General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Life is full of irony. I quote: “The third pillar of clean Government is transparency.” That was Judith Collins lecturing the Chinese about corruption on the same taxpayer-funded trip where she had dinner with the chairman of her husband’s company and the senior Chinese border control official that that company wanted to get its products through. That is corruption. That is what—to quote her—corruption looks like.

John Key is no better. He is donkey deep in the Oravida scandal. He is so compromised because he took $55,000 for playing his first game of golf with the same chairman and lied to cover it up. That is a strong word. He said it was a charity; he was the charity. The National Party was the charity. No wonder he cannot sack Judith Collins—he is just as guilty as she is. She has got the numbers in that sorry caucus, and he knows it, which is why he will not lift a finger—

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Ha, ha!

That is the laugh of the damned. Imagine being an also-ran to the “Minister for Corruption”—imagine being the also-ran to the “Minister of Corruption”.

Let us summarise why she is toast. She is toast because she has a deep, abiding, and pecuniary conflict of interest. Her husband was appointed to the board of Oravida. She has a financial gain from that appointment. That company gave $56,500 to the National Party. She shares in that benefit. She went to China on a taxpayer-funded trip. She posed for the company, to promote its products. She lobbied Chinese Government officials to get those products into China. She did not declare the meeting in her ministerial report. She did not declare the details to the Prime Minister. She did not declare the details to the House. She has repeatedly made a mockery of your rulings, Mr Speaker, by saying that she has no ministerial responsibility as a Minister on an anti-corruption trip for sitting with the chairman of her husband’s company and the border control official.

That is a joke. It is worse than a joke. It is the same kind of corruption that she is lecturing about. Here is what she told the Chinese academy of young executives: “Fighting corruption is not easy. It is a complex offence that is difficult to detect.”

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s true!

Just ask Grant Robertson. Just ask Winston Peters. Just ask my colleagues who have day by day been fighting to get the truth from that Minister—the whole truth and nothing but the truth, not the scampi equivalent that she thinks she can get away with.

What did Mr Key say a month or two ago? He said: “Gee, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes if she does this again.” Well, guess what? She has just been caught out, because not only did she prepare in advance for those Oravida dinners and not only did she not just pop in for a cuppa on the way to an airport that was in the opposite direction by 30 kilometres, but she has lobbied for the interests of her husband’s company. That is a conflict of interest.

She expects the New Zealand people to believe the lie that they never discussed Oravida business—yeah, right! But I say this to you. Even if they sat around that table eating scampi and did not say a single word of any kind the whole night, in Chinese culture the fact that she was there, a Minister of the Crown, with the very border control official who could influence that company’s outcomes, even if he was dumb, blind, and mute, and she said nothing, it is still—

The member’s time has expired.

Well, if I were the Leader of the Opposition I would not be discussing the numbers in caucus in any situation. I would not be talking, if I were David Cunliffe, about toast—the guy who will not even tell New Zealanders who donated for his leadership bid. That is how straight that person is in this Parliament.

But there is actually a more important issue for the Opposition, and that is: what is going on with the Labour Party?

💬 Hon Annette King: Nothing!

Exactly—nothing. That is my point. Why is it struggling along at 30 percent in the polls—or 27 percent, according to one prominent commentator yesterday? It is not like its leader is not out there, rushing around, doing stuff. He is too busy to come to Wellington some days because he is so busy out there giving speeches. He is too busy to go on the television for prearranged interviews because he is busy rushing around the place. He is working away, but nothing is happening. He sort of tries to look like a leader. He puts on his nerd face and says: “Oh yes, I’m a very serious leader. This is what leaders look like.” But, actually, it is not going anywhere.

Why is that? Well, it is a tricky conundrum. It is a tricky conundrum, and there are a number of possible reasons. One is, possibly, that Labour members focus on beltway issues all the time—far be it from me to tell them about that, but perhaps that is what they do. But possibly a more telling issue is that they spend their lives constantly making stuff up, so that when they open their mouths the public go: “Ah, I don’t think so.”, before Labour members hardly say a word.

Here are just a few examples from recent days. Yesterday their leader was out, saying: “Labour ran a surplus every year in Government.” Well, it did not. In Labour’s last year in Government it was proposing a $3.9 billion deficit—wrong, Mr Cunliffe. The claim yesterday that our economic recovery is due only to Canterbury and high dairy prices—wrong. That recovery is a broad-based recovery. The claim that New Zealand was nowhere to be seen on the whaling issue in the last couple of weeks—wrong. The Attorney-General was actually in the court. The claim that there is a manufacturing crisis—also wrong. The sector has been in expansion for 19 months. Of course, there is the claim that costs are rising faster than wages.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Stand up for Judith!

Actually, since September 2008 average after-tax wages have increased more than inflation. Trevor, go home. You are getting on, Trevor. Let it go. But there is another example of making stuff up and exaggeration.

