General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I am going to spend most of the debate today talking about the things that are not protected under any possible future National Government—the things that are Kiwi. But one could not go a minute in this debate without referring to the dark looks, the shaking, the anger, and almost the tears of John Key today after Nick Smith made his intervention. I have never seen a member of Parliament looked at in such a dirty way by his or her leader in the House. I do not know whether Nick Smith did it deliberately—maybe he did do it deliberately—or whether he did it accidentally. What did they call those young boys over there? It was not the “goon squad”.

Hon Darren Hughes: The brat pack.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Whether it was part of the brat-pack undermining of John Key or whether it was totally accidental, John Key’s knees were taken away from him by Nick Smith in the House today—and we thought it was great. What is also really interesting is how John Key could not handle it. He got angry, he shook, and he started mouthing. It was a joy to behold from this side of the House.

But that is not what this debate is about. This debate is about things Kiwi. It is about KiwiRail, it is about Kiwibank, and it is about KiwiSaver. It is about the things that the National Party in its slowly evolving policy—slowly evolving, very slippery policy—is not committed to. As the member of Parliament for Hutt South, I thought it was amazing that the National Party opposes spending $200,000 on looking at whether we could assemble locomotives in New Zealand. Why does it object to considering the question of putting locomotives together in New Zealand? I think it is a great idea. I do not know whether it can be done or whether the economics will work, but considering the question is something that I think is really good.

I think it is amazing how the National Party - inspired websites have the Rt Hon James Brendan Bolger on them with—do members know what title is underneath?

Hon Member: No.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is “traitor”. That is what the National Party - inspired websites are saying about National’s former leader. I think those members opposite need to have a look at someone like Mr Bolger who can look at the interests of New Zealand in the way he has. It is absolutely clear that having a working rail system is in the interests of New Zealand, and the only way of doing that is to have a Crown purchase.

I thought it was very interesting that we are getting a pattern of privatisation. National says it is not going to sell assets—that it is not going to sell Television New Zealand or the Accident Compensation Corporation.

Hon Member: Into several pieces.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No, no. But it will privatise the functions. National will not sell them but it will—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s called choice.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Oh, it is called choice. National will privatise the function. It will not have a public broadcaster but will give the money to the overseas-owned TV3 instead. Well, that is an interesting approach. National will not have a New Zealand accident compensation system. Instead, National will give the resources to its donors from the Australian insurance companies.

It is really interesting that National’s tax proposals are now beginning to leak out. People who are low-income earners now know that National will be committed to those changes that are happening on 1 October but not to the ones scheduled to happen in the out-years. So low-income earners will get what they are going to get from Labour, but the National Party policy will be that there are no further tax changes for people—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member says “Rubbish!”. It is very, very interesting that—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: He knows everything, doesn’t he!

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: He says he knows everything. Bill English has been consulting people, but not Nick Smith.

When inflation is heading to 5 percent and is gouging the budgets of many low-income New Zealanders, and when New Zealand businesses and particularly exporters who are trying to stay competitive so that they can employ New Zealanders are burdened with 4 percent domestic inflation for the last 5 years, Trevor Mallard is the best that Labour can do. His economic policy now amounts to a $200,000 gift to Trevor Mallard to try to save the Hutt South seat. When interest rates—

Jill Pettis: Why does this member hate workers?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, that member must hate workers, because under Labour interest rates have doubled. Mortgage interest rates are now twice what they were when Labour came into office, and Labour’s solution to that is that member over there. Therefore, it is no wonder that consumer confidence and business confidence are lower than they have been for a long, long time—the lowest for years.

House prices are not just not going up; they are dropping—in some places, precipitously. We see news in the paper today that the performance of the Australian parent owners of some of our banks is now a real concern to financial markets, and what is Labour doing? Labour is mired in the workings of New Zealand First’s finances. The Prime Minister has spent 10 days prevaricating and procrastinating over issues that she would normally deal with in a matter of a day or two. When public concern about law and order is higher than it has been for a long, long time because of a rash of violent crimes in Auckland, what is Labour doing? Labour is trading insults over who donated what to whom and when. Labour and New Zealand First pushed the Electoral Finance Act through Parliament. Why? Because they wanted transparency around big money in New Zealand politics. That is what they are doing.

Labour’s flagship legislation, the emissions trading scheme, is now almost fatally caught up in the parliamentary process. We know that because the Leader of the House told us so today. When Labour has flagship legislation it wants pushed through, for which it needs New Zealand First’s support, it is not in there negotiating the fine points of how the emissions trading scheme might deal with carbon; it is in there telling Winston—

Jill Pettis: The member has a name.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: —Winston Peters—it will do whatever it can to keep him out of trouble so that they might get his vote for the one piece of legislation that Helen Clark would like to claim as their legacy.

In short, the Government—as has been the case for the last 18 months—is not focusing on the issues that matter. It is focused on a whole set of preoccupations that are nothing to do with the real concerns of normal Kiwis, and that is why it is regarded as being out of touch.

How does Labour think it feels to be one of those working-class voters, whom it thinks will vote for Labour but will not, when price rises are heading for 5 percent, when interest rates have doubled, and when house prices are dropping? Well, Labour does not care how they feel. What it cares about is how Mr Peters feels.

Let us deal briefly with Mr Peters. It has now become clear that he did receive donations when he said he did not. That will be a surprise to the public. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of how that happened, it will be a surprise to them that when Labour and New Zealand First said that National members are the people who are influenced by big money, and that legislation must be passed to stop it, it turns out that Labour and New Zealand First members are the people getting half-million dollar and secret donations.

Listeners will recall that the previous speaker, Mr English, who is the shadow finance Minister and the finance spokesperson for the Opposition, when last in Government was of course the Minister of Finance who cut the superannuation rate from 65 percent to 60 percent.

