Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) Link to this
I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Everyone knows that members of Parliament are fair game when it comes to public scrutiny. In fact, MPs are often under the spotlight from the media, from lobby groups, from opponents and supporters alike, and sometimes even from their neighbours. The same applies to public servants, particularly to those who hold senior positions, and the scrutiny can include both their public and personal lives. We know that to be the case before we come to this House or before we take up high-profile public positions, and I have no issue with that. Most of us are hardened enough to withstand it, even though occasionally it hurts like hell when our families, who do not have the same opportunities as we have to defend themselves, are brought into the public arena. The truth is we know that, to a large extent, we have to accept that.
But I believe there is a line over which a media subculture in New Zealand has crossed, and it is epitomised by the Investigate magazine in its latest edition, published on Monday. In it was an article that made the most outrageous accusations against Labour members of Parliament, past and present, against former and serving police officers, including the Commissioner of Police, and against church leaders, business people, judges, and so on. The said story was hawked around the mainstream media by a Mr Wayne Idour, in an attempt to promote the magazine before it went on sale, and, to the credit of respectable media, they refused to print the story. I suspect that was because the wild accusations—the claims of corruption, cover-ups, and conspiracies—were not backed up by evidence. Who knows who will be in the next edition? It could be about anyone who is in this House right here today, and on any matter.
The modus operandi of that magazine is to base a story on a half-truth, and from that to build an entire menu of fantasies. There was a party in Dunedin in 1981. There was an objectionable pornographic film shown at it. The basis for the story came from information provided about the party by an unknown person. Mr Wishart said that he did not identify the informant at the time, because the informant had a sick family member. When has Mr Wishart ever given a damn about the family members of his targets? His informant was outed, and subsequently Wayne Idour has had to own up.
That man was a former police officer in Dunedin. He is the same man who was employed by the Exclusive Brethren to dig up dirt on the Prime Minister and on Labour MPs and their families. He is a proven liar. Wayne Idour lied to TV3 about working for the Brethren, and I believe he is now lying again. I believe he is lying when he says he did not take the bestiality movie to the party. I believe he lied when he said he did not show the pornographic film. I believe he lied when he said he saw Howard Broad watching it. Interestingly enough, Wayne Idour’s lawyer said on the radio this morning that the party was so long ago he wondered who could even remember it. Wayne Idour was prepared to remember it a few weeks ago, even if he cannot today. The reason I believe he has lied is that people are now coming forward to speak publicly on this issue. They do not have to; they have chosen to—people like former police officer Peter Gibbons, who is held in high regard in Dunedin. He has a very clear recollection that Mr Idour brought the pornographic movie to the party and showed it.
That has been backed up by information I have received today from a serving police officer who is prepared to put his name to it. This is what he had to say: “Last night watching the late news on TV3 I saw an article relating to our Commissioner and ex Sergeant Idour. I started work in Dunedin in 1985, and after 2 years I was acting as a relieving photographer for Dunedin. I was relieving in photography just prior to the new Sale of Liquor Act 1989 being introduced. At that time Sgt Idour was the Team Policing Sergeant. He had been tasked to deliver training to both the Police Staff and the Hotel owners on the new Act. He approached me as a photographer wanting to put together a video training tape. He had in his possession two tapes, one being a pornographic one … and the other was his training tape. His request was that I ‘dub’ ”—
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I will pull back from the point of order. I was just worried that you were not going to sit that speaker down.
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) Link to this
I seek leave to table that email from a serving police officer, which states that Mr Idour is a man well known for his ownership of, and constant reference to, pornographic material.
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
The fact that the Government spends the day before the Budget attacking some non-entity no one knows shows how that Government has lost its way and its will to govern. Government members cannot even talk up their own Budget on the day before it is presented
The reason is that in the next week or so this House will see something it has never seen before: a Budget passed by a minority of votes in this House. That is what will happen, and it has never happened before. Even in 1998 and 1999 the National Government, when it was having the same experience this Government is now having, still had a majority of the House voting for the confidence and supply motion. When that motion comes to this House in the next 2 weeks, a minority of this House will vote for it.
Interestingly, that simply reflects the loss of confidence of the public in this Government. It certainly shows the loss of confidence in the House. But, in fact, the House is trailing the public, whose confidence has been lost. Let us see what has happened to the Government’s numbers since the beginning of the year.
Chris AuchinvoleOn 1 January the Government had 61 votes tied up in two confidence and supply agreements out of 121 votes. On St Valentine’s Day, Phillip Field left the Government. The confidence and supply numbers were down to 60—technically a minority Government. Gordon Copeland is leaving today. That takes the number down to 59.
But that is just the start. Judy Turner will almost certainly leave United Future and join Copeland’s new party, because that is where her voters are. She has no future in United Future because it does not have much of a future outside of Peter Dunne. That will take the number down to 58. What will Peter Dunne then do, marooned by himself as a one-man party supporting a Government that his electorate will certainly want out of power? He could end up going with it. He will not stay in his confidence and supply agreement of one.