Here is Labour’s new policy. The new policy says Labour will require trucks not to be driven in the fast lane. Yes, it is apparently a new policy of the Labour Party, which is sort of OK, fair enough, except you have to read the fine print. At least on this one the fine print is here, which we could not say for the baby bonus policy. The fine print says it is only for three and four-lane motorways. So they will stop trucks being driven in the fast lane, but only on three and four-lane motorways. How many three and four-lane motorways do you think there are in New Zealand? How many of these motorways exist? I will give you a clue. Of 11,000 kilometres of State highways in New Zealand, how many of them are three or four-lane motorways that this wonderful policy affects? The answer is about 50 or 60 kilometres. Of 11,000 kilometres, about 50 or 60 kilometres will be affected by this. But you do not hear that from the Labour Party. “Mr Nerd Face Labour Party Leader” David Cunliffe—very serious, very serious—says: “We’re going to stop these trucks passing, but only for 60 kilometres. The other 11,000 kilometres won’t be changing.” That is their problem: they make up stuff and they exaggerate. But at least it is the issues that matter—at least it is the issues that matter!

Actually, I have been thinking of some more policies for them to think about for the next few days. I have got a few more. I have been crowdsourcing some policies—not just trucks, but how about pedestrians who walk slowly? That is annoying. Let us have a rule against that. That could be a new Labour Party transport policy—pedestrians who walk too slowly. Let us have that one, because that is an issue that matters.

What about another one? What about people who constantly change lanes in the security queues at airports? That is annoying. Let us have a policy for that. Let us sort that one out. And what about people who have too loud TV commercials? They used to have that one. Let us bring that one back. The reason the Labour Party is struggling for relevance is that its members have no idea what is important to Kiwis. They make stuff up and they exaggerate. In short, they are tricky.

Not one word from that Minister to defend Judith Collins. Not one single word from Steven Joyce to defend Judith Collins, because he is enjoying every single minute of this. The so-called “Crusher” Collins, the powerful person who backs down to nobody, sneaks out the back door of this House. She did not face the media on the way in and she did not face the media on the way out. That is because she has something to hide. She does not want to front up to New Zealanders about what she did. The great “Crusher” Collins has been crushed. She has been crushed because she has refused to front up to New Zealanders.

Do not mistake it for a minute. There is a reason why John Key has not got rid of Judith Collins. It is because he is donkey deep in this Oravida saga. He is the recipient of $56,000 worth of donations that we know about, and there could well be more. He is playing golf with the chairman. But he has also managed to appear in advertisements for Oravida Ltd. I did not know that John Key was a fan of Monty Python until yesterday when this advertisement appeared. It is a large advertisement—that is what I would call it—for Oravida Ltd, which appeared in a Chinese airline magazine. Down at the bottom of this picture of Mr Goodfellow’s scampi that is here we have a picture of John Key. That would be John Key at the bottom of this. The Chinese translation here says that John Key hosted a banquet for important Chinese people—presumably a banquet with this scampi in it. But it is OK—it is OK—because John Key’s office said that this is not an advertisement. As they say, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and this is a dead parrot. This is an advertisement. John Key is right in the middle of this Oravida saga, and that is why he is refusing to sack Judith Collins.

Let us make sure that everybody is absolutely clear here. On a $30,000 ministerial visit to China for the Minister of Justice, she pre-arranged two meetings with the Oravida directors, one in Shanghai and one in Beijing. Let us be clear. Stone Shi and Julia Xu travelled with Judith Collins on this trip. They were in Beijing for the dinner and then they were in Shanghai 2 days later for her to visit their offices. This was not the Minister of Justice on her own on a ministerial trip; this was the Minister of Justice pre-arranging visits with the fellow directors of Oravida who were there, along with her husband. Again, her husband is a director of five companies associated with Oravida Ltd, associated with Stone Shi and Julia Xu. These were pre-arranged meetings that she has sought to cover up from the beginning, claiming that she popped in on the way to the airport when she had to drive 30 kilometres in the wrong direction to actually get to Oravida’s headquarters.

She then sought to cover up a dinner—a dinner with an official from a border control agency. I am sure that that person was from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the agency responsible for whether or not Oravida’s products get into China. We know, because Julia Xu went on Television One’s Q+A programme and said it, that Oravida was having trouble getting products into China. Julia Xu then wrote to Tim Groser and Nathan Guy and said: “We are having trouble getting our products into China. Please intervene.” And then Judith Collins ended up at a dinner with a senior official from the agency responsible for getting those products in.

She was there working on behalf of her husband’s company. She was there in a clear conflict of interest situation. If John Key had any standards whatsoever for his Ministers, she would be gone. Pansy Wong went. Richard Worth went. Judith Collins should be gone. The taxpayers of New Zealand deserve far better than the cronyism and corruption of John Key’s Government. Judith Collins does not deserve to be a Minister. She should go. John Key should know that New Zealanders expect a fair go for all companies and all people. That is not what they are getting at the moment. What they are getting is Oravida, a company that Judith Collins is closely associated with, being preferred over other companies. That is called cronyism. That is called corruption. That is the National Government.

