General Debate

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) Link to this

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I guess, therefore, that Labour should be flattered by the National Party’s desperate efforts to snuggle up to Labour on defence and foreign policy. The problem is that an Opposition is meant to oppose; an Opposition is meant to project new and alternative ideas and policies.

How do we explain the National Party’s position over recent months in these areas? I guess Guyon Espiner got it right the other day in his North and South article. He said that National so clearly perceived its weakness in defence and foreign policy that it wanted to depoliticise those issues. And it is no wonder: National, in Government and in Opposition, has consistently shown poor judgment—the poor judgment that, until recently, let Mr Key and many other members of the National Party say they would have committed New Zealand soldiers to the war in Iraq, just as Mr Key’s predecessors three decades earlier had committed New Zealand soldiers to a war in Viet Nam.

Now the National Party is saying it wants us to believe that it is sincere in its support for a nuclear-free New Zealand. The National Party that I have observed over the last 15 years has flip-flipped, flip-flopped, and flip-flipped on nuclear-free policy every time it thought it was in its interest to be in favour of nuclear ships or not to be in favour of them. We would not know whether National members were being shallow and dishonest then, when they said they were against a nuclear-free New Zealand, or whether they are being shallow and dishonest now, when they say they are in favour of it.

Then there is the issue of scrapping the air combat wing. Dr Mapp and Mr McCully have said that Labour’s policy would leave New Zealand undefended—undefended and bludging off its mates. Now they admit that Labour had it right all along. I could not help but notice the comment in the paper the other day from a commentator who asked whether the National Party was now prepared to countenance bludging off its mates and leaving New Zealand unprotected, or whether it was admitting that its former rhetoric was hysterical nonsense. Were National members being shallow and dishonest when they were against scrapping the air combat wing, or are they being shallow and dishonest now that they have totally flip-flopped on their policy?

Actually, I tend to agree with a columnist in the Sunday Star-Times last weekend, who said that the showmen and the shallow men of the National Party have replaced the hollow men of the National Party. I think that that is almost right. It is only almost right; we have the showmen and the shallow men—John Key epitomises that—but we still have the hollow men. They are the hollow men who were prepared to take money in secret from the extremists and the fundamentalists. They were prepared to spend that money with the expectation from those groups that they would deliver for those with privilege and those holding fundamentalist viewpoints.

The truth of the matter is that there is a vacuum of principle, there is a vacuum of policy, and there is even an absence of analysis in the National Party itself. It is shallow, it is expedient, and when its members flip-flop one way, we cannot even rely on them not to flip-flop in the opposite direction, depending on the expediency of the moment. They flip-flop because no policy is anchored in principle, and no policy is anchored in philosophy. These are the ultimate shallow and hollow men of New Zealand politics.

Let us get a few answers from the National Party to some questions. Can those members really believe in climate change one moment, when just a moment ago John Key was saying it was a hoax? Did people believe him then or do people believe him now? How shallow was that policy, or how dishonest is the change in those members’ stance? And can we believe that they will not cut superannuation? That National Party, of which Lockwood Smith was a member, said it would scrap the surtax—“no ifs, no buts, no maybes”. Those members lied, they reversed their policy, and they did it again. [Interruption] I say to Mr English that he did it again in 1999 as Minister of Finance, when he cut superannuation.

JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this

We know that when Phil Goff leads off for the Labour Party, it is barbecue season again. “Chuck us another lamb chop.”, I would say to Mr Goff, as I know he has been waiting, waiting, waiting. But the waiting is coming to an end, my friend! Phil Goff sits in his caravan with the Little Lucifer Fire Starters—there he is, ready to go. He normally gives quite good speeches, but I was tempted to ask for an extension of time; I was not quite sure what would happen.

It is a very odd Labour Government, I have to say, when the way to keep one’s job is to text message the Prime Minister from a duty-free shop in Hong Kong, saying one does not want it any more. That is the way to keep it. I wonder what the Prime Minister texted back. That is the interesting question. I bet that it was not a resounding vote of support for Damien O’Connor. [Interruption] Well, exactly. Probably it was: “Pick me up another bottle of Gordon’s gin.”; I am not really quite sure what she texted back.

This is the interesting bit. The Prime Minister lectured that Cabinet just a few weeks ago and said that it was time for discipline. That is what she did. She had just fired David Benson-Pope, and she said it was time for discipline. Damien O’Connor walked out of that meeting into a briefing in his office, where he was told that if he took Mr Morgan—someone who was on suspension from the Department of Corrections—on a rugby trip, it might not be a very smart thing to do. What did he do? He took Mr Morgan on the trip—he did not care about the Prime Minister. When he got to Hong Kong on the way back home, he decided he had better text in his resignation.