One of the most important institutions that we have in this House is Hansard, and the Hansard record stands as a record of what we say. It enables members of the public, journalists, and members of Parliament to judge what is said today, and to compare it with what was said yesterday. It is one of the best ways in which we can judge the sincerity of what people say today, particularly as we approach elections, when some politicians are known to say what they think the public wants them to say rather than what they really believe. I want to concentrate today on some of the reasons why it is increasingly clear that members of the public are concerned that John Key and National members continually just say what they think the public wants to hear rather than what they really believe.

I will start with Iraq. Lots of us were at meetings with John Key when he said New Zealand should be in Iraq. He was quoted as saying New Zealand was “missing in action” during the invasion of Iraq, yet this year he said “National wouldn’t have sent troops to Iraq”. Again, he is telling people what he thinks they want to hear and denying the true agenda. In respect of climate change he will say anything to win. He said in May 2005, and I am quoting from Hansard here, “even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it”. That is a direct quote from John Key, the Leader of the Opposition. He now says “I firmly believe in climate change and always have”—another incident where he was reinventing history and telling people what he thought they wanted to hear.

The most recent time he was outed on his true agenda was in respect of accident compensation. There was no comment from the National Party on this issue until they were forced to comment in response to media queries, as a consequence of stories in the Australian media following comments to Merrill Lynch. They had told Merrill Lynch, and I quote from a Merrill Lynch report, that “The National Party has been cautious about its statements on the possible privatisation of the ACC market but are giving the insurance industry a strong message that it is a likely outcome if it wins the election”. Having been clearly outed on that and not able to deny it—because, of course, Mr Key is a former senior employee of Merrill Lynch—National was forced to admit its privatisation agenda in respect of accident compensation.

Other areas are of increasing concern to New Zealand voters, and that is why they are increasingly concerned about this hidden agenda. The next I will mention is the cost of going to the doctor. Tony Ryall is the National Party spokesperson on health. He is a front-bench spokesperson. What did he say? He said that National will not cap the cost of doctors’ visits. His words were, in fact, “We don’t support Labour’s fees control system. We’ll be knocking it on the head”. That is the true National agenda. National members subsequently denied it, but that is their true agenda from their health spokesperson.

Let us look at student loans. Student loans were said by both Bill English and John Key—and I quote John Key—to be “an unaffordable … and irresponsible cost to the country”. Now they say they will keep them, but we know about their promises to students. The last time National was seeking election Lockwood Smith made promises, said he would resign if the party did not keep them, and then broke those promises but did not resign.

Let us look at superannuation rates and eligibility. Within the last couple of years both Bill English and John Key, in their responsibility as finance spokespeople, have said that the eligibility is too generous for superannuation in New Zealand and that we need to tighten up. National members were the ones who cut the superannuation rate from 65 percent of the average wage to 60 percent for a married couple; they would do it again. That is their true agenda.

Let us look at what they would do in respect of education. John Key says there will be more money for private schools; Anne Tolley says there will be no more money for state schools. She said that to a principals’ association. That is on record and that is the true agenda.

Let us look at KiwiSaver. It is a flagship policy for Labour and very important economically to increase our savings and the depth of our capital markets. Kate Wilkinson is on record as saying that National would have no employer contribution; John Key says “Oh, no, no, no; that is not our true agenda.” But then what do we hear? We have another ideological burp—the truth from Shane Ardern.

Personal privacy is a highly valued asset that affords the individual a set of boundaries to protect his or her personal time and personal space. Recently a very public itch has developed over the invasion into our private lives by telemarketers. Typically telemarketers ring at times when one is most likely to be at home, which is the 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., after-work downtime, or during one’s precious weekends. If one lives in Auckland or another main centre, the problem is unrelenting, with people reporting four calls in a weekend from the same company. The callers often will not acknowledge who they are, even when asked; they will pose as market researchers; ask for 5 minutes of one’s time, but take 20; and will not respect one’s clear and polite message of lack of interest.

A voluntary register has been set up by the New Zealand Marketing Association, but a large number of telemarketers are not members, and I have received many complaints from constituents who are still dealing with a barrage of calls, despite making the effort to sign up on the register. In May last year, United Future asked the Privacy Commissioner to give some thought to the problem. Last week she released a report from the commission, in which it surveyed developments internationally and in New Zealand over the last 4 years, to update and modernise our privacy laws. Amongst the three recommendations is the idea of establishing a national “Do Not Call” database, similar to those set up in other jurisdictions like Australia and the United States of America. In Australia, the register has been so popular that on the day it went live, it crashed, due to being inundated by applications. In the United States of America, 145 million people signed up in 2003.

The register would apply to all profit-making organisations, and would give telemarketers a number of working days, after a person registered, in which to become compliant before a series of fines could be imposed. Last week, talkback radio callers were very responsive to the suggestion of a New Zealand register; the New Zealand Herald ran a poll and had over 4,000 voters cast their opinion, with 96 percent in favour of a register. It is interesting that the Government has already moved to introduce an amendment bill on one of the three recommendations made by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, but on this issue of a “Do Not Call” register it has been strangely quiet. So too, in an election year, the National Party has been strangely silent, despite the fact there is huge public demand for this choice regarding the volume of telemarketing that people are on the receiving end of.

In the last 10 days, one of the astonishing aspects of the response to United Future’s call for the Government to establish a “Do Not Call” register, is the personal stories I have heard not just from the general public, but from members of the media who have been interviewing me, and from members in this House as well, all adding to the damning evidence against this unacceptably intrusive approach taken by many telemarketers. One member of this House told me of receiving a call just last weekend from a telemarketer who refused to answer questions as to whether he or she was in fact a telemarketer. Eventually the member was forced to hang up, only to receive a call 2 hours later from this telemarketer’s supervisor demanding an apology for his staff member, who was offended at being hung up on.