This Government knows what is actually important to New Zealanders. This Government knows that what is important to New Zealanders is delivering safer communities. I have to say that I am proud to be part of a justice sector that is led by Minister Judith Collins, as the Minister of Justice, who is leading the justice sector Ministers and delivering safer communities to New Zealand.

It has to be said that since David Cunliffe has become the leader of the Labour Party—albeit an invisible one—one thing I have noticed is that Labour has become far more critical of the justice sector. Despite the magnificent results that have been delivered by our justice sector, by police, by corrections, and by the courts, what we have had under David Cunliffe’s watch is a questioning of the crime statistics, a questioning of corrections methodologies, and, in fact, a questioning of the fantastic results that the justice sector has delivered.

Opposition members are actually all about facts and figures. They are all about dollars and they are all about numbers of people. Those sorts of things are important to them, rather than what exactly is happening on the ground for ordinary New Zealanders. So what this Government has done is focus its resources on being as effective as it possibly can—

💬 Sue Moroney: Out of touch—being out of touch.

—and delivering results for New Zealanders. Yes, the member over there talks about being out of touch. If it is out of touch to see crime dropping and fewer victims in our community, then I would much rather be on the National side of the House delivering those sorts of results than on the Labour side of the House, which had the record of seeing crime going up and predictions of 11,000 people languishing in our prisons, with no education, very little drug and alcohol treatment, and certainly no qualifications or job skills.

So what have we done? Well, I will tell the member because she might like to listen and learn something. With police, we have changed the focus in police from just reacting to crime to getting out there and preventing crime. We have encouraged and worked with the police to work smarter so that they stop crime happening. How have we done that? Well, we have done that through things like introducing technology. We have given them smartphones and iPads to use, so that they can be out there on the job and not have to go back into the office to carry out paperwork, which is what grew into enormous proportions under Labour.

And what did Labour do in response to that—what was Labour’s response? Labour members played the man. They actually went out and attacked the deputy commissioner who led that roll-out of technology. That is how it reacted to that amazing—amazing—transformation of our police, which is delivering great results.

We have seen much more visible policing under this Government. There is a 155 percent increase in foot patrols, which means that all over New Zealand people are saying to me: “Gosh, the police are out there on the streets. This is fantastic. We’re seeing our local cops out here on a Saturday night, walking up and down the streets.” It did not happen under the Labour Government. It did not happen. So what did Labour members say in response to that increase in foot patrols? I will tell you what they have done. They have complained about the police kiosks. They want to see uniformed police sitting behind the counter, waiting for the victims to turn up and complain. That is what they did. Instead of saying: “This is great, police. You are out there preventing crime, being visible on the streets.”, they want them stuck back in the police stations, sitting behind counters, filling in paperwork, and waiting for the victims to turn up.

Well, this Government is backing the—

💬 Hon Annette King: This is rubbish and dishonest—rubbish and dishonest.

We are backing the victims, in this Government. When that member was the Minister of Police, Labour did not have the focus on victims that we have.

So what has the result been? Well, in 2013 there was another 4.1 percent drop in crime—the fourth year in a row that we have seen recorded crime drop. We are down to—

💬 Sue Moroney: It’s been dropping for decades.

No, it went up under Labour.

💬 Sue Moroney: It’s been dropping for decades.

It went up under Labour. You do not know your statistics. That is another thing. This Government has seen crime drop to the lowest in 29 years. That is a National Government delivering what it knows New Zealanders care about—safer communities.

Eugenie Sage—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! Could the Hon Annette King stop yelling across the House. Eugenie Sage.

The Green Party knows what New Zealanders care about. We know that as well as clean Government they want clean rivers, and that is because thousands of Kiwis wrote submissions on the Minister for the Environment’s draft proposed changes to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, asking for standards in it that would deliver rivers that you can swim in—not just rivers that you wade in but ones that you can swim in without having to ring the regional council or check a website to check that you are not going to get sick.

That is why the report and the decision that the board of inquiry delivered yesterday on the Tukituki Catchment Proposal is very interesting, because potentially that decision could stymie the Ruataniwha Dam and the massive expansion of irrigation and dairying in the Hawke’s Bay, which this Government is so keen on. Although it was disappointing that the board granted consents for the scheme and for a dam that would be only 16 metres lower than the Clyde Dam, in its decision it is imposing much tougher limits on nutrient pollution than the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and its dam company wanted, and it is imposing much tougher limits, in terms of water quality and nitrogen, than the Government is proposing in its National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.

That creates a real conundrum for the Government, because the board has, effectively, said that you cannot have irrigation without actually safeguarding water quality and the health of the Tukituki Catchment. Yet this Government, in all its policies, is about sacrificing the environment in order to promote short-term economic growth. Here, under this Government, you have the Government tightening the criteria for small communities like the Tokomaru village to get access to the Ministry of Health’s Drinking-water Assistance Programme to help upgrade its drinking water supplies. On the one hand, those criteria have got much tighter, so that they are available only to the most deprived communities. Yet, on the other, we have the Government playing fast and loose, giving major handouts through its Crown Irrigation company to agribusiness and irrigators.