Well, his job is coming to an end—no question about that. The Prime Minister—like the people of New Zealand—has no confidence in Damien O’Connor, because this is a man who is overseeing a department that has suffered from a catalogue of failures. Make no mistake, New Zealanders have died under the watch of that Minister. The Department of Corrections is an operation where guards are being suspended for contraband and drugs being brought in. This is an operation where they cannot get it right, on how much a prison costs—to the nearest $100 million. This is an operation where the Minister thinks it is more important to spend $11 million on landscaping than to spend it on rehabilitating prisoners in order to get them off drug and alcohol issues. This is the man whose best is to text in his resignation, and then not tell us for how long his job is safe for.

The one thing we could say about Damien O’Connor was that he managed to game Helen Clark. He knew she could not accept his resignation, because it is not a minor tweaking; it is major open-heart surgery going on over there. This is a Prime Minister who is looking not only for a replacement for Mr O’Connor but for Mr Benson-Pope, Mr Burton, Mr Barker—and the list goes on and on. It would be Jill Pettis and Russell Fairbrother if they had ever made it to the point where they could be sacked, but they have not actually got there yet. That is what is happening over there. The Prime Minister is fishing in a very shallow pond.

Quite interestingly, the Otago Daily Times described Labour this week as being past it. The editorial said Labour members were people who were out of touch. Well, the National Party is in touch. I will tell the House how in touch National is. National has been around the country, and this is what one learns when one is around the provinces. I was in Palmerston North last week. It was quite an interesting visit last week. What was interesting about it was this. It turns out that Steve Maharey will not be getting the job as vice-chancellor of Massey University—not because he has not applied for it, but because Massey University does not want him. They asked me: “Would you hire him?”. I said: “No, I don’t think so. His track record’s not that good.” They said they were not fools there in Palmerston North. They did give me an interesting snippet, though. They said: “Don’t worry too much. He’s applied for another job, at Waikato University.”

That is what is happening. The Prime Minister is working out who to sack, the front bench is working out how to get out, and Damien O’Connor is working out where the Chamber is—we have not seen him since he has come back from England. That is what is happening on that side of the House.

Helen Clark is now sitting up in her office with a Velcro board trying to work out who is in and who is out. The only problem is that she has got a whole lot more going out than she has got coming in. The great white hope is Shane Jones—and if he is the great white hope, it will be interesting.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) Link to this

It is very interesting how the National Party always puts out there its hopes and plans to get rid of Helen Clark—for example, by promoting her to the United Nations. The National Party knows that when it comes to stumping it out on the campaign trail, it will never have a campaigner who will out-campaign Helen Clark. The best thing that National members can do is hope that she goes away and gets a job somewhere else. It is the same hope that they are putting up for Steve Maharey.

Talking about plan Bs, let us talk about Mr Williamson and his tasteless jokes about obesity and prisoner of war camps. This means that Mr Williamson will be a prime candidate for Minister of Corrections—if National ever, ever gets back on to the Treasury benches. As for Mr Brownlee, he has had himself a job for a while that was to be his plan B—that is, working for a bunch of people trying to tidy up casinos. But, unfortunately for Mr Brownlee, the two people involved in his company have gone AWOL and have never been seen again—Gerry jumped first.

When it comes to arguments about what will go on in the future, the National Party for a long time was running a campaign of very vicious personal attacks against Helen Clark, but its members have now suddenly decided that they do not like personal attacks any more, because questions have been raised about the judgment of their leader, John Key. The question that has been asked on several occasions is what John Key thought about the Springbok Tour. Well, we all know that he says he cannot remember. We all talk about whether John Key was for the war in Iraq. He was for it for a while. Simon Power put out the National policy in favour of the Americans and the British and he said that where they go is where National wants to go. That was until National got such a negative reaction from the public. National members suddenly changed their minds and then had a different policy. That policy was gone by lunchtime, as well.

It is just typical of the National Party’s policy development that it is for things when people are for them, and it is against them when everyone else is against them. On the Kyoto Protocol, National members thought at the time that the general public were opposed to the protocol. John Key went around and said that climate change was a complete hoax. Another National MP said that it was the worst example of international socialism. Now, suddenly, because of Al Gore’s movie and other people, National realises that it is a very important issue for the future of our planet, and it is now in favour of Kyoto.

On paid parental leave, the National MP Anne Tolley said that if National ever got back into power, it would scrap it. John Key later said that he thinks he supports paid parental leave. Judith Collins said in the Sunday Star-Times that she would have much rather had tax cuts than paid parental leave, but recently told the that she could have done with paid parental leave when she had a little child. So I ask National members which it is—are they in favour of paid parental leave, or are they against it? Or will it be like 4 weeks’ annual leave? They opposed it bitterly at the time but suddenly realised that the New Zealand public wanted to have 4 weeks’ annual leave, and they are now in favour of it. Is it going to be like KiwiSaver? National opposed KiwiSaver bitterly at the time, but now, because the general public thinks it is a great idea, National is in favour of it.