Then what will happen to New Zealand First? New Zealand First will then be left as the one conservative party supporting a left-wing Government that is polling in the low thirties. Winston Peters has many faults, but one of them is not stupidity about suicide. He knows where that is going.
This Government is unravelling as we watch. It will be putting a Budget to this House that will not command a majority. Why will it not command a majority? It is because the Government of New Zealand now depends on a party that will not vote. The Greens’ agreement with Labour is to abstain on motions of confidence and supply. The Labour-led Government—the Government of New Zealand—is now, as of Gordon Copeland’s resignation from United Future, dependent on that agreement with the Greens. Do the Greens support a $1 billion company tax cut? Would they have allowed it to happen if they had the swing votes in the run-up to the Budget? No.
This is a Government that will pass a Budget when it does not have a parliamentary or public mandate to do it, and that is a fact. It does not matter how confident Helen Clark sounds, it does not matter how many articles are written about her being the most competent Prime Minister ever, because she has lost her majority in the House. It has gone. She is now dependent on the Greens, who will not vote—
—on Nandor Tanczos, and Phillip Field. What will happen after this Budget is that the Greens will get their long-awaited opportunity. They have been patient and their time has come.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building and Construction) Link to this
That was the deputy leader of the National Party, the man who said today—[ Interruption]
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
Politics colleagues, as we all know, is the art of the possible. The possible we will explore today is good order.
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
I take it that the clock starts now. That was the deputy leader of the National Party. He is the finance spokesperson and the so-called expert on numbers. The man who said that today the Government lost its majority demonstrated one thing—he has no idea about MMP because this has been a minority Government since being elected. Yet that was his speech.
Darren HughesHon CLAYTON COSGROVE Link to this
My colleague says he is great on numbers. Bill English is the man, of course, who blew apart the 2002 election. We remember those numbers. This is the man who did the numbers for himself, miscounted, and got knifed by Don Brash. And this is the man, of course, who then rekindled the numbers to put Don Brash out of his misery and install John Key.
This is the deputy leader leading a front bench of mediocrity. To quote half an Australian saying, he leads a conga line of contradictions. He talks about tax. Tomorrow we will see a Government deliver a consistent Budget of thought out, consistent, solid policies, up against an Opposition that, as we are in the mid-term in the race to the polls, has decided that the best thing to do is to analyse the last result. Anything we did that was popular that National members were against they will adopt, and they will forget about their own policies. That man, that genius, that ex-Treasury official talks about tax.
Well, let us look and see what Mr English said about tax. On 24 April 2007 he said on Morning Report: “And we would agree the last thing it”—that is, the economy—“would need would be sweeping tax cuts.” That is what he said. Yet, not a year before, his leader paraded around the country wanting to drop $7.2 billion worth of tax cuts on the country and criticising us for the large surpluses. Then Mr English went on Mark Sainsbury’s with me and said: “Well you don’t need to cut expenditure, you just need to cut growth.” What does that mean? That man talks out of both sides of his mouth.
Bill English says to one group that Government spending should be cut, when every colleague on that side of the House has a list of spending promises that those members have rolled out. National members forget that Kiwi communities are not silly—they listen, they read the newspapers, they know.
Tony Ryall says: “What we need are more places in medical schools.” There was a $350 million promise from John Key: “National will fund bulk funding, by the way, at the top rate in our schools.” John Hayes, of course, wants an increase in funding for private schools. Yet Bill English has the stupidity—[Interruption] pipe down, grandad; old “Cream Puff” in the corner there—to go on national television and try to con people. He said that the Government should cut expenditure when members of his party run around the country every day calling for masses of increases in expenditure. He said he will honour all our Government’s promises, and then some. Then he will lump in his own and then he will cut tax.
Bill English said that the gouge-out that National has admitted it will do on Working for Families will take around 80 bucks a week from families with kids. Then he said that he will put out a tax cut, of course, that will benefit those who are in the top 5 percent of income earners. Most of the people in this room are in that top 5 percent of income earners—they will get the money.
I say that Bill English, as deputy leader of the National Party, does indeed lead a conga line of contradictions, and a front bench and a party of mediocrity. But what is worse is that 18 months since the last election, and still in Opposition, the best he can do is to get up because one member has party-hopped. The best line he can come up with is to try to tell people—he assumes people are stupid—that the Government has lost its majority.
This Government has been a minority Government and has governed in stable circumstances for over 7 years. That is how good he is and how mediocre he is, and his problem is that he constantly contradicts and undermines his leader. He wants tight fiscal policy; John Key wants a loose one—and so do National members. I would ask Bill English to answer that.
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) Link to this
That was an Associate Minister of Finance speaking in a general debate on the eve of his Government’s Budget. Could he speak in favour of one thing his Government is planning to do in the Budget—no, not one. What did he do instead? He decided to step forward to explain himself—
Hon Clayton Cosgrove Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I point out to the Opposition member that one does not speak in anticipation of Budgets; one waits until they are announced. [ Interruption]
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
No, I am on my feet, Mr Brownlee. That was a frivolous interjection, which will lead to disorder. The member’s time will start again.