We saw $6.5 million given recently to Central Plains Water, and we have the Crown Irrigation company lining up to give another big subsidy to the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme in Hawke’s Bay. Given that this Government set up the board of inquiry and hand-picked the members of that board, it has got to read the board’s decision—look at what the board is saying about the nutrient limits—and it has got to get its hands off any further involvement in decisions around the flooding of the forest park. Even though the scheme potentially has got quite major costs for the region, the board did not decline the dam and it did not look in enough detail at the ecological impacts on the river from the flooding, in our view.

Yet when we have the Minister of Conservation suppressing the submission of the Department of Conservation, suppressing its ability to get in front of the board of inquiry to present information on ecological values and to present information about the forest park, we do not trust the Government when it comes to the other decision that could frustrate this dam, which is whether 200 hectares of the forest park would be flooded. Nick Smith’s paws were all over the decision to suppress the Department of Conservation’s submission, and we suspect that he will be all over the decision around whether that land should be flooded. So the Government needs to take stock. It needs to read the decision carefully and actually wind back its aggressive promotion of more dairying and more irrigation, because this dairy juggernaut is not sustainable. It is simplifying the economy and it is sacrificing the environment.

A Green Party in Government would make sure that we made our “100% Pure New Zealand” brand real. We would not be giving big handouts through the Crown Irrigation company to irrigation. We would put in place strong national standards and bottom lines to ensure that our rivers were clean enough for swimming. We would strengthen our major environmental laws like the Resource Management Act, not gut them as National is doing, not reduce the opportunities for the public to have a say. We would ensure that regional councils focus on their critical role of independently managing water, not promote irrigation, as the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is doing. That council now has to look really seriously at the changes to the plan that the board of inquiry is making.

What a ridiculous set of contributions we have had from the Opposition this afternoon. It started with David Cunliffe going on about Judith Collins’ numbers in our caucus. Well, he was, I think, purple with envy because he has never had the numbers in his own caucus. Of course, the only party that David Cunliffe has the numbers in to remain Leader of the Opposition is the New Zealand National Party. We are absolutely desperate for him to stay as Leader of the Opposition for just as long as he can. Then, of course, we had Grant Robertson from the Opposition. He started off OK, actually, I thought. He was all right. About halfway through he got hungry and started talking about Chinese banquets. I could see him sort of mentally visualising dumplings in his head or something.

Actually, in all seriousness, we have had speeches from the other side of the House that have not focused on a single issue of importance to New Zealanders around this country. Nothing in those speeches—

💬 Sue Moroney: Ah, he won’t defend Judith.

Actually, for the people of Hamilton, where Sue Moroney comes from, despite never having won the seat she has stood in, there was nothing in the speeches for them. There was nothing for the people of Napier, New Plymouth, Tauranga, and so on. On this side of the House is a party that is focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders. We are resolutely focused on a Budget coming up very soon that is on targeted spending—not the kind of spend-up we would get from the Opposition parties—on the areas that matter most to families and New Zealanders: health care, education, and safer communities. We will be sticking to the $1 billion Budget allowance because we know that that is the responsible thing to do. We know that that is what keeps mortgage rates lower for longer. We know that that is how we will achieve average annual wages increasing by $7,500 to around $62,000 a year in 2018. Over the past 2 years we have seen a $3,000 lift in the average wage to $54,700 a year. We have got great results here in this part of the Government. We know we cannot have a spend-up.

Of course, we then heard from Eugenie Sage. It is true that, unlike the Labour Party, she did focus on a real issue, and she made clear the Green Party position on these things. We have seen today in the House from Russel Norman that the Greens are absolutely anti-development. That is their position on these things. They are anti-irrigation for farms and anti - intensive farming and the jobs they bring. They are anti-manufacturing, and we know that they are anti-resources. We saw that from Russel Norman getting in a lather today about the Victoria Forest Park, despite the fact that that party—and it hates to hear this—whilst it was propping up the Labour Government, did nothing as the Labour Government oversaw mining in this area. Of course, we have got Damien O’Connor on the other side and Labour Party members who have been as quiet as church mice on this issue—not even a squeak from them—because they are confused. They have got on the one side the university types—the Maryan Streets and so on—the bookish types who are probably with the Greens on these things. Then they have the manly, chest-beating, Tarzan types like Shane Jones who actually are probably more gung ho—certainly, actually—on these issues than we are.

On this side of the House we are absolutely focused on the things that matter to New Zealanders. We are focused on a Budget that is going to be sensible, that is going to be responsible, and that is going to deliver for New Zealanders. We know that we can live in a country where we explore all our opportunities. In my portfolio, we do pursue resources. That does not mean that we do not care about the environment. We absolutely do. We know that the legal processes and so on safeguard what is happening.