If we want some more flip-flops from the National Party, what about the combat wing? We had a long period of rhetoric, where the National Party claimed that New Zealand under Labour had gone soft on its responsibilities and should have had what it claimed to be a balanced strike force, and that if we did not have this, we were bludging on our mates. Now the National Party has come around and said that it will not reinstate the combat wing.

How believable is the National Party on any of its policies? The National Party did everything it could to oppose the nuclear-free policy, but now it has suddenly decided that the general public seems to like it, so it is in favour of it. The National Party has no credibility on any of these policies whatsoever. The last one, which I thought was a classic, was on foreign policy. The National Party has recently gone on the record as saying that there is not much difference really between National and Labour on foreign policy, and that, in fact, the National Party basically agrees with Labour. So I ask the National Party which it is. Is it going to have some policy before the next election, or not? Is it going to have policies that it will oppose the Government on, on a point of principle, on a point of argument, and on the point of having a logical reason for being in such a position?

We had a very good example in the House this afternoon, when Steve Maharey challenged the National Party spokesperson on education to have a policy. We have not heard one at all. What does the National Party’s website have relating to justice? There is a blank space. There is nothing. What it has is a statement that it would like to hear people’s ideas, and asks them to send an email. That is the National Party’s position. It does not have any ideas. It likes to steal the Labour Party’s ideas. But when the public comes to a view that this is what they really support, National will agree with that, too. The National Party has no ideas, so it is going to take up the challenge at the next election. It is going to be confronted by an energised Labour Party full of ideas and full of policy.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this

That member was the Hon Rick Barker, who was making his last desperate bid to remain in Cabinet following the reshuffle that is to come for the Labour Government. How do we know that the lobbying for the reshuffle has begun? We know that because when Helen Clark was out of the country at APEC, David Cunliffe was driving into service stations in the dead of night and filling up liquefied petroleum gas tanks for Phil Goff’s barbecue. He was too scared to do that while the Prime Minister was in the country, but he will be right there with Phil Goff if the time comes. We know that the reshuffle is already creating all sorts of lobbying in the corridors amongst the Labour MPs. We know that they are desperate to have their last dying days in Cabinet, if they can. I thought it would be a useful use of my time in this debate to help out some of those Labour MPs by making some predictions from this side of the House as to what is going to happen in the reshuffle.

We know that after a prison overspend, the Graham Burton tragedy, and the death of young Liam Ashley, Damien O’Connor is gone. We do know that he was smart enough, on advice from the right-wing faction of the Labour caucus, to offer his resignation to the Prime Minister by text from Hong Kong, to ensure that it placed her in a tricky position in respect of removing him from Cabinet overall. That will be interesting to watch. Mark Burton, too, is gone. He is a Minister who was too slow to recognise that he was being set up as the front person on the Electoral Finance Bill, to give the leadership around Helen Clark enough excuse to shift him on. He has effectively paved his own way to the exit door; he did not see that one coming down the road. Rick Barker, whom we have just heard from, has lost his seat and his swagger. He used to walk into the debating chamber full of confidence. He is a broken, sad man now.

What do all three of those Ministers have in common? They are all from the justice sector: the Minister for Courts, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Corrections. It is a land of opportunity for people like Parekura Horomia, who has decided that keeping a low profile will help him to slip through the reshuffle unnoticed and retain his current position.

Pete Hodgson knows that he is gone from the health portfolio. He is the only Minister of Health who, while patients are lying on trolleys in corridors at North Shore Hospital, has time to go around digging up non-existent dirt on John Key. It makes us realise just how smart Paul Swain and Marian Hobbs were, after all. They saw it all coming from well down the road, and decided they would get out of Cabinet. We know the situation is becoming vicious inside the Labour caucus at the moment. We know that the lobbying is frantic. But members should not rely on my word; they should rely on the words of that helpful fellow Mike Moore. He was helpful enough to say recently: “This politics of personal destruction is fearful. Why is Labour so good at it? Because we practise on each other.” That is exactly what is occurring right now in the back corridors of the Labour caucus. Mike Moore described the banning of advertising in election year as sinister, and even gave his old friend Phil Goff a bit of a nudge when he said: “Even the normally sensible Phil Goff has joined the chorus, hoping to ingratiate himself with left-wing MPs for later.”

Where does the talent lie? Who is coming in, in this Cabinet reshuffle? Well, it might have been Clayton Cosgrove, before his old mate Mike Moore decided to make his comments in the media. We know that Maryan Street may not be told to wait for just one more adjournment, as she has been told all year long. It is the same with Shane Jones. His philosophy is to say nothing and get promoted, and it seems to be working for him today. I have some advice for my colleague and friend Darren Hughes. I say he should concentrate on winning Otaki and not worry about the Cabinet reshuffle. He should concentrate on that.

