and the justice team have achieved in crime in this country. I am a bit saddened, actually, that on this day all of those people whom she has led in those organisations have not had their contributions recognised today. Instead, there are these kinds of nasty, personal, racist attacks that come from the Opposition. So it is kind of a sad day for me that we have to stoop to that level and take the time of the House on this sort of issue.

If you look at the facts, the Prime Minister has acknowledged in this very House today the enormous contribution that the Minister of Justice has made, and will continue to make, on behalf of hard-working New Zealanders.

💬 Andrew Williams: $55,000 to the National Party.

There is a conversation, or somebody is bickering and interjecting, about donations. I am really happy to talk about donations. They are on the public record, unlike some that the Opposition will not disclose. So it is the pot calling the kettle black. Get your story straight. The reality is that if you want to talk about donations, get David Cunliffe out there. Get him out there this afternoon on the steps—

💬 Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member who is on her feet just offered to table information about donations. I wonder whether she would be so kind as to table—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. [Interruption] Order! That is not a point of order.

The very point I was making, and I am happy to repeat it, is that we have a Leader of the Opposition currently who clearly knows who the two parties are that made donations to a trust that he had set up to hide that fact. They are supposedly anonymous, and yet he knows them well enough to know whom to return the funds to, which is somewhat interesting in a conversation around inappropriate behaviour. So I would be really happy to see your leader out on the steps of Parliament today to talk about disclosure, about openness, and about transparency around having a situation where, clearly, he is quite comfortable. But, no, we are talking about “Tricky David”—“Tricky David”, who will not disclose the facts.

I want to conclude by saying that the Hon Judith Collins has done extraordinary work in this country. The results have come out just today. Hard-working New Zealanders are proud of the fact that we have the lowest crime rate in 33 years, but that side of the House cannot cope with the facts.

The previous speaker, Louise Upston, said that we should feel sorry for the staff of the Ministry of Justice. Yes, we should, because they will be ashamed to have a Minister of Justice who allows conflicts of interest to put her own and her family’s interests ahead of the country’s interests and who uses her position to benefit her family and to benefit the National Party. That is what has happened here. That is why this is a conflict of interest. That is why the Prime Minister is wrong to continually pretend that it might be only the perception of a conflict of interest, because it is a conflict of interest. The Cabinet Office prohibits conflicts of interest that benefit Ministers or their family members or close associates. That is what conflict of interest rules are meant to prevent. They are meant to prevent the private benefit going to a Minister or their family or close associates.

We had the Minister of Police, Anne Tolley, another person in charge of the justice system, and she said that the Minister of Justice has been open. What the Minister of Justice said was that she had a short cup of tea on the way to the airport. What the Minister did not do was put reference to that meeting, which was not a short cup of tea on the way to the airport, in her report back to Cabinet, and she hid the fact that she had an additional evening meeting with Oravida representatives and customs officials—

💬 Hon Annette King: And dinner.

—and dinner. She hid that. This conflict of interest is one in which the Minister has enriched her family through using her contacts for the benefit of Oravida. The first visit, an endorsement of Oravida, benefited it. It was used by Oravida to increase its sales—to make more money. That was a conflict of interest. That conflict of interest was for the benefit of Judith Collins’ family. A director of the company is her husband. That is a conflict of interest.

This conflict of interest also arises from the donations that the National Party accepted from Oravida in return for the favours that it gave Oravida. The favours included turning up for dinner and meeting with customs officials and Oravida in China. There are the benefits, which no doubt Oravida claims, from the photographs of the Prime Minister having a round of golf with the main owner of Oravida.

💬 Hon Annette King: Not one.

A number of games of golf. These are actual conflicts of interest. What other things do we not believe here? Judith Collins said today in the House that there were no matters of business discussed at that dinner. I do not believe that. It is incredible that you would have customs officials there, against the background of melamine scandals and tainted milk coming from New Zealand, and that those sorts of issues would not be discussed at that meeting. I bet you that Judith Collins was there saying: “You can trust New Zealand milk that’s coming from Oravida, because we’ve got good systems.” Does anyone in this House really think that those discussions did not take place? I bet they did. These are real conflicts of interest.

Then we have got the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said: “The Cabinet Office didn’t consider that to be an endorsement.” But he will not release its advice. I bet that the Prime Minister is misrepresenting the Cabinet Office. I cannot believe that the Cabinet Office would tell the Prime Minister that even the first bit that was known to him was legitimate. The Cabinet Office would have been saying that it is wrong for a Cabinet Minister to be endorsing products, in China, from a company that her husband is a director of. The Cabinet Office would be saying that it is wrong to be out promoting a company that the National Party has taken donations from. I do not believe that the Cabinet Office said it was all kosher. I certainly now know that the Prime Minister said he was wrong when he said that the Cabinet Office had seen the translation from the Oravida website. He has since been forced to say that that is not the case and that the Cabinet Office had not seen it.

This is an actual conflict of interest, and if the Prime Minister says it is not, then he is effectively saying to New Zealand that the only conflict of interest in this matter is a bribe, and anything else is not a conflict of interest. There has got to be a bribe because there has been cash going to the National Party and favours back to Oravida. There have been appointments of directors that put money into the family of Judith Collins, and that is a conflict of interest. But the Prime Minister says: “No, it’s not, because it’s not a direct bribe.” Well, I am sorry, Mr Prime Minister. It might not be convenient to him, but conflicts of interest go further than just bribes, and this is plainly one. To have the Minister of Police stand up and defend it, the Prime Minister defend it, and Bill English refuse to address it is disgraceful, because this is a disgrace. It is an actual conflict of interest, and this Minister should be forced to resign. Why is she not? Because this is business as usual for the National Party.