So while the other side of the House focus on the trivial—

💬 Sue Moroney: Don’t call Judith trivial.

—and focus on Chinese banquets and things that the people in Napier, New Plymouth, Nelson, Christchurch, and Hamilton, Sue Moroney, could not care less about, this side will focus on the things that matter to New Zealanders and, on that basis, be re-elected later this year.

Kia ora anō tātou. In this short contribution of mine I am going to focus on accountability. I am going to focus on accountability in three areas. No. 1 is the absence of any accountability from Judith Collins in terms of giving a truthful account of what happened while she was on her oriental express. Next I am going to turn my attention to the Māori Party. Then, in my trans-Tasman fashion, I am going to come back to making a few observations about Lotto and the Countdown supermarkets.

If Judith Collins—as is correct and as stated by Grant Robertson, and soon to be stated, I am sure, by Winston Peters—is toast, then the Māori Party is, as they say down on the marae, “brown bread”. But when the Māori Party went to the Northern Club, it did not get brown bread. It leaves Māori bread for Rātana Pa and fried bread for Waitangi, but it feasts on bagels, baguettes, and other kinds of flash types of bakery items that you get at the Northern Club that I have never heard of.

Why I am raising this issue is that this is an example of how far that party has lost its way. I actually did a bit of research on what Tariana Turia has said in the past. This is what she has said: “The majority of our kids don’t get to go through the door unless we can go and convince the employer to give them a go.” So is that why they went to the Northern Club—to actually address the unemployment in Kaikohe and Kaitāia? Tariana Turia is afraid to go to Tai Tokerau. She hates the place because that is where Hone Harawira comes from. Did she go there to advance the interests of the young Māori job seekers in South Auckland? No. Well, perhaps she went for this reason: “There is only one party you can trust with absolute certainty”—according to Tariana Turia—“to protect and look out for Māori interests, and that is the Māori Party.” Is that the Māori Party that is now whistling: “He who pays the piper calls the tune”?

When you embrace your funder, when you cuddle up to the Prime Minister and his funders from the other end of town, they tell you what to do. There is no independence left with that particular party. There is no independent analysis. Now that it has received the gold and silver as a consequence of the Prime Minister, you can rest assured it will show no accountability to the voters in Waiariki. It is more than likely that Rawiri Waititi, our candidate, will beat both Te Ururoa and Annette Sykes because he will come through the middle, but the real problem is that the Ministers in that particular tawdry outfit show no accountability to the people who put them there. That is why they will go.

Let me come back to Countdown. I want this House to know that since my democratic contributions to do with the behaviour of this Australian-owned supermarket hit the press, matters have improved between them and suppliers. But what Countdown does not know is that there is an avalanche of information being sent to the Commerce Commission, and an additional email I am going to make available to the Commerce Commission.

During this episode, people have pointed out to me that Countdown has a cosy relationship with Lotto, which is why I have asked Ruth Dyson and why I have asked Mr Mallard to ensure that they use their good services on the various select committees that they are on to call Lotto into Parliament to account for the following: “Hi. I’d like to let you know that even Lotto New Zealand have had intimidation methods used by both Countdown and Woolworths on numerous occasions and with all the Lotto executive team keeping this very quiet”—which is why it must be forced to come to Parliament. “Hundreds and thousands of dollars have been paid to both of these entities in project payments. This is so that Lotto can sell tickets through the checkouts”—worsening gambling spread, at a time when Lotto bases itself on the myth of being the family concerned. “This also is because Countdown threatened to close Lotto counters in their stores. They have dictated they will sell, and when refusing to sell Instant Kiwi tickets”—it is rather bizarre that an Aussie-owned company is able to do that—“in the past, which they did not like. No other Lotto retailer can or has been allowed to do this, only Countdown. Everyone is under strict threats not to say anything, from the chief executive officer to the chief operational officer.”

Drag those people to the highest court in the land and bring them before the select committees of this Parliament to account for their dealings, which are possibly dodgy.

I have a lot of respect for Shane Jones, the member who just sat down, but I would give him just one piece of advice: people who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones.

I feel that I have to start my contribution by saying how grateful I am to my parents, who, in a way, forced me to move to New Zealand. They forced me to migrate to New Zealand when I was much younger. When I first got to New Zealand my feelings towards my new country were not how I feel about it now. I am a very proud Kiwi, or a “Kowi”, actually—a Korean Kiwi, which is what we Koreans actually call each other; “Kowi”—and I cannot think of living anywhere else but this gorgeous country of ours, Aotearoa.

I would like to think that I am pretty ordinary in that I am a mother—a single mother—with a teenaged son, and my mother lives with me. Although privileged to be a member of Parliament and lucky to have had the successful career that I have had, my life is like everybody else’s. I wish that my family have good health and that my son will get a good education, and, according to him, he attends the best State school in New Zealand. I want my family to be safe and protected from crime, and I hope that we do not ever become welfare dependent. These are the things that matter most to our New Zealand families, which is why this National-led Government is investing heavily in these areas.