Telemarketers have had plenty of time to get a voluntary register to work effectively. It is now time for this House to scratch the public itch, and to strengthen our privacy legislation to ensure it is much more relevant to our 21st century context. The call is now out to all political parties to make clear their positions and to let the public know whether they are going to support the call for a register.

What a sad sight it was to see the Prime Minister stand in the House today and take no fewer than eight questions from other members asking her to extol the virtues of the Rt Hon Winston Peters in his capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs for this country. What a sad day it is when the Prime Minister simply casts aside one of the documents that make up the constitution of New Zealand—the Cabinet Manual—and says “it is not a rule book; it is just a guide”. No one will forget that after the last election it was the Rt Hon Winston Peters who instigated the changes to the Cabinet Manual that would enable him to take the position he has today. This is a man who touts himself as being one of the great parliamentarians of our age—a man who never hesitates to take an opportunity in this House to explain to other members how long he has been here, how much he knows about the place, and how much he claims to respect the institution of Parliament. Yet his very behaviour, not only after the last election but now, as has been revealed in the last few days, in the acceptance of a donation from Mr Owen Glenn, which was not disclosed, shows his utter and complete contempt for the parliamentary process that operates in New Zealand.

To have the Prime Minister spending her days working out how she can answer such a barrage of questions requiring complimentary statements about Mr Peters shows what a dreadful state the Government has got itself into. Everyone knows when they go outside of this place that New Zealanders are generally finding life a little difficult at the moment; that New Zealanders from one end of the country to the other are questioning just how secure they are as they go about their daily activities, only to pick up the morning newspaper to see more violent assaults, more murders, more crime, and all those other things that threaten the security of families in this country. The Prime Minister, sitting in the top office of the Beehive, is spending her mornings working out how she will say ever more complimentary things about the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Let us think for just a minute about what the issue is here. The issue is that under our system Ministers are supposed to stay completely free of any influence whatsoever—completely free of any influence from those who might be advantaged by any particular law change or other such. This country has, for about 25 years now, progressively moved to a situation whereby the separation between the Government and the governance and running of various activities that are part of being in Government have been separated from Ministers so that there can be no question about the way in which a Minister delivers in a policy area for which he or she is responsible.

This donation, which has been acknowledged by Winston Peters, has exposed the raw underbelly of New Zealand politics and some of the weaknesses that can be in the system. One of the great protections has always been the Cabinet Manual, which allows the Prime Minister to demand a certain standard of behaviour from members of the executive. Today the Prime Minister cast that aside and simply said: “It is not a book that sets down rules; it is simply a guide.” So the behaviour of members of Parliament who become members of the executive is not prescribed in any rule, it would seem, but is simply found in a guide. The Prime Minister is the only person who can alter the Cabinet Manual, and the Prime Minister has discretion about what sort of behaviour is acceptable.

That is the nub of the problem we have. Mr Peters spent months and months saying he never received a donation—only, apparently, to find out last Friday that, yes, he had. Then he went out and said: “But it wasn’t for me”. But it was! When someone gets a legal bill, it is his or her responsibility to pay it. For Winston Peters to say that he did not know where that money came from is completely and utterly unbelievable. It is irresponsible, and what is worse he is destroying the credibility of this Parliament by continuing to stick to that line.

Otirā, kei te Kaihautū tēnā koe. Tū whakahīhī tonu au i te mea rā ko tēnei Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Nā runga i tēnā, kore e taea e tēnā ki te wero i te tuarā o tēnei tangata ā-waha o Winitana. Mihi tonu atu au ki a ia ki te matenga ake o tōna whaea kua tuku atu nei ki te kōpū o te whenua i ngā rā kua taha ake nei. Nō reira, nā runga i tēnā, ka mihi ake ki a ia me tōna whānau.

Hoki mai rā ki te kaupapa i hui ai tātou i roto i te Whare i tēnei ahiahi. Tū whakahīhī tonu au i te āhuatanga o te kaupapa e pā ana ki tō tātou reo. Nā runga i tēnā, ka mōtini hoki au ki ngā mema o te Whare kia kōrero Māori katoa ngā tāngata e whai muri mai i ahau i tēnei wā. Mā te mema mō tērā takiwā o Ōtaki, te mema makawe whero a Darren Hughes hei tautoko i taku mōtini. Nā te katoa o te Whare nei e kī, āe, kua oti rā tēnā.

[Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand proud because this is Māori Language Week. Because of that, no one can verbally attack Winston to his face, but to his back. But I do acknowledge him in the loss of his mother, who passed away recently, and express condolences to his family, as well.

I come back to the business and the reason why we are assembled here in the House today. I remain proud in respect to our language, and as a consequence propose a motion that all members of the House who speak after me should do so totally in Māori. The member from that electorate of Ōtaki, the red-haired Darren Hughes, will second my motion. The whole House says, yes, that is done!]

I will take a couple of minutes to translate what I have said. I have listened to the debate and the challenge on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I have nothing to criticise him for, this week. This is a very sad week for him and for his family, with the passing of his mum. I have one thing to say to Winston: “Ngā mihi aroha”—my sincere condolences. All I expect from him this week is to kōrero Māori. I say that to every member of this House, and to that end I would move a motion that everybody who speaks in this House, after I sit down, must speak Māori. I am sure the member for Otaki, the Hon Darren Hughes, would support my motion, because he is a very good Māori speaker. I think he is from that tribe called “Ngāti Panewhero”—the people with red hair!