The real question, though, is: will the Prime Minister deal to the front bench, or will we keep seeing on TV the sad, tired faces that represent the defeated few? Can the Prime Minister afford to mix it with the factions and upset those along the front bench who represent the faces that the public have had a gutsful of? But deep talent lurks further back in Labour. We have noticed Harry Duynhoven’s frenetic activity during question time recently. He has taken more points of order than Michael Cullen over the last three or four days. He is obviously mastering his skills in the House in order to be ready for a shift up, along with the likes of Dave Hereora, Mita Ririnui, Martin Gallagher, and Moana Mackey.

MARYAN STREET (Labour) Link to this

I have absolutely no interest in responding to the inane, the fatuous, and the superficial comments from the Opposition. The two contributions to the debate that we have heard from the Opposition—from Mr Key and from Mr Power—demonstrate that National still has a vacuum where its policy ought to be. This Labour-led Government is keen on, and committed to, getting on with the business of governing, which is something that that party in Opposition has no collective memory of and will have no chance of doing. We are keen to advance our policies and the innovations that continue to promote well-being, and to advance the living standards of New Zealanders all over the country.

I want to talk particularly about health. I want to draw attention, in the very few minutes I have, to some of the things that have been the standout gains in the last few years in the Labour-led Government, and to some of the things that have happened in the last month alone that demonstrate how this Government is going forward and progressing in order to make things better for New Zealanders.

Let me identify a few key points. First of all, since 1999, since we have been in Government, there have been an additional 4,000 nurses, an additional 1,400 medical personnel, and an additional 675 allied health professionals. We have provided a historic pay increase—some $549 million over 4 years—to build and maintain our workforce of nurses. We have undertaken the single largest hospital building programme in living memory, with 28 new public hospitals from Kaitāia to Invercargill. Over $2.2 billion has already been committed. When completed, that will add another 22 new operating theatres.

We have undertaken the largest mass immunisation campaign in New Zealand’s history and lowered the number of new cases of meningococcal B by 57 percent. We have halved average doctors’ fees, and that matters to New Zealand families. We have reduced the cost of medicines, to no more than $3 per prescription item, and that matters to New Zealand families. We have provided 7,500 extra cataract operations. We have provided another 10,000 extra hip and knee replacement procedures. We have provided an additional 10,000 New Zealanders a year with elective surgery costing $200 million over 4 years.

The Opposition has gone very quiet because it knows these things are true. Opposition members will not tell us whether they would maintain the same level of commitment and financing of the health portfolio that allows these advances to be made for New Zealanders. They will not commit to that, because they know that their real policy, which they have not released to the public, consists of public health spending cuts. In fact, they go on about it all the time. It is the only thing they have put up by way of health policy—that there would be cuts to expenditure in the health budget. That is what they promise, and that is what we can guarantee they will deliver should they ever, unfortunately, be in the position to do so.

I also point out that in the last month alone the Government has made a couple of announcements and advanced a couple of policies that indicate we are still on the case. This Government will not rest. It will continue to improve things for New Zealanders and New Zealand families. Making doctors’ visits free for under-6-year-olds matters to New Zealand families. We have introduced before-school checks for 4 and 5-year-olds so that any problems for those kids can be identified and sorted out before they start school. Those are two major things just in the last month that identify this Government’s onward push to ensure that we are improving the lot of families and New Zealanders. This Government is eager to get on and do the business. We will not be distracted from that by fatuous contributions from the Opposition that contain no policy.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) Link to this

As some people in this House probably know, many years ago, when one did not have much choice, I used to belong to the National Party. I did reasonably well in the National Party. I was privy to a lot of discussions, a lot of problems, and a lot of solutions, but today National members have a problem that they will have to put their best money minds to. I know that Shane Jones is no slug in this department, so even he may be asked to help National members with this problem.

The question they have to answer, and the conundrum they have, is how they will fit a $5 million war chest into a $2.5 million spending cap—not only that, but a spending cap lasting 11 months. The question we must ask ourselves is whether they will spend some of the $5 million this year.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) Link to this

It must be pretty caustic in the Labour caucus these days. What Mike Moore had to say in the last few days about a reshuffle was: “It’s needed.” Those were his words. It is interesting to read what Mike Moore said. I guess that he knows what goes on inside Labour. He did not say that Helen Clark is planning a major reshuffle. His words were that Labour was planning a major reshuffle. We have to ask ourselves whether that is coded language for the fact that there is more on in Labour at the moment than just whether Helen Clark will reshuffle her favourites in Cabinet, or whether, in fact, the knives are out. With Phil Goff leading off the debate today, we have to ask ourselves whether the knives are finally coming out in preparation for a bigger reshuffle. If Mike Moore had meant that Helen Clark was planning a reshuffle he would have said it.