That was an interesting little offering to the House from Clayton Cosgrove, but I have to remind him of one thing: in politics, explaining is losing. The little explanation from over there is an explanation of why the current Government is in such a huge amount of trouble. He came along here and said: “You guys have got to wake up; we’ve been a minority Government for 7 years.” There has not been one Budget that this Government has not been able to pass with a majority, but tomorrow that is what will happen. There will be a minority of votes cast, when the Budget debate finishes, to pass the Budget, only because Green Party members have decided they are not going to vote.
I ask members to tell me who in a democracy has the right to sit in Parliament and choose not to vote. Apathy demonstrated like that is the road towards political oblivion. New Zealanders—who are fed up with this Government—will not tolerate a party that decides it will allow the Government to continue governing by choosing not to vote. That is unacceptable and the message will go to the Green Party on that.
Let us have a look at the situation Labour is in. It held on by its claws after the last election and cobbled together a deal that saw it with 61 votes. Then there was the great St Valentine’s Day manoeuvre by Phillip Field that took the votes to 60. Today Gordon Copeland will announce that he is off, and that takes them to 59. The Government is locked up in some sort of confidence and supply deal and is relying entirely on Green Party members saying they will not exercise their right to vote. That is not a recipe that gives anyone confidence that we have a Government in control, a Government leading, and a Government that knows where it is going.
Worse than that, on the day before the Budget an Associate Minister of Finance cannot even stand on the Government’s past record and tell New Zealanders that life will be better under Labour’s Government. I thought it was very interesting that the one thing Clayton Cosgrove did mention was the fact that the Government has done so much for families through Working for Families.
I thought it was amazing yesterday that the Minister of Finance stood up to say that we cannot have tax cuts because they would be wildly inflationary. I ask Mr Cosgrove to tell me, I ask Mr Cullen to tell me, and I ask any one else on the Government side of the House to tell me why it is OK to give New Zealanders a benefit in cash but not allow them to keep the money they earn by having a tax reduction in the first place. Is it the same money? Why is it not inflationary if the Government does it, but it is inflationary if an employer in the private sector pays people the money they have earned in the first place? Mr Cosgrove is sitting up the back there saying that there is an answer. He had 5 minutes this afternoon, but he could not give one.
We know now that as the days progress, the Government’s ability to do anything will lessen. My colleague Bill English is right—Judy Turner will not stay with United Future. Peter Dunne will work out that the only way he has a chance of holding the Ohariu-Belmont seat is in fact to disconnect from the Government. Winston Peters has certainly got himself in a situation where the polling has him written off, he does not have a seat, and he does not want to go down with the current Government. So we are in for a period of very, very unstable times.
I hope that successive Labour speakers will be able to say one or two things that indicate they have a bit of a plan for New Zealanders. New Zealanders are sick and tired of going nowhere, they are sick and tired of the sort of rhetoric that we got out of Clayton Cosgrove today, and they are sick and tired of Dr Cullen smarmily telling them that it is OK to have the money in his pocket but not OK to have the money in their pockets.
I think it is a fascinating situation—the Government says it is controlling inflation and allowing the economy to flourish by forcing up interest rates and making the very people who should have more disposable income pay for every little bit they get. Members should make no mistake that it is the Government’s decision to spend on the Working for Families package that has put up mortgage rates.
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this
That was Gerry Brownlee, who made what one would probably call a tradesman-like effort. Gerry Brownlee is a bit of an honest toiler. He comes in and makes his best endeavour at trying to defend the National Party, but, boy, did he suffer the consequences of the grand big deal! He was the deputy leader, but, suddenly, in the bat of an eyelid, he was gone—out of it—because Bill English and John Key had stitched the thing together.
I am really looking forward to the Labour Budget tomorrow. I am absolutely looking forward to it. It will be a ripper. I remember the nine miserable Budgets under the previous National Government since 1990, when I came in. I remember the miserable anti-family, anti-worker Budgets of the previous National Government. Do we remember the first one? Yes, we do. It was called the “mother of all Budgets”. We had Ruth Richardson jogging around Evans Bay in a pink tracksuit and saying this would be a magnificent, life-changing Budget. Well, it was. What did National do first? It cut people’s benefits, it cut money out of the early childhood sector, and, of course, at that time it introduced the Employment Contracts Act, which stripped away decent wages and conditions for the working people of New Zealand. It has taken ages for Labour to get those conditions back.