Nā runga i tēnā, kei te Kaihautū, mihi kau ana ki a tātou. Otirā, hoki mai au ki te kaupapa o te Rōpū Nāhinara. Tēnei taku wero ki a rātou, kei hea rātou e tū ana i runga i te Tiriti o Waitangi? He aha o tō rātou kaupapa kia whārikihia ki waenganui i iwi o te motu kia mārama tonu ai, kei hea rātou e tū ana? Kei hea ō rātou mema Māori? A Hōriana mai rā i Ngāti Tūwharetoa. A Tau Hēnare mai rā i Te Tai Tokerau. Kīhai rātou te hara mai ki roto i te Whare ki te whakamanahia i tō rātou reo, tō rāua reo, tō tātou reo. Nō reira, karanga atu ki a rātou hoki mai rā ki te kōrero kia mārama ai te Rōpū Nāhinara, he Māori tonu rātou. Kei a rātou te wairua o tō tātou reo, kei a rāua te mana o tō tātou reo kei roto i tērā rōpū tōrangapū, te Rōpū Nāhinara.

[Because of that, Mr Assistant Speaker, I congratulate us. Indeed, I come back to the National Party’s policy. This is my challenge to National members: where do they stand in respect of the Treaty of Waitangi? What part of their policy will they place before the people of the country so that it is clear to them what National’s position is? Where are National’s Māori members—Georgina te Heuheu of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and Tau Henare of the north? They have not come into the House to honour their collective language, Georgina’s and Tau’s language, and our language. So my call is for them to come back to explain so that it is clear to National they are still Māori, that they have the spirit of our language, that Georgina and Tau have control over their language in that political party, National.]

Once again I give a translation on my own behalf. I just say that this is a very, very significant week for the Māori language. The language has a great history, and I stand proud in the House this afternoon speaking in te reo, but I have to ask the question of the National Party, and I should be asking it of most parties, that although there are two significant, prominent Māori members in that party I have yet to hear them stand in this House and honour the Māori language. I hear them speak Māori a lot outside but I do not hear a lot of it in here. So I ask the National Party where it stands. Where does it stand in terms of the commitment to the development of the Māori language and Māori development generally? I do not see it, I do not hear it, and out there in the electorates people are asking what we stand for.

On that note—ka hoki au ki te reo Māori kia haere tonu ngā wero ki ngā mema o te Whare. Nō reira, hoki taku mahara ki te Kāwangatanga Tuatoru Reipa i raro iho nei i te Pirimia o tērā wā, a Norman Kirk. Nāna te reo i whakamanahia i roto i te Whare, tae atu rā ki te Kāwanatanga Reipa tuawhā, i raro rā i a David Lange me ngā Minita Māori, koirā ko te Hōnore Koro Wētere nāna i whakamanahia te reo Māori i roto i te Whare, hei reo tuarahi mō te motu. Nā runga i tēnā, ka tipu haere, ka pakeke haere ngā tamariki i roto i ngā kōhanga reo, kei roto i ngā kura kaupapa, e kōrerohia nei e te reo. I tēnei wā, he wero anō tāku nei ki tēnā tangata e noho atu rā, ki te māngai kōrero mō ngā take kerēme mō te Rōpū Nāhinara, tēnā koe Chris. Kei te mōhio tonu au, ko koe rā te tangata kai te hiahia hoki o te Rōpū Nāhinara kia tū hei Minita mō ngā Take Kerēme. Taku anō ki te wero i a koe, kai hea koe e haere ana, kei koe e tū ana i roto i ēnei tūāhuatanga, te āhua nei kei te tamariki tonu koe. Kāore koe e piki ake ki ngā teitei rangatira pērā rā i a Tākuta Michael Cullen. Kei a ia te mana, kei a ia te tautoko huri noa te motu.

[So I go back to speak in Māori to resume the challenges to members of the House. My thoughts go back to the third Labour Government under the Prime Minister of that period, Norman Kirk. He authorised te reo in the House, as did the fourth Labour Government under David Lange, with Māori Ministers, namely the Hon Koro Wētere, who sanctioned te reo Māori in the House, and as a second official language throughout the land. Because of that, children in kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa where Māori is spoken emerged and matured. At this time, I have a challenge to that person sitting over there, the Opposition spokesperson on treaty negotiations: greetings to you, Chris; I understand that you are the person from the National Party who wants to stand as Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. My challenge once again to you is: where are you going, where do you stand in these circumstances? It seems that you are still a novice. You are not yet at the highest levels that Dr Michael Cullen is at. He has the standing and support throughout the land in these matters.]

I say to the National Party that I have heard on the grapevine—in fact, I have heard an announcement—that Chris Finlayson will be the National Party’s Treaty of Waitangi spokesperson and that he will lead the Treaty claims process. I wonder whether he can fit the shoes. Can he do all that work that Dr Michael Cullen has materialised, in just a few months?

Chester Borrows: It’s a secret ballot.

Hon MITA RIRINUI: A secret ballot! Then it is the worst-kept secret I have ever known. One thing is for sure—the member who interjected is gone out of Wanganui. I was there the other day and I tell members that he is gone—he will be gone by lunchtime.

The National Party has a lot of challenges ahead of it. Labour has a strong track record in terms of Māori development, and the challenge is going out to National Party members. When they go around the traps they should not only say National will do this and that, and will carry on with what Labour has done, but they should tell people something new, because they are waiting to hear. They know that Chris Finlayson cannot hold his own in the room with Māori leaders. They will eat him alive and spit him out.

Nā runga i tēnā, kei te Kaihautū, koinei taku kōrero ki a tātou i tēnei wā, whakamanahia rā te reo Māori i ngā wā katoa, kia ora tātou.