Like all Kiwi families who live within a budget, and most of us do, this National-led Government is careful and fiscally responsible. We are carefully targeting our spending in the areas that matter and sticking to a $1 billion Budget allowance for the 2014-15 financial year. Growing our economy so that more people can have jobs, more people can have better pay, and more people can have economic freedom is the paramount concern for this Government. As a small country at the bottom of the world, New Zealand’s economic future lies in the strength of our connections to our international markets and to our neighbours to sell our goods and services. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s objective is to help New Zealand companies achieve international success. China, South America, the Middle East, and the ASEAN region provide strong opportunities for New Zealand’s economic future.

I went to Indonesia not long ago, and that is one of the areas that we are actually focusing on. Just to give you an idea of how big that country is, it has a population of close to 250 million people. Yes, it is a lot poorer than us in terms of its economy and how well its economy is actually doing, but its population is growing at the rate of our total population in New Zealand a year—growth of 4.5 million people a year—and the economic growth in that country is phenomenal.

I was told when I was there that New Zealand companies are going into Indonesia to trade with it and are actually doing fantastically well. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is there and our embassy is there to assist our New Zealand companies to do so, and I think it is fantastic. Lifting our trade with these regions will help create higher-paying jobs for Kiwi families. The additional $69 million will allow New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to connect more Kiwi companies with growing markets, delivering stronger long-term economic growth for New Zealand.

Another one that I am personally waiting for is the free-trade agreement with my birth country. They are currently negotiating, and I hope that they will actually come to a conclusion very, very soon. That will boost trade between our two nations, my birth country and my country—New Zealand and Korea—and it will actually make a huge contribution to the growth of our economy, which is doing fantastically well.

New Zealand is in a good place. We are growing. Every day our economy is looking bright and our future is looking much better because of what National is doing—

💬 Dr David Clark: Where are the jobs?

—and it is doing better than Labour did in the previous 9 years of Government.

This House has witnessed a disgraceful state of affairs. The Prime Minister allows a Cabinet Minister to abuse her position, and then helps her cover it up. The Minister of Justice used her office to help her husband’s company during the Fonterra botulism scare. Along the way she has sucked in two other Cabinet Ministers plus the Prime Minister.

It is obvious from the official papers that the Minister used her position to work for Oravida from the start. Oravida asked the Government for urgent help. The help arrived in 2 days flat. The Cabinet Minister did everything Oravida asked. This included providing taxpayers’ funds, issuing statements, and then, of course, a public relations trip to China—paid for by the taxpayer—by the Minister of Justice herself. Was it a coincidence that her husband is a director of the company? Was it a coincidence that a senior Chinese border official was at a dinner she attended? We know where the official was from, and there was only one reason he was there. The reason was Oravida. Was it a coincidence that Oravida’s problems suddenly went away?

Many other companies were in the same position as Oravida, but they did not get the same high level of help from the Government. Other companies are still fighting through a bureaucratic nightmare to get goods into China—not only dairy companies but meat companies. We know that one New Zealand firm last week received approval from the Ministry for Primary Industries to export primary products to China. It now faces a delay of 3 to 9 months to get past over 455 pages of documentation to get goods into China. China has required all New Zealand plants and goods and brands to re-register following the Fonterra incident. As these companies struggle through the waves of a bureaucratic sea, Oravida goes past on a jet ski with Minister Collins at the helm. This issue cannot be explained away by a series of coincidences. The Prime Minister is over a barrel. Do not forget that he is also the milk poster boy for a number of companies.

It is time to get everything out in the open so that New Zealanders can see the extent of cronyism and naked corruption in this Government. New Zealand is being run like some kind of international trading company for the benefit of the National Party and its mates, and to think that Minister Collins was in China boasting about our glorious, corruption-free, transparent Government! This is the same Minister who has been trying to block all of our Official Information Act requests. This is the same Minister who appeared on the APEC Women Leadership Forum. The forum, of course, was sponsored by whom? Oravida.

We have written evidence that shows that 2 days before Minister of Justice Collins had dinner with her Oravida friends and connections and a senior Chinese border official, Oravida attended a briefing run by the Government on China’s new guidelines following the botulism scare that was bringing Oravida to its knees. The focus of the briefing was China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, known as AQSIQ—the very organisation that the senior Chinese border official who went to a dinner with Judith Collins and the Oravida people belongs to.

This is not a coincidence; this is a cover-up. It is a shameful, scandalous, cronyistic, serious conflict of interest and, worse still, corruption. She said today that she told the Prime Minister everything. Well, now the Prime Minister is in with her, and he has been found out following double standards. He knows full well that the more we dig, the more we will find, and there is more information coming. We will release soon the fact that just 3 days out, the department advised Oravida about the briefing. They attended it and, just 3 days later, there she is, with the very same official, from the very same organisation, giving the briefing. It stinks, and this Minister—this so-called Minister of Justice—must now go.