Of course, there was also the sale of State assets. I ask those who are not looking forward to the Budget tomorrow just to cast their minds back to those nine miserable Budgets that the previous National Government introduced. What I want to know from the National Party is where it stands on a lot of these issues, particularly in respect of the Budget. For example, I want to know where National stands on tax cuts. I would like to know. I would like anybody in the National Party to tell us. You see, we used to have the message that there would be big tax cuts, then we heard there would be little tax cuts, then we heard there would be tax cuts when the economy could afford it, and phased in over time. So I want the next speaker from National to tell the House clearly what the National Party policy is—
Right now. Anybody now could do it. Anybody could give us an idea of what National’s policy is on tax cuts. Well, it is all very deathly silent over there. You see, the problem is that National members all want to spend more and cut taxes, and it cannot be done.
The reason why people do not trust National members on budgetary matters is that they do not trust them on other issues. National stood firm once, in the good old days, for things it honestly believed in. National, in the days of Holyoake and Marshall—the days when National was a true and honourable party—used to have said that it opposed Labour’s nuclear policy. Now National supports that policy. National members said they opposed Labour’s housing policy, because it was discriminatory. Now they support it. They used to oppose the student loan scheme, because it was just election bribing. Now they support it. They used to oppose KiwiSaver, because they said it was not the answer to New Zealand’s economic woes. Well, now they support it. They used to oppose the superannuation fund. Do members remember that? Now they support it. Of course, they also opposed Kyoto. Do members remember that? But now they support it.
You see, in 2005 Mr Key said that all the climate change stuff was a complete and utter hoax. Only a year later he said: “I firmly believe in climate change, and I always have.” So the real problem now, of course, is that Mr Key, having bagged Labour’s Kyoto policy, then went on to say: “Let me be clear. National will not pull out of the Kyoto protocol. We are committed to honouring our international obligations.” The problem members on this side of the House and the general population have is that if we cannot believe them on that issue, how can we believe them on tax?
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this
Paul Swain is the only member of the Labour Government who is smiling. On the day after the 2005 election he worked out that it would be a case of “good night, nurse” for the Labour Government and he worked out his exit strategy. He is relaxed, he knows he is going, he is not worried about what is going on in the Labour caucus any more, and he is a picture of serenity compared with the other Labour members. As Bill English said, it is not just that Labour has lost the will to govern; when one looks at some members of that caucus it looks, frankly, like some of them have lost the will to live.
We know that tomorrow the House will face the oddest of situations: a Budget will be passed not because a majority of the Parliament has confidence in the Government’s work programme but because the Greens will abstain. I find it curious—in fact, I almost think it is acceptable—that a majority of the Parliament can pass a Budget and a minority party decides to abstain in those circumstances. But it is a difficult moral question to answer when a majority of the Parliament does not want to pass a Budget, then the Greens decide to abstain on that basis. A party that holds itself to be one of principle should answer the accusation during this debate.
We know that Labour MPs are preparing for change; we are hearing it all over Wellington. Clayton Cosgrove has announced four times a review into the real estate industry, and we still have not seen a piece of paper telling us what will happen with that particular real estate review. We know he is keen—he has bought two new suits in the last 2 months, and the only person who has bought more new suits than Clayton Cosgrove is our old friend David Cunliffe. He is buying up new suits like they are going out of fashion. He thinks he is going the whole way.
Darren Hughes used to have time on his side, then along came Nathan Guy. We know that Charles Chauvel is saying secretly that he came in at the wrong time in the political cycle—that he just got it wrong. The smartest guy of all, Andrew Little, is saying: “No, thanks. I don’t want a bar of that in 2008. I might have a look at it in 2011, depending on how things are panning out, but if you think I’m coming in to go into Opposition, there is not a chance. Thanks very much, Prime Minister, take your offer elsewhere.”
Senior Ministers like Annette King, Trevor Mallard, and Steve Maharey are actually trapped, because they are looking for a way out before 2008. But they have no way out now, because they are terrified that the diplomatic posts will close up if they abandon the ship as close to the end of the election cycle as this.
We could think of plenty of places to send Trevor. We know that Labour members gave a big collective sigh of relief when they thought: “Oh, that’s bad news, but thank goodness Lesley Soper’s back. She’ll carry us over the line in 2008.” The fact that I have heard her speak twice since she came back through the list is beyond me.
Maryan Street and my friend Shane Jones had a shocker of an adjournment. They were led to believe that the big promotion was coming and that over the adjournment break they would be going into Cabinet. But then the Prime Minister, who has no political capital left in her caucus after the debate on section 59, had to say: “Sorry, Shane Jones and Maryan Street. There will be a few more years on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Sorry, Mr Jones. There will be more patsy questions to Michael Cullen. We just couldn’t make the promotion happen over this adjournment break.” Actually, what happened was that they just could not shift Dover Samuels. They said to him: “Time’s up, Dover Samuels, we need to bring in Shane Jones and Maryan Street.” And Dover pulled his hat down and said: “Try your best; I’m not moving.”
The real problem is that Judith Tizard is not shifting either.
Well—so who is smiling? I come back to where I started. The Hon Paul Swain is smiling, because he worked it out months and months ago; he knows that all he has to do is be good enough and just hold the line long enough until 2008. As he disappears into a private life, Parliament will remember him as one of those good guys around the place who was smart enough to learn that the Government was coming to an end but did not close off his own options. Good on you, “Swainy”.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
The member knows that he must not use a nickname.