If there is to be a real spill in Labour we are told that the big pretenders for Helen Clark’s role are Steve Maharey and Phil Goff. Well, we know that Steve Maharey applied for a job at Massey University and did not get it. Mind you, I could have told colleagues that he would not get it. Massey is not that dumb. After having spent 7 years of my life at Massey University and getting to know a few of the people around that place, I know there is no way Steve Maharey would get that job. There is now a new term around this place. It is known as the “Maharey touch”. In our young days we all heard about the Midas touch, which was that anything one touched turned to gold. The “Maharey touch” is the antithesis of that. Steve Maharey has screwed up every role that he has had in this Parliament since becoming a Minister.

Look at what Steve Maharey did when he was Minister in charge of tertiary education. He set up that massive Tertiary Education Commission, with 400 people employed. They do the same job—only a lot worse—that I used to do with just 15 officials. He has hundreds—to do the job worse! Now, what do we have in the wider education sector? We have promises of 20 hours’ free education and a 1:15 teacher to pupil ratio. He is screwing up the lot. That is Steve Maharey—Waikato is welcome to him! What this means is that he is not the one. Clearly, Steve Maharey is trying to get out of the place.

He is not the one; Phil Goff is the one. He is the one whom Helen Clark has got to watch, and we have known that for a long time. Of course, there are some things this Parliament should know about Phil Goff, because Phil Goff was a Minister when Labour was last heading out of office. When Labour looked at the fact that it was going to lose the election in 1990, Phil Goff was Minister of Education. This is very topical right now, with the Electoral Finance Bill before the Parliament, and I remind the House what the Hon Phil Goff—aspirant to the leadership of the Labour Party right now—did in the lead-up to the 1990 election when he was Minister of Education, in the days before we had a Fiscal Responsibility Act. What Phil Goff did was direct his officials at the Ministry of Education to spend money illegally—to spend money for which there was no appropriation from this Parliament to spend. That is the equivalent of spending money illegally.

The officials at the Ministry of Education were so concerned about being directed by their Minister to spend money for which there was no parliamentary appropriation, that they went and saw Treasury and the Audit Office to make sure the ministry covered its back in spending money. The ministry was directed by the Hon Phil Goff to spend a whole lot of money on schools—millions of dollars—to try to buy votes. That was what the Hon Phil Goff did, leading up to the 1990 election, when he was Minister of Education. What the Hon Phil Goff then did was direct the Ministry of Education to spend $20 million on capital works in polytechnics, for which there was no appropriation. How do I know this? I know, because I took over as the Minister of Education from the Hon Phil Goff—aspirant to the leadership of the Labour Party. The very first thing was that the Ministry of Education’s financial controller—a guy called John Gill—came to see me to tell me how Phil Goff had been directing the ministry to spend unappropriated money.

LESLEY SOPER (Labour) Link to this

It is like being pelted by popcorn from the National Party benches when we hear a speech like that from one of the failed, old front-bench members of the National Party. Those National members spend so much time bouncing from insubstantial cloud to insubstantial cloud, trying to think of ways to justify the latest flip-flop. Let us look at the latest flip-flops. Well, National has adopted Labour’s defence policy, and it has adopted our foreign policy. It would have sent troops to Iraq—no, it would not send troops to Iraq, after all. It would raise the age of eligibility for superannuation—no, it would not, after all. It would get rid of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs—no, it would give the ministry more teeth.

National members spend so much time on trying to think of another excuse for having not even one little new policy idea of their own, let alone any new big policy idea of their own. They spend so much time on reviving the hollow policies of the National Party past—like Work for the Dole under Mrs Collins, tax cuts that would rob the family incomes of the 160,000 families receiving the Working for Families package, failed privatisation policies for accident compensation and the health system, failed bulk funding for the education system, and National’s desire to gut the Resource Management Act. Every time members opposite get to their feet, and try to play the man and not the ball—just as Dr Lockwood Smith has done—they show they have no credibility whatsoever and nothing substantial to offer, and they might as well continue to go on bouncing from cloud to cloud.

On the other hand, the Labour-led Government is getting on with the business. We are looking for the new issues. We are about delivery, and have been since we became the Government in 1999. We are about improving the lives of all New Zealanders, and we are about keeping our word. That means the Working for Families package for 160,000 families. That means over 360,000 more people in jobs than when we became the Government in 1999—something the National Party does not like to acknowledge. That means an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent—the equal-lowest since records started. That means 1,000 youth-unemployed as a result of our policies, compared with 18,000 unemployed 18 and 19-year-olds when National was in Government. That is delivery, and that is what the National Party does not like to acknowledge.