[On that note, Mr Assistant Speaker, this is what I say to us at this time: honour te reo Māori at all times. Thank you.]

The people of New Zealand would like a Government that actually is interested in governing. People are dealing with price rises for petrol. They are dealing with inflation at 4 percent and going up. They are dealing with double the interest rates for the mortgages that they had when Labour came into office. They are dealing with house prices that have tumbled—in some areas of my electorate by over $100,000. All the equity has been wiped off people’s homes. That is what they are dealing with, and instead what they have from this Government and this Prime Minister is a Government that is intent to do nothing else except cling on to power. Michael Cullen summed it up the other week when he said that this is all about power, and, by goodness, that showed exactly what this Government is all about.

What we have now is a Prime Minister who, in the last few days, has spent all of question time trying to get around the obvious. She has answered question after question—patsy questions—from New Zealand First about the wonderful statements about Winston Peters. It sounded like a eulogy, frankly. What we have now is a Prime Minister who will not deal with this issue decisively. She dealt with Lianne Dalziel decisively, once she was found to have misled the media. She dealt with that, eventually. She dealt with David Parker decisively. He resigned as Attorney-General. She dealt with Ruth Dyson decisively when she was picked up on a drink-driving charge. But she did not deal with Taito Phillip Field decisively. In fact, Taito Phillip Field must be wondering why it is, while he is facing corruption charges, that we are now talking about this matter in the House. She did not deal with David Benson-Pope decisively. His career is now over.

That is one of the awful things. While she is going around saying: “I want to cling to power. I need to do everything I can to support Mr Peters.”, what she is actually doing is destroying any hope for his career. In fact, one of the things I heard yesterday from the Prime Minister was that this money was paid into the trust account—this account for Mr Henry—and that it was collected as a fighting fund for legal fees. That is not Mr Henry’s version. The reason it is not Mr Henry’s version is that Mr Henry does not have a trust account. I understand that members of the House might not understand this, but he is a barrister sole. One of the things about barristers is that they do not have trust accounts. They are not audited. They are not subject to Law Society rules about trust accounts. The reason is that they do not hold other people’s money. They simply render an account and it gets paid.

I have never, in my 20-odd years as a lawyer and in my time with the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society, once come across a situation where a barrister’s job is to ring up people in Monaco and ask them to pay $100,000 into a fee’s account. I have never once heard anything like that. I have never once had that happen, or heard of it—and I have sat for years on the complaints committee of the Auckland District Law Society. I can tell those members opposite that not once did we ever hear anything about barristers ringing up trying to solicit money for their clients’ fees. Never have I heard of barristers ringing up soliciting money for their clients’ grocery accounts, or the car loan. Nor have I ever heard about them ringing up bank managers and asking them whether they would like to pay off a loan. It just does not happen in the real world.

The people in my electorate will be wondering how come it is that they have had $100,000 wiped off the value of their $400,000 house, which is now worth $300,000 and is all taken up with a mortgage, while we have a Government more concerned with clinging to power than what is happening for those ordinary good Kiwis who pay the taxes that pay for Winston Peters’ travel, and that pay for those people there on the Government benches. The people in my electorate wonder about that.

What we have now from this Government is the so-called new standard of performance. That is what Helen Clark promised in 1999. She said that we would have a new standard of accountability under a Labour Government. My goodness, have we seen that? We certainly have. We have seen a new standard—a new low standard. Today we had Helen Clark stand up here in Parliament and tell us that the Cabinet Manual, which is there to stop any sense or implication of corruption, was just a guide. They are not actually rules apparently, even though they are talked about as rules. No, they are not really rules; they are now a guide. That is the new depth that this Government has sunk to.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to clarify with you about speaking times in this debate. I have been using a stopwatch on the speakers, and with my colleague Judith Collins you cut her at exactly the 5 minutes. But I timed the previous Labour speaker, Mita Ririnui, and he went for over 6 minutes before you stopped him. I want to know why members of the Labour Party get such a long period of time.

Mr Williamson, I would have thought you have been here long enough to understand that it is Māori Language Week. Normally what would happen is that the member’s speech would be interpreted by the interpreter and the time taken off. In this case Mr Mita Ririnui decided to do the interpretation himself, and he is entitled to do so.

E te Rangatira o te Whare ka nui te mihi ki a koe i tēnei ahiahi i roto i Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

[To the Assistant Speaker of the House, it is an honour indeed to greet you this afternoon during Māori Language Week.]

I would like to acknowledge that it is Māori Language Week and I thank my colleague the Hon Mita Ririnui on behalf of all the members of “Ngāti Makawe Whero” for his invitation to complete this speech in Māori , but I am afraid my talents do not extend quite that far.

I would like to express, though, my proud pleasure and to say that I have really enjoyed over the last 6 years the privilege of representing Otaki in our Parliament. Labour has governed at every stage with a plan for the future of our country and also for the electorate that I have the privilege of representing. I know that my community is in a better position than it was before Labour came to office; it is a better place to live, there are more opportunities for our young people and our families, there is more security for our older people, and we have better transport on the way. We have been a good Government and we deserve the chance to put our case to the country in this election, based not only on our record but on what our plan for the future will be. I am looking forward to that. I am relishing the chance to do that because I know we have had the courage to make the judgments that are required in our country.

Politics is not just about sitting around and knocking the hell out of members on the other side of the House and turning up 5 years later to say “Look we agreed to that a long time ago.”, it is about saying on the day “Here’s what we will do for you right now.” There is no doubt in my mind that when it has come to the critical times for judgment in our country in the last 9 years Labour has been on the right side of those judgment calls that have had to be made, and our political opponents who seek to replace us have been wrong at the time, wrong to oppose, and then finally turned up half-hearted down the track to say “Me too, please include me in that.”