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this
What an extraordinary speech from the National member Simon Power. It showed, once again, how out of touch National members are with the ordinary concerns of ordinary New Zealanders. It was an entire speech dedicated to denigrating people on the opposite side of the House.
I think National members need to get over the fact that they lost the last election. They seem to show once again their complete misunderstanding of how MMP works—the fact that one’s party needs to work with other parties in the House. Understanding that fact might involve a few less personal attacks on those people in order to be able to work with them.
National members seem to forget that the last time they were in Government they were propped up by what can only be described as an incredibly bizarre set of people, including a member who came into this House with the Alliance as a list MP and was then happy to prop up a National-led Government. So I say to National members that they should look a bit more closely at their own backyard before they start to criticise other parties in terms of the way they work in an MMP environment.
I am looking forward to tomorrow’s Budget. I know that once again we will see more steady economic management—the kind Dr Cullen has shown over the last 7 years when he has delivered Budgets in this House. I look forward to National’s alternative Budget that combines all the spending it has been promising. Its members have all individually gone around the country promising everyone that they will pay for everything. If anyone has a gripe that something is not being paid for, and National thinks there is electoral advantage in promising to pay for it, they will do that. They will say to every group in the community: “We think it’s terrible that the Labour Government is not paying for it. Well, the National Government will.”
I want to see an alternative Budget from the National Opposition—which seems to think it should be in Government and that it is ready to be—that combines every spending promise that has been made by everyone of its MPs since the last election. I assume that all those promises have been accepted by the caucus. I assume that all those promises have been accepted by their leader, John Key. I assume National is ready to go out there and make all of these spending promises to all these groups, and that this alternative Budget will include not only all of those spending promises but the huge tax cuts that National keeps promising it will deliver.
It has gone very quiet on the Opposition side of the House and do members know why? It is because we will never see a Budget like that from National. We will never see an alternative Budget that honestly lays out what all National MPs are going around this country and telling New Zealanders. We have already seen an extraordinary number of policy U-turns by the National Party under its new leader, John Key. We have seen a U-turn on the policy for income-related rents in State housing. We have seen a U-turn on the nuclear-free policy—something that Dr Brash said would be gone by lunchtime and what he said was supported by his caucus. Now that statement is gone by lunchtime as well, and we all, apparently, agree with the nuclear-free policy.
We have seen an astounding U-turn on the Kyoto Protocol from a man who said, not that long ago, that he thought climate change was a hoax. We are about to see a huge U-turn on Labour’s interest-free student loan policy—something that the National Party at the last election said was an irresponsible bribe. Now, apparently, National will go into the next election with it as part of its policy! We are also about to see a U-turn on the KiwiSaver scheme. Again, that is something the National Party opposed; it said it thoroughly disagreed with Kiwisaver. Now the scheme is going to form a part of its policy.
As my colleague Paul Swain has pointed out, how can we trust a party and a leader who have made so many U-turns on so many issues that are meant to be core to the philosophy of the National Party? The fact is that we cannot. The fact is that National will do what National always does, which is say one thing in Opposition and then do exactly the opposite the minute it becomes the Government. That is what New Zealanders have come to expect from National.
Already we are seeing indications in the House that National is about to revert to its roots on industrial relations policy. We are getting speeches in the House saying that the Employment Contracts Act was really not that bad in hindsight. In fact, when Ruth Dyson stood here and showed how much better the Employment Relations Act has been, in terms of work stoppages and days lost, National members kept saying: “Well, yes, but in this 1 year in the ECA that we managed to find and compare to 3 months of the ERA we found that the ECA was better.”
We can argue about the semantics, but the fact is that it is a very, very scary revelation for the workers of New Zealand that the punitive Employment Contracts Act—I am sure it will be given a different name; it will be some nice, soft, fluffy name—will be back in its substantive form under a National Government. I do not think National will tell New Zealanders this before the election, because National members know it was incredibly unpopular legislation. It helped lead to a gap in wages between Australians and New Zealanders, it destroyed workers’ rights, and it destroyed the relationships between workers and employers. Under the Employment Relations Act the Labour Government has been able to substantially remove that imbalance and restore those relationships. But the National Party is so philosophically aligned to the Employment Contracts Act that we will see that legislation back.
I think that New Zealanders need to think very carefully when they hear slick John Key saying exactly what he thinks they want to hear—that is what he is good at. National will deliver something completely different because that is what it has always done.
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) Link to this
It says a very great deal about the state of the current Labour Government that the only excitement around this week’s Budget lies in the fact that it will be the first time a Budget has been passed by a minority of members in this House. There has normally been, in all of the time I have watched New Zealand politics, a sense of anticipation around Budget week. This is because there has normally come from the Budget a new sense of direction, at least some sense of purpose, some element of policy interest—something to reinvigorate the nation.