It does not want to acknowledge that we have been a successful long-term Government with a brilliant leader and a brilliant front-bench that delivers. That delivery on policies means things like thousands of Modern Apprentices under the Modern Apprenticeships scheme—the answer to a National Government that destroyed the apprenticeship system. That means industry training schemes that deliver. That means extra funding for free doctors’ visits for under-sixes—something the former National Government failed to deliver to any point in the health system. That means the building of new hospitals under this Government—there is one in my electorate of Invercargill, which I am very proud of having been a part of. It was delivered on budget and on time.

These are things the National Party knows nothing about, because it is not interested in delivery. It is interested in nothing but trying to play the man, not the ball. It is interested in cheap shots. It is interested in insubstantial jumping from cloud to cloud, and getting nowhere. The electorate of this country has begun to recognise there is nothing substantial in this policy. Every day people tell me that “our” Government—and New Zealanders regard this Government as “our” Government; the Government they can relate to, which has delivered to them—will win next year, and win well. This insubstantial popcorn throwing from the Opposition benches is exactly that—insubstantial, little ideas.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) Link to this

What an honour and a thrill it is to follow Lesley Soper this afternoon! I must say, I always find the general debate a rather strange parliamentary ritual, when, for an hour, MPs stand and yell and scream at one another—none more so than the Minister of Defence who stands in this House and for 5 minutes hyperventilates, with veins in his neck popping, while he recounts some misdeeds, apparently committed by the National Party in the days of Sid Holland and Keith Holyoake.

Well, I do not intend to hyperventilate, or ululate, or bellow, or scream this afternoon, but just rather quietly assess the performance of some of Helen Clark’s Ministers. Nor am I going to spend too much time on Mike Moore, because there is nothing new in Mike Moore’s comments. Everything is as it should be in the Labour Party, where hatred is the norm. Ancient and modern hatreds in the Labour Party are always amusing to observe or read about. We know that John A Lee hated Savage, the left of the Labour Party hated Fraser, Kirk hated Nordmeyer, Rowling hated Lange, Lange hated Helen Clark, Helen Clark hates Mike Moore, Mike Moore hates Helen Clark, and everyone hates Jim Anderton.

Let us look at the Government’s justice team, because it is the most ineffective team in decades and its responsibilities are grave indeed. I have always been generous when I have spoken about previous Labour lawyers. I have said that Rex Mason was a good Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for 17 years. Martyn Finlay did some good work between 1972 and 1975. Geoffrey Palmer—the de facto Minister of Justice today—was an enthusiastic Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in David Lange’s Cabinet. David Lange himself was a distinguished Attorney-General between 1989 and 1990. Indeed, in the Lange-Palmer administration there were some good lawyers—people like Richard Prebble, David Caygill, dear old Frank O’Flynn, Bill Jeffries, and Trevor de Cleene. They were serious legal minds whom one respected, even if on occasion one disagreed with them. But let us take a look at Helen Clark’s justice team.

First we start with the Attorney-General who, in the critical question of the Electoral Finance Bill, has failed to act as an independent and fearless law officer by providing that all-important report under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Loyalty to party is more important to our Attorney-General than loyalty to democracy.

Then there is the Minister of Justice. Lenin once described some of his lackeys as “useful idiots”. When he tired of them it was off to the Gulag or the grave. The bewildered member for Taupo, Mark Burton, is nothing more than a fall guy for the Prime Minister. Day after day he goes out to bat for the Government in this Chamber, only to find that his captain has broken his bat. Constantly humiliated by my deputy leader, the poor chap is out of his depth. He talks daily—as he did again this afternoon—about the need for elections to be a contest of ideas, but he has never had an original idea in his entire political career. I put it to the Labour members sitting opposite to give me an example of one original idea that Mr Burton has had. I tell them I will make it easy for them. They can refer to any idea in any portfolio the man has held: tourism, Treaty negotiations, local government, or justice. Is there just one example from Mr Swain? There is silence. Mr Burton will be gone in a fortnight.

Then there is the Minister of Corrections, who will soon be out of his job and next year will lose his seat to Chris Auchinvole. Others have commented on his performance this afternoon and as I am feeling charitable I will leave it at that. The Minister for Courts is next. Courts is an extremely important portfolio. An efficient court system is a fundamental ingredient of our justice system, yet the Minister Rick Barker has no answers—he does not even know what the issues are. Finally in this star-studded line-up there is the member for Waimakariri, Clayton Cosgrove, and there is the Hon Mita Ririnui—enough said about them.