This is the tip of the iceberg. We know that there is this cronyism rife within the National Party. Its members get these secret donations from their mates at the big end of town, and they deal them back favours. This time they have been caught. But it is the thin end of the wedge, the tip of the iceberg, because this is business as usual under this Government, where the rich get richer and everyone else gets a stagnant position. This is why inequality and fairness are the issues for this election. The electorate knows that that is what is happening in New Zealand. This Government serves the big end of town, and everyone else can worry about themselves. Under Labour, this will not happen. Everyone will get a fair deal, and conflicts of interest will be called conflicts of interest.

I have one final point. Why has Judith Collins not taken a call? I have been in a similar situation. In fact, I resigned. I took a call. I was willing to come here and defend myself and put the truth out there. Judith Collins is not to be seen, Bill English will not address the issues, and the Minister of Police is defending Judith Collins, saying that she has been open. What a disgrace—what a disgrace.

I cannot understand that the Prime Minister will not concede that this is an actual conflict of interest, not some perception of a conflict of interest. This is a situation where the Minister’s family benefits from Oravida doing better—it benefits from Oravida doing better. That is what the endorsement was about. That is what the meeting with customs officials was about. That is why they are conflicts of interest. It is truly that simple. This is improper behaviour by the Minister, for the benefit of her family, that she tried to cover up. The Prime Minister then tried to cover it up, and the Prime Minister, even now, says it is only an alleged conflict of interest or an apparent conflict of interest and not an actual conflict of interest.

There would not be any clearer case than this. I cannot think of a clearer case. The Prime Minister is saying that effectively there has to be a bribe before there is any conflict of interest. That is effectively the standard he is saying. I cannot think of a more clear case of a conflict of interest than doing something that benefits a company of which your husband is a director. As a Minister she went to China. She had these meetings. She did not put them in her report to Cabinet. That is quite in contrast to her earlier reports to Cabinet. She said: “Oh, it’s because it was only a little cup of tea.” What about the dinner at night with the customs officials and her own ministerial staff, whom she said were there as friends, not as ministerial representatives? What a nonsense.

This is a bit like Peter Dunne saying, when he leaked the report, that he was acting as a member, not as a Minister, and therefore the emails between him and others are not able to be disclosed under the Official Information Act. We have all this dissembling on behalf of the other side, but the truth is that this is dirty. This is a conflict of interest. The Minister acted for the benefit of her family and for the benefit of the National Party. The National Party does not even think it is wrong, because it is business as usual, according to its standards.

When you cannot win a game of rugby through strategy, through skill, through talent, and through putting points on the scoreboard, you resort to dirty tactics. You resort to punching people in the ruck and kicking them while they are on the ground. I will say it again. When you cannot win a game of rugby by putting points on the scoreboard and through talent and through teamwork, you resort to kicking people in the guts. What we are seeing today is Labour Party members wallowing at the bottom of the ruck, and, my goodness, they are good at it. They love the bottom of the ruck. They love to put the punch in and to scream at the ref and say that it is not fair. They are truly excellent at this style of politics.

Labour Party members are not winning the game. They have not got the talent and they are not putting the points on the scoreboard. It is pretty clear. If you look at the points on the scoreboard right now, in the polls National is at 48, 49, or 50 percent, and Labour is wallowing in the late 20s and maybe the early 30s if they are lucky. There is no new talent coming in to the party. Those members are at the bottom of the ruck, punching, kicking, and fighting. There is not any new policy out there—nothing that it can win this election with that is gaining any momentum on the scoreboard for Labour.

I stand here proudly today to speak on behalf of one of my team members in the National Party, and that is Judith Collins. I am proud to have been a junior member working under Minister Judith Collins for the last year. This is a woman, a strong woman, who has come in here, into what has been a man’s world in Parliament over the last thirty or forty decades, and has stood up and answered the challenge. She has climbed to the top of politics and has delivered for this country, like few other women have. She has done an outstanding job.

I just want to go through some of the things that she has done.

💬 Andrew Williams: How many cars did she crush?

Andrew Williams, do not talk to me about what you have achieved, mate. People who piddle under lemon trees should just shut up.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is unparliamentary and I will ask the member just to be very mindful of those sorts of comments.

The Minister whom I proudly speak of today has made huge achievements in Parliament. She has put significant points on the scoreboard for us. She has successfully led the justice sector. She has achieved the lowest crime rate in 33 years. She has overseen the modernisation of the courts system. She has introduced alcohol law reforms. She has introduced tougher sentencing and parole. These are things that the Labour Party talked about but never delivered. Minister Judith Collins has delivered them. She has delivered tougher bail laws for this country, and she has had a huge focus on improving victims’ rights.

I am proud to have been part of the team here that has had Judith Collins in it. She has done a wonderful job for this country and also when she has been overseas representing the country, taking this country forward. That is one of the reasons we see growth now in this country, which is taking this country to new heights. So I am proud to have been a member working with Judith Collins. She has done a great job. She does not need to be wallowing at the bottom of the ruck like members of the Labour Party and New Zealand First, who cannot get points on the scoreboard. They now see this as their opportunity to see some daylight. Bad luck, guys; it is not going to happen.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.