Over the last 8 years, what we have seen from this Government is that sense of anticipation turn into a sense of apprehension and dread. Tomorrow’s Budget will see an even greater sense of dread than has ever been the case in the past. The members of this House, as they listen to the Budget tomorrow, will know they are not listening to the real Budget. They will know that the real Budget is the deal that Michael Cullen will do between tomorrow’s reading of the Budget document and the time when there will be a vote on confidence and supply in this House. That is the time by which Michael Cullen will have to have done a deal with the Green Party—not to get the Greens to support the Government; just to get them not to vote. That is how far things have come in the fortunes of this Labour Government. The real Budget is the Budget that Michael Cullen starts to negotiate tomorrow and has to have concluded before there is a confidence vote in this House—just to get the Green Party not to vote.
Well, what a state of affairs we have arrived at. It is a state of affairs that gives none of us any great satisfaction. Although it is always nice to see another nail in the coffin of the current Labour administration, members on this side are acutely conscious of the fact that none of this is good for our country. For the remainder of this term we will increasingly be looking at the reality of a Labour-Green Government. That is something New Zealanders need to get used to. A Labour-Green Government is becoming a fact of life before our very eyes.
I say to the remaining members of the United Future party—and I am not quite sure how many of them there are—that they should note that. I say to New Zealand First members that that is the nature of the beast they will be propping up for the next 12 or 18 months: a Labour-Green Government, which will do New Zealand’s interests no good. That is fine with us, because it will be terminal for some of those parties that support the current Government. It will be bad for all of them, and that is fine with everybody on this side of the House.
In recent weeks we have seen released by the Government Statistician the migration figures for the year to March 2007, which tell us that over 36,000 New Zealanders in the past year have voted with their feet by deciding to permanently move to live in Australia. Over 700 New Zealanders a week in the year to March, according to the Government Statistician, have decided to move to Australia. That is equivalent to a city the size of Gisborne and a little bit more being wiped off the map in the space of the past 12 months, and the past fortnight has told us precisely why that is happening. We have seen on the other side of the Tasman the fifth Budget in a row to deliver tax cuts to Australians, to share the gains that have been available during a period of growth in Australia, and, most important, to leave cash in the pockets of those who can invest in Australia’s future.
What have we seen on this side of the Tasman? We have seen 8 years where we have had none of those gains shared with ordinary New Zealanders, no cash in the pockets of New Zealand businesses to invest in New Zealand’s future, and no investment being made by the Government in New Zealand’s future. Dr Skilling from the New Zealand Institute presented some chilling figures recently to show the results of those policies.
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) Link to this
I know that members of the House have asked the Greens to justify our position on confidence and supply, and I would respond only by saying that when the Green Party makes an agreement to do something, that is what we do. It is a question of integrity, and I know that is a novel concept for some members of this House.
However, I would like to talk about something different. Like all members of this House, I recently received a book by “snail mail”. That is not a rare thing, but what was uncommon is that the author’s claim that the book is a serious and significant challenge to our justice system is borne out by reading it. I read Keith Hunter’s Trial by Trickery because, like many New Zealanders, I was concerned by the trial of Scott Watson for the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. I make no comment about guilt or innocence, but I am convinced that serious questions about the conduct of the police investigation and the trial need to be answered.
In 2002 Bruce MacFarlane, then Deputy Attorney General of Manitoba, reviewed the issue of miscarriages of justice. He listed the conditions linked to miscarriages of justice and found four predisposing factors: public pressure, unpopular defendants, turning the process of trial into a game, and noble cause corruption—that is, persuading witnesses to alter their testimony because police believe that the person charged is guilty. He also listed eight direct causes. These were: eyewitness misidentification; police mishandling of the police investigation; inadequate disclosure by the prosecution; unreliable scientific evidence; using criminals as witnesses, such as jailhouse informants; inadequate defence work; false confessions; and misleading circumstantial evidence. He said that these factors are present throughout the Commonwealth jurisdictions.
The bulk of those causes were present in the trial of Scott Watson, according to Mr Hunter’s book. Whether or not his allegations can be sustained, there is no doubt in my mind that the book raises very significant and very serious questions, and that it deserves a response from this Government. It goes beyond this case. It is about how police investigations and trials of serious criminal cases are conducted more generally. It is particularly concerning that in the context of enormous media interest in the sexual misconduct of police officers and the closed-shop culture that goes with it, there does not seem to be a corresponding interest in the implications for the integrity of criminal convictions. The fact that Rob Pope, who is now Deputy Commissioner of Police, is at the centre of the allegations in the book makes that lack of interest more concerning.
If the Government wants to restore the confidence of New Zealanders in our justice system, especially following the Privy Council decision to quash David Bain’s convictions, then this Government must take action. Currently, once appeal rights have been exhausted, the only remaining avenue to address a miscarriage of justice is a petition to the Governor-General. That is then passed to the Minister of Justice, and the procedure for dealing with it is ad hoc and entirely unsatisfactory. New Zealand judge Sir Thomas Thorp, in his report into miscarriages of justice published just 1½ years ago, recommended establishing a body similar to the UK’s Criminal Cases Review Commission specifically to deal with petitions to the Governor-General in a transparent and rigorous manner that New Zealanders can have confidence in. The Green Party strongly supports that call.