It does not matter what policy one looks at, but I have a few here I would like to show members. KiwiSaver is a visionary policy; Labour voted for it, National voted against it. Working for Families made sure that three out of four of our families are assisted, and many families in my constituency pay no income tax at all with the Working for Families package, and National voted against that. Cheaper doctors’ visits: the cost of going to the doctor today is half of what it would be if we were not sitting on the Treasury benches; Labour was in favour, National was against. We have just marked one year of our policy for 3 and 4-year-olds to get 20 free hours in our kindergartens and pre-schools; it was voted for by Labour, and voted against by National. One of the great things we have done is taken the minimum wage in our country from $7 to $12 over our 9 years in office, putting $200 a week into the hands of the poorest workers in our economy; Labour was in favour, National was against it.

When judgment counts and one has to make decisions on the day about policy it is Labour that has been on the right side for working families in our country, and National has been on the wrong side. The ultimate judgment test that our Government has had to make—the ultimate most important decision we had to make—was whether to be involved in the war in Iraq. The National Party was wrong on whether we should be involved. The National Party got the judgment wrong, it was absolutely incorrect, and Labour took the right position. That is the way we should be remembering how we have taken our approach to politics.

We know that all around the world right now judgment is required. Leadership and experience is required with the difficult issues we face. There are fuel challenges, food challenges, and credit-crunch challenges with high interest rates all around the world. Bill English talked about what a problem those challenges were for New Zealand, offered no solution, and pretended that New Zealand was in some sort of isolated bubble while these issues were affecting the rest of the world. These are global challenges but we will respond to them. We will develop policies to make sure that our communities and our people have the chance to step up to the plate in that respect. We have the experience and judgment to do it.

National members say “Oh, it’s just time for a change, and that’s our only campaign slogan.” Their only basis for this election is “Well, Labour’s had 9 years, it’s about time we had a go.” Labour is asking National members: change to what? Because on those critical issues for families, businesses, and communities in New Zealand they were wrong when it counted in this Parliament and they will be wrong again. We have had the extraordinary thing this week where the National Party did actually release some policy over the adjournment. But its members do not want to talk about its policies.

Yesterday in the House we had questions on accident compensation—a massive area of Government spending that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders every year. The National members sat silent all throughout it. When the policy about 20 free hours for our 3 and 4-year-old children to get education was debated in Parliament yesterday the National members sat silent. They did not want to talk about it because they are taking the word “free” out of the free early childhood education policy. Why would one do that? The only reason one would do that would be because one wants to get rid of the concept of 20 free hours for our kids when they are getting their early childhood education. It is the same for accident compensation; privatise a scheme that people come from all around the world to look at! That is the kind of judgment National members are making but they do not want to talk about it—privatisation will be one of the issues.

When National members are forced to talk about things—because we know the expensive consultants Crosby/Textor are saying “Do not let any of them talk about policy.”—John Key, as leader, just smiles, is bland, and takes pot-shots at Labour. When National members have to answer they are all over the place. When Chris Tremain talked about the accident compensation policy on the Back Benchers programme last week he was a blithering mess. If the National Party wants to keep putting up people like that I welcome it.

I want to start by referring members of this House to some statements that the Rt Hon Helen Clark made in the run-up to becoming the Prime Minister. In November 1999 she said: “If we’re elected to Government, then my commitment is that we will deliver a Government people can trust. It will be open and it will be accountable.” She said on 23 April 1999: “My Government will set new standards both in terms of behaviour and performance so that we govern for the people and are accountable to them.” In February 1995 she said: “The style of Government I will lead as Prime Minister will be open and participatory.”

I welcome all those comments from Helen Clark, but I do not believe New Zealanders can stomach for one moment the claims we heard in the House today that the Cabinet Manual is but a guide about performance. I was a Minister for 9 years, and I knew that that was the rule book—that was the absolute rule book. If one broke that Cabinet Manual rule book one was gone, and therefore we read it very carefully. I know that Ministers in the Labour Party will have read it very carefully. One is not to accept gifts. One is not to accept donations beyond certain levels without declaring them unless one is happy for one’s career to be over.

Under the heading of what gets “curiouser and curiouser”, I want to ask a couple of questions. Mr Peters claims he did not know about the $100,000 paid towards his legal fees from Mr Owen Glenn. Until Friday, when he was told, he said he did not know. Well, here is my first question. Mr Peters went on television back in February and held up a big sign saying “No”. He said he did not receive money from Owen Glenn. Do members not believe that his lawyer, or his party president, or somebody in the New Zealand First Party would have got to Mr Peters within 5 seconds of the finish of that television interview and said: “Winston, Winston, please don’t pursue that line any further, you may regret it.”? I have to say that if the party president or Brian Henry did not get to Mr Peters straight away after that interview, they were setting him up, because Mr Peters from that point on kept denying it. Those people could have ended his misery any time from February until today by saying “Winston, excuse me. Best you don’t do that again.” Last week, there he was at the airport saying: “I do not have my ‘No’ sign with me but what part of ‘No’ don’t you understand?”. If that is not hanging a member out to dry, I do not know what is.

Under the heading of “curiouser and curiouser”, how about the cheque that Dail Jones saw that went into the New Zealand First bank account? I have this quotation from him: “I saw the money. It was somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000, probably closer to $100,000.” He then said: “I discovered the donation in the party’s bank account in December, and I asked the bank where it came from and they could not tell me.” Now, that means the bank is in breach of all the financial disclosure regulations in this country. Banks are not allowed to transact cheques of more than $10,000 without being able to trace where they came from. That is in order to stop money-laundering, crooked behaviour, and so on. So it is not possible that the bank could not tell Mr Jones where that cheque came from—because it was over $10,000.