What we have just seen is classic Winston Peters at his almost old best. He had his birthday last week. Many happy belated returns for your 69th birthday, the honourable member Winston Peters. You are looking nearly as good as you did when you first came into this House back in Muldoon’s time.

Ladies and gentlemen of the House, we have seen a very sorry state from the Opposition this afternoon. That was a once-proud, principled party, that Labour Party over there, but now it is bereft of policy, it is bereft of principle, and it is bereft of leadership. Indeed, this afternoon in the general debate their sometime lost leader actually just about lost his voice. I am not sure how he is going to make it through the election campaign. Certainly a 20-minute speech will seem to be an absolute mountain of a challenge for him. He has not actually got long to show a glimmer of leadership, and he is yet to try to shine not only in this House but for his party and for the people who do support him, not that they are many, because at the conclusion of today’s sitting of the House there will be but 28 sitting days left in this 50th Parliament.

So that does not give the Opposition members very much time to get their act together from the woeful position that they find themselves in. But it is a very good time to reflect on the wonderful and very good achievements of this John Key - led National Government in its 5½ years. It is a good opportunity not only to reflect on the achievements of the Government but also to concentrate a little on what work has yet to be done, because there is still a lot we have to do. We have come an awful long way since inheriting the economic mess of the Labour Party and the Labour-Green Government that preceded us. It has been very difficult but we have managed the economy with prudence and with care, so that all New Zealanders have benefited during what has been the worst economic situation in living memory.

This weekend is Easter weekend, and tens of thousands of New Zealanders will arrive on the Coromandel peninsula. They will be very fortunate to travel across the wonderful new Kōpū Bridge, a bridge that was delayed and stymied and stifled by the Labour-Green Government for 9 long years but was fast tracked by John Key and this National Government. So on the 6 o’clock news on Thursday evening, instead of the lead story being about how traffic is building up on the Kōpū Bridge, with delays of hours and hours taking place for thousands of tourists and spenders and people who are coming to invest a bit of money in the local Coromandel economy, they will make a seamless approach across that bridge and they will do so without having to combat both the physical and psychological barrier that the old bridge put in place. That is very good for the business people and for all the people of the Coromandel electorate.

So we have had not only a very good new bridge this summer but a very good summer in every other respect as well. Yes, it is true that our hard-working farmers on the Hauraki Plains and in other parts of the Coromandel could well do with a few days’ rain because they have had a very long, dry, hot summer. But they are in good heart and they are doing very well under a Government that understands fully and completely that the rural economy is and always has been the backbone of our economy. It is the hard work of our rural brothers and sisters, the hard-working farmers on the Coromandel and across the Hauraki Plains, that we acknowledge, and their contribution to the total success of our economy now.

Commentators around the world are praising and giving credit to this John Key Government and our coalition partners for the good work and the prudence that they have shown over these 5½ years. They are saying that our economy is growing almost faster than any other developed economy in the world, and that can be attributed to the very good work of Bill English and his finance team.

So the good people of the Coromandel are in good heart. They are looking forward to a prosperous Easter weekend and they are looking forward to using the new Kōpū Bridge, giving them access to the peninsula, in a way they were never able to use under the Labour-Green Government. They will also be out in numbers. They will be using the Hauraki Rail Trail cycleway in ever-increasing numbers. In January of this year we had 14,500 people use the cycleway in just one month. To put that into a context, on the Otago Central Rail Trail cycleway—

I have to say that the last speaker who has just resumed his seat, Scott Simpson, is a very nice bloke—but was that not the speech he gave to this House just 3 weeks ago? It was almost identical—talking about the Kōpū Bridge, etc., etc. He needs to get some new speech notes.

It is time. The time has come; in fact, it is overdue. Judith Collins has to go. She must stand down as a Minister. She is an embarrassment to the National Party. She is a blot on Cabinet collective responsibility, she is an insult to this Parliament, and she has lost her way in an overdose of self-importance, blatherskite, and bravado. I think she needs some time out—some time out for detoxifying her considerable self-confidence and ego.

I have sat opposite Judith Collins for week after week as she has been grilled on her behaviour as a Minister. She has blustered. She has thrown out insults. She tried contrition—very, very briefly. She made false accusations against other members of this House. She has flouted requests from the Speaker to answer questions. She has laughed hysterically at times. She has bullied, and, finally, she has stomped out of the Chamber and scampered down the back alleys and back corridors—anything to avoid the media.

As the weeks have gone by, the political noose has been tightening round her neck. As her answers have become more obtuse and more evasive, her colleagues’ behaviour has changed. They have gone from the usual laughing and clapping, like well-trained circus seals, to now having their heads down, busily reading whatever is in front of them—Woman’s Day or whatever is of importance to them. They talk to each other—anything but look at her. They duck behind the bench if they can—if they are fit enough to do it—and all the while they are not wanting to look at Judith Collins. She has been left with the departing Minister of Health as her only cheerleader. Even he has gone from looking adoringly at her, as he does every day, to now staring straight ahead.

