Foreign Affairs, Minister—Confidence

Does the Prime Minister agree with her Minister of Trade, the Hon Phil Goff, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ opposing a free-trade deal with China is a “bullshit” situation—

Wilson Madam SPEAKER Link to this

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I have here, confirmed also by a phone call to my office, a document that says Phil Goff made no such statement. The document—from Mr Trow, who is press secretary for Mr Goff—goes on to state: “Mr Goff had not criticised Peters at all, and had made no comment on the foreign Minister’s remarks, either formally or informally.” In short, Madam Speaker, this is the New Zealand Herald setting about lying abroad again, and I want an apology.

It is a point of best information, but really it is a point for discussion.

Does the Prime Minister agree with her Minister of Trade, the Hon Phil Goff, as reported in the New Zealand Herald—

Wilson Madam SPEAKER Link to this

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Whether or not one seeks to hide behind a media fabrication, one should not get up and swear something in this House in the way that Mr Hide seeks to now. In the interests of the standards of this House, you should stop him from doing that.

I am not quite sure what the member said. As I heard the question, it asked about the report of the comments. It did not assert the comments were true, and the member is perfectly within his rights to ask that question. If he said anything else that I did not hear and the member took offence at it, then of course the member can ask for him to withdraw and apologise. But I did not hear anything except a perfectly legitimate question—or part of it.

Does the Prime Minister agree with her Minister of Trade, the Hon Phil Goff, as reported in the New Zealand Herald, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ opposing a free-trade deal with China is a “bullshit” situation?

Smith Hon Dr Nick Smith Link to this

I am assured by Mr Goff that he made no such comment in relation to Mr Peters—

Yeah, right!

Well, the High Court judge said to that member that he had committed a contempt of court. That ruling was on the basis that what he told the court was completely incredible. He is the only person in this House who has had a court decision about his credibility, which is nil. I am assured by Mr Goff that he made no such comment about Mr Peters’ position.

Has the Prime Minister received any reports directly from Mr Goff, or from his press secretary, totally denying that that word was ever said, and does he also recall the correspondent in question here making the same mistake at APEC and being found out 2 years ago, in Seoul, again demonstrably lying about the circumstances; and does he not think that in the interests of ministerial integrity the Minister deserves a fulsome apology?

I have been assured by Mr Goff that he did not say that about Mr Peters’ position—his stance—in terms of being Minister of Foreign Affairs. But we are well aware that some of the media do not seem to understand yet the confidence and supply agreement between New Zealand First and the Labour Party on these matters, even though it has now been in existence for nearly 2½ years.

Does she agree then with John Key that it is OK to have a Minister of Foreign Affairs who is a racist xenophobe; if not, why is she not demanding his immediate resignation?

Wilson Madam SPEAKER Link to this

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You can see why he went on Dancing with the Stars; he suffers from recognition hunger. He gets up and makes outrageous, unparliamentary statements, and you allow him to get away with it. I ask you to stop him and ask him to desist from that and behave himself, or to go and get a new job.

I am afraid that is not within my power, but I can ask the member, consistent with a comment that was made before about derogatory terms that are mentioned in this House about others, to rephrase his question, removing those terms.

Does the Prime Minister agree with John Key that it is OK to have a Minister of Foreign Affairs who pushes policies that display racist “xenophoba”?

Brown Peter Brown Link to this

I think the member means xenophobia, but never mind. The confidence and supply agreement between the two parties defines clearly the areas of responsibility for which Mr Peters speaks on behalf of the Government. He is not bound in other areas of policy. I do note that when that agreement was signed, it was attacked by the National Party as totally unworkable. National said it would fall apart within months, was an entire breach of the Westminster tradition, and was somehow the biggest denial of our democratic tradition that one could find—until Mr Moore unburdened himself with some similar comments today. But now the National members have decided it is actually quite a good idea, and a great deal of buttering-up was occurring as early as 6.30-odd this morning on the radio, in that respect.

Will the Minister advise whether he has heard any reports that over 100 members of this House will endorse the Rt Hon Winston Peters as foreign Minister of this country?

I think probably in both cases there is a small piece of fine print down the bottom: depending on the election results.

Does she agree with a statement made by her Minister for Ethnic Affairs, the Hon Chris Carter, that Peter Brown’s comments, endorsed by the Rt Hon Winston Peters, are “absolutely racist”; if not, why not?

Mr Brown’s comments were fearing a complete change in the nature of our society. I suspect that if the member turned to his left and spoke to Mrs Turia, she would tell him that already occurred rather long ago, and was done by people who come from very much the same part of the world as Mr Brown and I do.

Can the Minister confirm that as late as the evening of last Tuesday the leader of the National Party was saying: “The broad foreign policy framework will stay the same.”, and how does that sound as an endorsement of the Government’s foreign policy?

That sounds to me like a fairly fulsome endorsement of the Government’s policy, but then we seem to have fulsome endorsements of almost every aspect of the Government’s policy. It is hard to find what a National Government would choose to change, other than perhaps going back to freezing the level of New Zealand superannuation, cutting benefits, putting hospital charges in place, cutting back the roading programme, and so on and so forth.

I seek the leave of the House to table a transcript of a BBC interview with the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, on 11 July 2003, when she compared Mr Winston Peters with French fascist leader—

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Is the Minister in any way concerned that these questions arise because a New Zealand Herald correspondent decided to lie again, in the same way as in the story in this morning’s New Zealand Herald about recruiting police in Singapore, when the police utterly refute that, one, there is a memorandum of understanding, and, two, that the police in Singapore will be recruiting Singaporeans; and how can we possibly conduct the business and politics of this nation when one of its so-called leading newspapers engages in such deceit on a constant basis?