Suddenly the cheque disappeared again—it was gone. Now we are told it went off to Mr Brian Henry’s trust account. But as my colleague Judith Collins, who was a member of the Law Society—in fact, she was president of the Auckland District Law Society—said, barristers cannot hold trust accounts. So the money had to have gone somewhere else. I put it to members of the Labour Government that if they had a $300,000 mortgage and every month their statement came in saying the mortgage was still $300,000, until one day in came a statement that said it was only $200,000, they would want to know how that happened. They would want to know, and if a member still had money owing to his or her lawyer and suddenly the bill changed by $100,000, that member would want to know. The fact that Mr Henry left Mr Peters out to dry all this year by not telling him means that something rotten is afoot.

One of the key issues that has come up again today is the nexus between democracy and money. This has been an extremely troubling nexus for many, many years in Westminster System parliaments. The problem is twofold. On the one hand parties that represent large corporations with access to a lot of money are much more likely to get large amounts of money into their coffers, and hence be able to run better election campaigns. The other side of it is that if money comes into different parties’ accounts, it is very difficult for us to know how it influences the things they do when they are in Government, particularly if we do not know that the money is coming into their accounts.

This is the problem with secret donations and the secret donations regime that we have in New Zealand. Currently someone can give up to $10,000 to a New Zealand political party and nobody has to know, even under the new law. The problem with that is quite simply this: how does a member of the public looking at it from the outside know that the decision making of that party, if it gets into Government, is not influenced by its donors? How do people know that the tax breaks the party gives or the grants it makes have not been influenced by the donations it has received? Under our system the public has no way of knowing, and that is exactly the problem. The nexus between democracy and money means that the voters of this country have no idea how the Government’s decision making is being influenced by money.

There was a further problem before, and that was the trusts that the National Party used at the last election campaign. The Electoral Finance Act, for all its benefits and problems, got rid of the ability to use trusts, which is a really, really positive thing. I think even some members of the National Party were pleased to see the trusts go, because they made National look pretty bad. But we have not got rid of the $10,000 limit, which is a problem. The Green Party thinks there should be a $1,000 limit on non-identified donations. If someone makes a donation over $1,000, then the identity of the donor should have to be identified to the public so that people know who is funding political parties. We also think there should be a cap on individual donations. People should not be able to give $500,000 to a political party, because that kind of sum has a tremendous impact on political parties. There should be a cap on how much any individual or corporation can actually give to political parties.

We also think there needs to be some kind of partial public funding of political parties. One of the tragedies of the Electoral Finance Act is that we did not get partial public funding—or any kind of public funding. That creates the problem whereby political parties are dependent on private donors, which is one of the key problems with our system. We also think—and the Electoral Finance Act did provide for this—there has to be some limits on non - political party actors. If there are not those limits, then the caps on other spending just do not work. We have seen that overseas. The Canadians have limits, and the British have limits on third-party spending; we have to have those caps.

Most of all, the Greens really want people to decide all of this. The Greens have been promoters of citizens’ assemblies. A citizens’ assembly is where randomly selected members of the public are called together to be consulted, if nothing more, about important matters that political parties are not the right ones to make decisions about. How on earth can we be the right ones to make decisions about the funding of political parties, when we are political parties? We have a fundamental conflict of interest. The best people to make these decisions are members of citizens’ assemblies, whereby, as has been done in Canada on a number of occasions, people randomly chosen from each electorate come together to consider the questions that need to be considered, and make recommendations. Having a citizens’ assembly, instead of this assembly, make key decisions or, at the very least, recommendations around how we should organise our political funding system seems to me the most sensible way to do it; it has been used extensively overseas.

I also say—and I realised this today—that apparently Matthew Hooton, who is, of course, a big National Party supporter, has now come out in favour of partial public funding. I would hope that that would make National members rethink. The problem of public funding has come up today because of the relationship between New Zealand First and the racing industry, its position on sustainable fisheries, and all the rest of it. I will not revisit that now, but I will say that surely it is in all of our interests to have transparency about this matter, so that all these allegations are not swirling around New Zealand First as they are at the moment. Would it not be so much better if all of this was transparent and we knew who was funding New Zealand First, the National Party, the Labour Party, and the Greens? If the information was all out there, it would make things heaps better.

E te Kaihautū o te Whare, tēnā koe. Huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei ahiahi, tēnā tātou katoa i te āhuatanga o tō tatou reo e whakatairangatia ana, e whakamaharatia ana hei reo pūmau mō Aotearoa i tēnei wā.

[Greetings to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to you also throughout our House this afternoon, in respect of the promotion and commemoration of our language at this time as a language of New Zealand for all times.]

I greet my fellow parliamentarians and you, Mr Assistant Speaker, in Māori Language Week, and as a reminder that Māori is one of our official languages. Before I launch off into the less charming aspects of my speech—because they are directed at the Opposition—we should bear in mind that this is one of our official languages of Aotearoa, and it is kept alive as a consequence of the zeal and the interest of families to maintain bilingualism. All of my fellow Māori members of the House who are pursuing that—my whanaunga Hone Harawira along with myself, and, indeed, Tau Henare—have been, if not zealots in ensuring that our kids carry on the language, then very, very supportive of it becoming a reality.

It is very sad that there has been an outbreak of amnesia from the other side of the House, in search perhaps—and we see it on the front bench—of some sort of analgesic. However, the reality is that they are holding unsuccessfully the proud member of Ngāti Wai, the leader of Aotearoa Tuatahi, to a level of accountability they refuse to observe themselves. Not for them the detection or revelation of the Waitemata Trust and its shadowy funders coming back from overseas to Aotearoa.