The area of justice needs urgent reform in a number of areas and Labour’s justice team is simply not the team to address them. At the end of the day, it is the fault of the Prime Minister. She has always placed a premium on loyalty rather than on talent and experience. She is now reaping the reward of her years of selfish leadership of the party, and of stuffing her party caucus full of social workers and trade unionists. Loyalty and subservience are qualities to be desired more than talent and experience. Next year, the Prime Minister will find out the cost of those omissions.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare. I apologise for breaking with tradition but, instead of using this general debate to slag off others in this House, I would like to take the opportunity to recognise a man who has played a critical role in the Māori renaissance here in Aotearoa.

Some years back I was asked who had had a big influence on my life. I started thinking about it and ended up with a huge list, which I had to cut back so that I did not look like some dork who needed everybody else to run his life for him. I ended up with these people: my mum, Tītewhai, because she will always be my mum, and for her total commitment to all her whānau; my wife, Hilda, who hates my saying so but is everything to me; Nelson Mandela, who proved that if one’s spirit is strong, then not even 27 years in jail can break it; Muhammad Ali, for being young, incredibly gifted, and proud to be black; Māori Marsden, who taught me that being Māori is a gift to be thankful for every day of my life; and Syd Jackson, who taught me that if we believe in something, then we should not let anyone set us aside from that belief.

Last week we buried Syd Jackson at his home marae, Matahiwi, which is down Hastings way. Here is my poroporoakī to him.

Syd Jackson was a founding member of Ngā Tamatoa, which people of my generation or older will remember as that radical Māori group that back in the 1970s fought for Māori to be taught in schools, and that dared to say that Māori had Treaty rights. Back then Pākehā people all round the country hated Syd—and so too did a whole heap of Māori, just quietly. But Syd was never cowed by that. He would always say that Aotearoa is Māori land, and he would argue his point with anyone, anywhere. He never ever took a backward step.

Syd never voted either, because he did not believe in Parliament. I suspect I was a bit of a disappointment to him, probably saved from absolute condemnation in his eyes only by my comments about John Howard and my visit to Alice Springs to visit our Aboriginal cousins.

Syd made being Māori, highly educated, and fearless his trademark. He dominated university life and gave up any hope of a glittering corporate career in order to fight for Māori rights. His Māori was hopeless, but he fought for the language so that others might benefit from knowing its beauty. He marched to Waitangi when Māori were afraid to talk about it publicly. He put his freedom on the line in land occupations at Raglan and Bastion Point. He worked tirelessly within the trade union movement. He hosted the Liberation Talkback show on Radio Waatea for years. He helped to build Turuki Health Care into a powerful health provider in South Auckland.

For all of that, Syd Jackson was my hero. And now his life is over. The funny thing, though, is that I am happy he died. He gave his all when he was with us—100 percent every single day of his life. Even when his body was being eaten up by cancer, his mind was always sharp and his politics never wavered. I am happy for him that the pain has gone and that his wairua can return to those others who have gone before him—people like Eva Rickard, Hana Te Hēmara, Tom Poata, Eddie Hawk, and many, many others.

Nō reira e te rangatira, haere. Hoki atu ki a rātou e tatari ana kia kite anō hoki i a koe. Anō rā e te rangatira, haere, haere, hoki atu rā. Our lives are brighter for his having lived amongst us. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa.

KATE WILKINSON (National) Link to this

Mike Moore said it all, did he not? Mike Moore said it all. Members should listen to this: “This politics of personal destruction is fearful. Why is Labour so good at it? Because we practise on each other. Helen Clark is superb at it…she’s dispatched more Labour leaders than anyone else too. Now Labour is planning a major re-shuffle. It’s needed.” But it gets better. He also said: “We have the largest Cabinet in the Western world per head of population. Killing the wounded is the hardest job in politics, particularly if they have been loyal subjects. They are bled slowly, swirling rumours appear, planted from Beehive sources, then, when the victim is anaemic, too exhausted to fight back, someone is dispatched to put the pillow over their head.” Mr Moore continues that it is very hard, and that the circle of close mates gets smaller and weaker, and he asks: “Exactly what does the ‘consort’ Judith Tizard and the legion of Ministers outside Cabinet actually do? Perhaps it’s good they don’t do much. They manage the remarkable feat of being self-important, expensive, trivial and irrelevant at the same time.”

While all this is happening, Rome is burning. Just look at our justice system. I appreciate that the Minister is probably preoccupied with the obsession to bring in what has been described as the second of the most self-serving bills in history to enter this House. The first was this Labour-led Government retrospectively legalising and validating its own unlawful overspending of taxpayer money at the last election. That was the first. That was reprehensible enough. The second is the undemocratic, also reprehensible, Electoral Finance Bill to take away New Zealanders’ rights of freedom of speech at the same time as giving this Labour-led Government carte blanche to spend whatever it wants of taxpayers’ money and to say whatever it wants, yet at the same time deprive New Zealanders and community groups of their rights to spend what they want of their own money, and deprive them of the right to say what they want. That is absolutely reprehensible and it is a disgrace to the democracy of this country.