SHANE JONES (Labour) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. This afternoon we have heard a lot of nonsense from the Opposition in terms of us being afraid to speak about the Budget. Well, one of the great things about power is that we have the authority, we have the credentials, and tomorrow we will lay our programme out. Tomorrow we will campaign, we will defend, and we will stand very strongly and meet all comers on the basis of the underlying principles that uphold our Budget.
Firstly, this economy has for a long time suffered a problem with savings. What did we do in the time of economic buoyancy? Dr Cullen had the presence of mind and the support of this side of the House to invest in the Cullen fund, thus laying down a very deep foundation plank. And what do we hear? Not only has Bill English decided to let the looser version of the National Party leadership, John Key, take the fall but he has also mimicked the policy. He hopes to ape his way to victory. He hopes not to put in original thought, and not to have to go out there and defend exactly what remedies National members bring, but to borrow the garb of this side of the House and try to confuse the voters.
Secondly, what did the Budgets of earlier times than this do, after we inherited a problem that is reflective of a decade-long deficit of infrastructure development? Those Budgets injected ongoing investment and promoted capital infrastructure—the very things that National chose not to do, and that we have continued to do—whilst at the same time they achieved something that is the envy of all the OECD countries. That is, net debt has gone. There is no debt. If we add the debt that exists against the assets on the balance sheet, we see there is no debt, yet we have ongoing investment in infrastructure. These are the things that voters, whether or not they care to see it fully now, will make decisions on. They will not make decisions on wild, flippant, colourful promises that Opposition members do not have to cost or go out and explain. Those members are simply trying the politics of borrowing—in fact, if they were university students, they would be up for plagiarism. That is what we have seen from them.
I will talk about some of the speakers from the other side of the House. I think it is very rich that Mr Power should be making disparaging remarks about our sartorial styles over here. He is the guy who, in the midst of a speech, doffed his own suit and immediately donned some military garb. He announced, while he was still relatively high in the pecking order, that he would ensure that if National was in Government, those members would go wherever their allies took them. Several things happened there. What he did was to demonstrate—despite all the media hype that he was the face of the future—that he was unable to represent solidly or authoritatively what the soldiers of our country would want to hear and believe in. They do not want someone who is far too young, inexperienced, and who has never had a jot of life experience in terms of being able to lead people to sign over their lives to some open-ended cheque as to where our army and our country would have gone.
What happened after that? He had the opportunity to stand as 2IC with the late departed Don Brash. He fell. He lacked either the courage or the experience. He is slightly different from Bill English. Bill English has an absence of experience, but he does have, however, the ability to wear at the same time a perpetual sense of sulkiness and a deep wound. But what Mr Power had was the ability to see that he was not really up to the task—despite the fact that he had lobbied every journalist who was disinterested in writing what the facts were to talk him up in the media when the opportunity arose. When the chalice—the cup of opportunity—was served up to him he turned and walked away. So it is very vacuous and weak that he should have a crack at Government members over these things.
We also heard from Tim Groser, who was apparently brought into the National Party to ensure that its trade credentials would grow exponentially. He was billed—presumably by himself—as superman, but he has found that he represents a type of kryptonite to his own friends. He got here and we have heard nothing from him. Mr Blumsky, my occasional fellow member of the golden oldie rugby team, we understand, is retiring to play for the dustman’s team in Wellington. This former Mayor of Wellington came in and threw it away. Who knows? The Opposition has no ideas, and therefore, no remedies.
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this
That speaker, Shane Jones, is apparently the future of the Labour Party. What I find most interesting about all the write-ups about that speaker is that we could just change his name to John Tamihere. We have read all the speculation before and we know exactly what came of it. If one looks at the speculation of the New Zealand Herald with the headline “Government says NO to personal tax cuts” one sees that it should have read “Government says NO to continued Labour Government”. Because this week we saw what we have not seen for 8 years, which is the leader of the National Party being the most preferred Prime Minister of New Zealand. John Key struck a chord with New Zealanders when he said that it is time that this tired, lifeless Government was put out of its misery. Today another one jumped ship—Copeland went. We know that there are some more who will probably go. Taito Phillip Field has gone.