Of course, the crowning folly offered by Mr Key is, whilst he is chomping on Winston’s hind leg—presumably he is cocking the other one—he refuses to rule out the fact that National mistakenly hopes it can work with him. In addition, National refuses to acknowledge that it has been the recipient of handsome amounts of lucre. But why will those members not observe the same level of laxity in relation to Mr Peters that they apply to themselves?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the member, but two members, who do not have the floor, are interjecting on each other. That is not permitted.

Hon SHANE JONES: I follow Mr Williamson, who unfortunately has left the Chamber. Mr Williamson spoke before I did. He recited a potted but stilted version of history. If there is one group of politicians whom the public associate with furtiveness in relation to funding their activities, it is the members on that side of the House. They attack Winston Peters, forgetting that it was litigation that first brought him here. If any of them go out and repeat, as Matthew Hooton was unwisely doing—soon, no doubt, to be at his cost—ridiculous, unsubstantiated, dangerously libellous things about Winston Peters on National Radio, etc., then they will face the full force of that litigiousness again.

Of course, the last thing that our colleagues from the other side of the House want to do is talk about who is going to pay for their excessive promises in relation to tax cuts, and who is going to pay in relation to responding to the special-interest groups—obviously, Australian insurance companies, which is a joke. They complain about the anaemic nature of the New Zealand capital markets. They complain about the large numbers of Kiwis who are going across the Tasman.

The first asset they line up to sell to the Aussies is one of the most successful, flourishing enterprises, with a very handsome endowment of capital invested in a wide array of destinations, employing some very competent New Zealanders. The first thing they will do is gouge it, then they will bleach it, and then they will hock it off.

I hope that the person who leads, along with us, the attack to stop that from happening is our friend the co-leader of the Green Party. He, if anyone, would know the dangers of what could happen if we let too many of them loose, and I am sure he could speak at length on that matter. However, the first thing National will do is destroy accident compensation. That is why it will not be successful.

That was another vintage contribution from Mr Shane Jones: so light on substance, so lacking in detail, and so short of the facts that matter. When we listen to the contributions of Labour MPs we can understand why Nandor Tanczos said that the general debate each week was the absolute pits.

The deepest depths of those pits were reached today by Mita Ririnui, who launched a personal attack on me. This is the person who appeared on Willie Jackson’s TV programme with Georgina te Heuheu and me a few weeks ago and said that National had never voted for a Treaty settlement. He has been on the Māori Affairs Committee since 2002 and knew the real record, but he said that none the less, because that is the party line that the Goebbels department on the ninth floor instructed him to give. That is the standard of that Minister. He is washed up, useless, and abusive. He is a person who is going nowhere, like the preceding Ministers in charge of Treaty of Waitangi negotiations. The current Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, who has sat in Cabinet throughout the 9 years of this Government and saw the lamentable performance of his two predecessors, is in just as much trouble as his two useless predecessors.

As my deputy leader said, there are huge issues facing this country at the moment, such as rising unemployment, and law and order problems. [Interruption] For the benefit of the Minister of Justice, who knows nothing, be it about Rongotai or P trials, does she realise that P trials are so out of control in the courts in Auckland that they last for 3 months, tying up huge resources? These are the problems that we in the National Party are anxious and, indeed, zealous to address, yet this Government is expending huge amounts of energy trying to explain away the financial issues of New Zealand First.

I frankly was appalled to hear the Prime Minister this afternoon dismiss the Cabinet Manual as a mere guide. I contrast those weasel words with her firm statement in 1999 that if Labour were elected to Government, her commitment was that Labour would deliver a Government that people could trust—it would be open and it would be accountable.

If we look at the firm and decisive way that the Cabinet Manual was employed to deal with various Ministers in the early years of this Government, and contrast it with what has been going on today, we see the difference. Dover Samuels had serious allegations made against him and was immediately required to stand down, though he was subsequently reinstated. His real crime, of course, was being a paid-up member of the George Hawkins faction of the Labour Party. As Judith Collins said, Ruth Dyson was required to resign her portfolios immediately when charges were laid against her, but she was subsequently reinstated. The same applied to Marian Hobbs, Phillida Bunkle, and Lianne Dalziel. John Tamihere was required to resign over allegations he had misled the public about a payout from his former employer. David Benson-Pope was not required to resign immediately. The facts dripped out, and Labour certainly paid the price for that. Taito Phillip Field was sacked after the last election. There was an inquiry, and again the facts dripped out, and a Queen’s Counsel was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a very flawed report. Then David Parker had allegations made against him and was required to resign his portfolios immediately. He was reinstated to Cabinet as Minister of Energy and Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues when he was cleared.

That is the appropriate way to deal with these things, yet the standards have been lowered in recent times. I cannot better the excellent contributions of Mr Williamson and Mrs Collins, because they have raised a number of very important yet unanswered questions, particularly about Mr Henry’s role in this affair. Why did not Mr Henry warn Mr Peters not to constantly say that there was no involvement? Where did the money go? [Interruption]

Lianne Dalziel should listen very carefully, because this is a very good question that I would like her to answer. Where did the money go? Brian Henry did not have a trust account. Where did the money go? Of course, she is not prepared to answer that question. She is worried about answering it, because it is a fundamental question. What is the role of Mr Henry as a barrister in all this?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the member, but I just refer members on my right to Speakers’ rulings 57/3. Interjections are to be rare and reasonable.

Hon Annette King: You are being very personal and nasty today.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: For obvious reasons, I am fond of the Minister of Justice on a personal level. But that is her stock response—that I am being very nasty. What I am really doing is asking some very pertinent questions that she should do well to listen to. Mr Henry, as a barrister, cannot have a trust account, and that question remains unanswered.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.