She is just not believable. In an attempt to divert attention from her highly inappropriate behaviour as a Minister, she has tried to turn it into a personal attack on her and her family and her friends. Therein lies the problem. She is incapable of separating her role as a Minister from her personal life. Because of her self-belief that she can do whatever she likes as long as it is in the name of private and personal, she has now made the Prime Minister—the Government’s greatest treasure—look like a weakling. He likes to be seen as a reasonable and nice bloke, but now he looks indecisive, he looks inconsistent, and he looks like he is not in control. He is too scared to act—too scared to act. If he does not act now and remove her from office, then he deserves to be labelled “nice but weak”.

Perhaps there is something much deeper here that we do not know about. What is it that she has over the Prime Minister? What is it that makes him hold back from giving her the same marching orders that he gave to Pansy Wong and Richard Worth? Did he actually approve of her activities? Did he approve of those activities in return for some big cheques from Oravida? It seems that perhaps that is the case, because the Prime Minister appears to have got his private life and public life mixed up as well. He plays golf with big business for dollars—not for charity, as he said, but for the National Party. He has cheques for endorsements and photographs for the National Party. It appears to me that the Prime Minister has lost his moral compass. His moral compass has gone, because he cannot see that what the Minister of Justice is doing is wrong. He cannot see it, and he needs to get his moral compass back or he will be seen as a weak leader and only a nice bloke.

I stand in this House today to make a statement. Late last year my family had been at a property in my electorate where my stepson had been testing his rally car in preparation for competing in his father’s memorial rally. Later that evening my wife, Peggy, and I attended a barbecue at the same property. While there I was confronted by Mr Kim Dotcom, who was also a guest. I can only describe the conversation as chilling. Direct threats were made by Mr Dotcom towards our Prime Minister. He stated that he could and would destroy the Prime Minister and that he already had members of our Parliament working with him to achieve this. We left immediately.

Because I had had many years of dealing with, and being exposed to, violent and intimidatory people, I did not immediately recognise the seriousness of the situation. But, sadly, in our vehicle with my wife it was obvious that she was shaken and that the nature of the threats had frightened her. I did not believe Mr Dotcom’s claims that members of our New Zealand Parliament were actively collaborating with him. A good Opposition’s job is to challenge the Government, to ensure that the Ministers remain laser-focused on their portfolios, to challenge policy ideas, and to present an alternative Government. I watched in amazement as it became apparent that members of Parliament were collaborating with Mr Dotcom at his mansion in Coatesville. I felt that a sinister corner had been turned for the first time in our country’s history when Opposition parties appear to have given up on challenging our Prime Minister through debate and policy ideas and have instead turned to assisting Mr Dotcom in his mission to destroy the Prime Minister.

Every time one of the Opposition MPs drove into that Dotcom mansion, they were driving past people and being served by people who were scared, who had not been paid, who were struggling to support their own families. Imagine what they were thinking when they saw our country’s political leaders bowing down to that same person. Where could they turn to for help when the country’s political leaders appeared to be in the back pocket of Mr Dotcom? Is it true that Mr Dotcom tasked Labour with the further development of an IT policy he had been working on? Come to this House and tell us. Is it true that Mr Norman, co-leader of the Green Party, was tasked with challenging his extradition to the United States? Come to this House and tell us. Is it true that Mr Peters was given questions by Mr Dotcom to bring to this House to attack our Prime Minister? Come to this House and tell us.

I have now had time to reflect on the abusive behaviour of Mr Dotcom at the function I attended in my electorate last year. The violence of the threats towards our Prime Minister has not left me. Today I felt that it was important to place these matters on the record in this House. I believe that the people of this country are beginning to question the real motives of Mr Dotcom. From my own experience, he is a man who uses threats and intimidation on people to get what he wants. I wait to see the next instruction or order given from the Dotcom mansion to members of this House. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would just like to remind you, because I thought you might have got to your feet, that it is out of order to suggest that any member is directed by an outside party. That is exactly what that member just did, and normally the Speaker is very protective of the rights of members of the House in that area.

The member is right, actually. That is not in order. I note Speakers’ ruling 50/4. It is not in order to say that a member is dictated to, dominated by, or has received instructions from, an outside body. That was Speaker Barnard. It is a long one. So you are quite right. You are quite right, Mr Mallard.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s an old one—nearly as old as I am.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): He is as old as you are, is he? The member is quite right, so I would just say to the member that it is not in order to indicate that members of the House are involved in that.

You are absolutely right about the Speakers’ ruling. However, if you closely examine the text of what the member said, he did not attribute that; he asked questions. He asked questions. I believe that in Parliament any member is entitled to ask a question.

Of course members are entitled to ask questions, but I think the point has been made that as members of Parliament we need to be careful about any accusations we make, because we are held accountable. All members in this House are honourable and their word is their bond. So I would just caution the House about that.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.