It is 1998 all over again. Having seen what happened then, I can tell members of the House that it is happening all over again. The players in the Cabinet will be up there now trying to work out how they can cobble together this ragtag Government for a few more months before the whole thing falls apart. Because that is what is happening. No one knows whether Gordon Copeland will cast his vote for the Budget tomorrow. No one knows what his price will be. No one knows what Jeanette Fitzsimons meant by her rather obtuse question today about what the Greens were expecting from this Government. That is what the players in the Cabinet will be working on right now. I know they are, because we faced the same thing in 1998. It is insidious. It is absolutely insidious that this goes on, underlining that it is a Government that is losing its members by the month. It will not take long before the other minor parties in the coalition start to realise—
Jill PettisThe massively defeated former MP for Whanganui says: “Remember the Alamein.” Members should change “Alamein” to “Copeland”. Members should change “Alamein” to “Taito Phillip Field”. That is what the Labour Party will have more of in the months ahead. This is a Government that has run out of ideas. It has run out of passion for the future. The Government started the general debate on the day before the Budget with a speech about something that is absolutely unrelated to what could be the centrepiece of some recovery it is proposing. Labour has been in Government for 7½ years. It is tired. The party has the same old people. Even the Prime Minister has talked about the managed exit list of all the MPs who are not wanted. A couple of them are sitting in the cross benches over there today—Jill Pettis, who has probably been offered Niue; Fairbrother is going; Moana Mackey has been told she is on the managed exit list with the rest of them; and Ann Hartley is off as well. That sort of dismissal by the leader of a party of those soon-to-be-former members of Parliament is yet again the sort of thing that will undermine confidence in this Government.
This is a Government that has fallen in every public opinion poll this year. Labour cannot form a Government with its mates the Greens, according to any public opinion poll printed this year. This is a Government that is on the way out, because it has squandered the opportunity to make this an even greater country than it already is. The Government has overtaxed, over-regulated, and overstretched itself to try to give us a country that New Zealanders can be proud of.
It is not 600 New Zealanders a week leaving to go to Australia, as Don Brash used to talk about; it is 700 New Zealanders a week leaving this country because of the Labour Government and its lack of vision and direction and the fact that it has no hope for this country. The Labour Party is a tired bunch of people who have been trying to run this country for 7½ years and have missed the opportunity completely.
Instead of overtaxing New Zealanders for those 7½ years, why were we not letting that money stay in the pockets of hardworking New Zealanders so that they could invest in growing their businesses? This country would have been much richer today if we had.
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for Economic Development) Link to this
I just want to tell the House that that was Tony Ryall, who has begun his movement to the backbench of the National Party. He is the member who was speaking. Apparently there are now three doctors on the backbench vying for his position as spokesperson on health. One of those doctors’ hopes went up in smoke. What is his name? Monica. He has gone, but I am told a couple of others are vying for the spot.
Tony Ryall did not answer the question that Paul Swain asked. Paul Swain asked the very, very good question of what National’s tax policy is today—not earlier in the year, not last month, not last week, but today. Earlier in the year National’s policy was for big tax cuts, if not for massive personal tax cuts. Then, about a month ago, it was squeezed down to being tax cuts. What is happening now? National is right back to a policy of maybe having small, graduated tax cuts at some time in the future. Do members know what I am predicting will happen tomorrow? National members will say that Dr Cullen has got it right. Maybe I am too much of an optimist. If those members are honest, they will say tomorrow that Dr Cullen has got it right. But that would be to hope for quite a lot on the part of the National Party.
I tell Dr Cullen that although I am not going to tell anyone what is in the Budget, I will say that at the end of tomorrow people will say that it is a great Labour Budget and a great Budget for New Zealand. It is a Budget that will make a difference for New Zealanders now and a long way into the future. It is the sort of Budget that will make Tories ask why they had not first put out an alternative Budget just like it. I am sorry; I am one of the old-fashioned people, and I remember carbon paper. The Tories will probably have a word-processed copy of Dr Cullen’s Budget, and they will say that that is what they would have done if they had had the chance.
As one of the members who has been around here for a while, I want to say to some of the very new members over there in the Opposition that only one poll counts. It comes up roughly every 3 years—sometimes slightly earlier. The one poll that counts is held on election day. I say to members opposite that if they keep on insulting the Māori Party in the way that they did today—and in the way that Tony Ryall did today—while Tariana Turia was asking questions, then they will not have a show. If they keep on questioning the integrity of people who have signed agreements in the way that they did today, then they will not have a show. If they continue with the sort of approach that they have taken in this House even as recently as 1½ hours ago, then they will never have the chance to put together a Government.
I will finish where Annette King started. I ask Murray McCully, who helped to organise the person for the Exclusive Brethren—
Hon Dr Michael CullenHon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
—Wayne Idour, to spy on the Prime Minister, whether he knew at the time that Wayne Idour was the man who was splicing pornographic videos into police training videos. Did Murray McCully know that was the case when, with Exclusive Brethren money, he organised someone to spy on members on the Government side of the House? Did he know that? There is no denial—there is not a denial from the Opposition; not a word of denial from the Opposition. Did John Key know that, when he put the Exclusive Brethren and Don Brash together? Did he know about that man’s history?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD Link to this
Well, they were Tory movies; it is the sort of approach we expect from Tories. But I have not yet heard one National member condemn that man. Not one National member has condemned that man, and all I can say is that the National members are chickens.