While this is happening, Rome is still burning. The justice system is in disarray. Only last week the Auckland District Law Society said this: “Of note were his concerns at a justice system, particularly in regard to civil work, that is almost grinding to a halt because of unreasonable delays. It is of huge concern … that in all aspects of our work that we hear the same and continuing concerns, that access to justice is not being provided in our community either because of the barrier of legal aid or a justice system that is not able to effectively and efficiently deal with people’s cases—and that is a serious concern because it impacts on peoples’ lives.”

While this is happening, the Minister is fiddling. We have a legal aid crisis and the Minister fiddles. We have had a legal aid crisis that the Minister has known about for months and months, and still he hides his head in the sand. We have fewer and fewer lawyers doing legal aid work. Family aid lawyers have dwindled from 2,000 to 1,000 in 12 months, and still this Minister does not recognise that. We have more and more examples of victims—battered women unable to get legal representation and unable to get access to justice, and who find the process simply too hard and just walk away from the process. That is what is happening in Blenheim, as an example. We have criminals charged and let out on bail because the court logjam means they will not get a trial date for over a year. We have the trifecta of the justice team of the Labour Government—three Ministers—all fiddling away whilst our justice system burns. There is a priority for this Government, and it should be the justice system and not the persecution of the Opposition.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

It is disturbing to see our Government so scared of offending the Chinese Government, even when its officials are hacking into our own Government computers. There does not seem to be any question that this is the case. The head of the Security Intelligence Service, Warren Tucker, virtually said as much in an interview published in the Dominion Post yesterday, when he referred to the hacking in the context of comments by Canada’s security service about Chinese spying. Then we have high officials in Britain, Germany, and the United States, all reporting Chinese hacking of Government computers, such as that of the US Defense Secretary’s office.

Today I asked the Prime Minister a series of questions on the hacking issue and did not get anything back that would be very useful to New Zealanders. I asked her whether she believed New Zealanders have a right to know which foreign country is endangering the security of our Government information, and that public embarrassment is the best medicine for this—as when she publicly scolded Israel for trying to obtain false New Zealand passports. She dodged that question. Once again, the New Zealand Government has shown weakness before the size and economic power of China—the same sort of weakness we saw most recently when Cabinet Ministers were forbidden from officially meeting the Dalai Lama for fear of upsetting the Chinese Government. I simply cannot fathom how displaying such weakness before the Chinese Government helps us to negotiate a good trade agreement.

As I asked in another of my questions today, how does the Prime Minister think New Zealand can continue to effectively negotiate a free-trade deal with China in good faith if the Chinese Government is hacking into our computers and stealing information relevant to our bargaining position? Yes, we have to protect Government computers, and the Greens congratulate those New Zealand Government officials who have been detecting hacking attempts from the Chinese. As I said in my last question today, we can join with the US, British, and German Governments in protesting this hacking. But such cross-country action is somewhat undermined by the extensive electronic spying on other nations done by the United States—in particular, through the National Security Agency, backed up by the four other Anglo nations in the Echelon network, Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Every day the satellite communications interception station at Waihopai draws down off two communication satellites over the Pacific equator the details on millions of phone calls, faxes, and emails, which are filtered for key words and addresses, mainly for the benefit of the US National Security Agency. It would be much better if we in New Zealand had clean hands as a small independent nation in the world. We would have much more of a moral case against Chinese hacking. It would be good if our Government Communications Security Bureau concentrated on defending our computers rather than using most of its resources spying for the National Security Agency, as it does now.

Chinese hacking is part of a larger attack on privacy and human rights, which is mainly directed at its own citizens. Unfortunately, our Government says little in public on this. I was privileged yesterday to host a parliamentary forum of experts on these matters—particularly David Kilgour, a former Canadian MP and former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), and a prominent Canadian human rights lawyer, David Matas. They have produced a pamphlet entitled Bloody Harvest: A Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China, which scientifically proves the gruesome sale of organs from executed prisoners—and China has the world record for executions, something like 10,000 a year, according to Amnesty International. Proper figures are not made available by the Chinese Government. Huge fortunes are being made by army officers and very sick medical professionals out of this horrific trade in organs.

New Zealand has a duty to be part of the world response to the large-scale violation of human rights in China—particularly leading up to the Olympic Games, in a period when the Chinese Government is particularly susceptible to Government embarrassment. Our Government has to be more outspoken about the executions, the organ harvesting, the presence of around 250,000 people in the Chinese gulag—many of them dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners—and the gross censorship of the news media and the Internet. Standing up for human rights in China is also the most effective way to combat that Government’s hacking of our computers.