Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : I move, That the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2006/07) Bill be now read a second time. Sometimes in this Parliament there is a short moment—a moment of transition, of major change—when one can see something has occurred that is going to have repercussions for a long period of time, and this afternoon in question time we saw precisely that. We saw a moment when the Prime Minister challenged the National Party as to who was the real Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash or Gerry Brownlee. Both stood up; Gerry Brownlee told Don Brash to sit down, and Don Brash sat down. The question about who the real leader of the National Party was answered itself. It was Gerry Brownlee who led National members into the procedural mess they got into this afternoon—the folly they have now got into, on which they will go nowhere on what has been their favourite hare to chase for the last couple of weeks or so.

That supposed leadership of the National Party over there—Dr Brash, who looks as though he has been suffering from a famine, and Mr Brownlee, who looks as though he has been causing it—has now no moral standing in this House at all. That is both as a result of that leadership moving a foolish motion and of its inability to organise a debate, despite many offers to allow the debate to occur and the motion to be put, and also by refusing to allow a member to make a personal explanation in order to offer an apology to the House. That will also resonate in this House for many weeks and months to come. Those kinds of thing are always examples of “what goes around comes around”. When some member on the opposite side of the House desperately needs to make a personal explanation, it will take an awful lot of Christian charity on this side of the House to allow that to happen.

There has been folly piled upon folly and lack of leadership piled upon lack of leadership. What does one expect from a party when the leader gives a speech saying that we ought to have rules of citizenship whereby we would respect democracy and the principles and freedoms of all New Zealanders, yet the very same party wrote a minority report on the Oaths Modernisation Bill rejecting the inclusion of swearing support for democracy and the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders? What does one expect from a party of that sort? What does one expect from a party when Mr Key says National would have the same outcome in the surplus and the deficit as Labour, but would have more tax cuts but not less spending? Somehow or other “a” plus “b” no longer equals “b” plus “a” in the National Party’s economic philosophy and economic arithmetic.

The National Party lacks a clear policy on anything. Tax cuts was once its big policy, but when one goes to the National Party website and asks about tax cuts, one gets referred to a website, www.taxcuts.co.nz. When one goes there one finds that it states: “This domain is parked”. It ought to say: “This party is parked”.

The National Party is permanently parked in Opposition. In Opposition it shows not the slightest sign of putting together the kinds of policies, principles, and leadership that could possibly lead it to this side of the House. Those members will grow old in bitterness, as they are growing old in bitterness now, on the front bench of the National Party. They will be there as long as we continue to perform as a Government in the way that we are.

I will outlast yet another one, two, or three National Party finance spokespeople, as I have outlasted about six or seven already during my time as the Labour finance spokesperson. In part that will happen because of the achievements of this Government. We have growth that has resulted in the rate of unemployment being one of the lowest in the OECD and the lowest in New Zealand for over 20 years, particularly amongst Māori; a major achievement for this Government. Business profits are at the highest level we have seen for decades in New Zealand. Why have we collected more tax? It is because the corporate sector has made more profits, and we have collected the corporate tax off those profits. We do not hear much about that from the National Party opposite.

Debt has reduced as a proportion of GDP by about a third under this Labour-led Government. Working for Families is now pouring money into many low to middle income families, who are beginning to realise the benefits of those changes that we have introduced. Superannuation was restored to the 65 percent floor and now, during the life of this Government, to the 66 percent floor, as a result of the confidence and supply agreement with New Zealand First.

On 1 July the rates rebate scheme will see hundreds of thousands of hard-working Kiwis getting rates rebates on their homes. The National Party bleats about rates but never does anything about them—except pretending, somehow or other, that they are not going to increase at any point in the future. Primary health organisations are rolling out cheaper doctors’ visits and cheaper pharmaceutical costs for the 45 to 64-year-old age group. There is only one age group left to go—25 to 44—which will qualify for that on 1 July next year.

Now, we have a massive agenda moving forward. In infrastructure we have the biggest investment in roading and public transport in New Zealand’s history. We have seen an eightfold increase in public transport spend under this Government and a doubling in land transport spend under this Government. We are going to complete the Auckland motorway network. We are building roads in the Waikato and the Bay of Plenty. We are saving New Zealanders’ lives by improving the quality of those roads. We are spending all of the revenue we take off motorists, which is not going to the Accident Compensation Corporation but is coming off for land transport purposes, on land transport. That has not happened for so long that nobody can remember when we last did that. One would have to go back somewhere before Sir Robert Muldoon, before one found that was the case within New Zealand.

We are now moving on electricity, and sending clear signals that we must have sufficient security of generating supply and we must have a sufficient margin on transmission. Transpower and the commission must sort out their differences, including their personality differences; if not, the Government will have to take, and consider, other actions to ensure that those differences do not stand in the way of achieving the security that New Zealanders need and New Zealanders deserve, and that we must have if we are going to have investment.

On skills, I say that I am in the middle of a major reform of the structure of tertiary education within this country; a reform that has been very broadly welcomed across the tertiary education sector. The almost lone voice in Opposition is that of Mr Bill English, as he was the lone voice on the curriculum changes announced yesterday by my friend and colleague Steve Maharey. On savings we are introducing the KiwiSaver scheme. There are going to be changes to that scheme through the select committee process, I am sure, which will see it improve, and that will start to see a lift in the savings rates within New Zealand.

On compliance costs, I say that Lianne Dalziel is chasing major reform in terms of the way in which we treat compliance costs. At the same time the Government is looking at its own internal compliance costs because they also have become far too large in terms of the way Government business is carried on internally—something that the National Party never deals with at all.

Finally, last week Mr Dunne and I put out the business taxation document, which is offering tax cuts in the business sector that are three times what Mr Key offered, and Mr Key says: “Oh, it’s not very much at all.” It is three times what he was talking about as possibilities, but he is saying: “Oh, well, never mind. That won’t go anywhere near far enough.” What is important is to address those skills issues, to address those research and development issues, and to address those export market development issues. They are areas where New Zealand has under-performed for a generation and where a hands-off, laissez-faire, pure level-playing-field approach is simply not delivering the results that this country needs to lift its quality of life. Opposite we have a leaderless, moral-less, wasting Opposition, which has no future, a past it can scarcely now remember, and a future that, in fact, will simply be one of sitting there increasingly bitter and irrelevant to New Zealand’s needs. The Opposition showed that in the House this afternoon.

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) : On Thursday the House will adjourn for a 2-week period, and members on the Government side cannot wait for that adjournment. They cannot wait, because the last 2 weeks have been a living hell for them and they know that it is a long, long way from being over. The instruction from the whips to the Labour Party caucus meeting this morning was simple: “Hang in there for 2 more days. Hang in there and keep your heads up high, because we’ll just guts it out till Thursday and see if we can make it all magically go away.”

Last week was a pretty interesting week. We had been led to believe 7 months ago that there would be this big and bold business tax review—so big and bold, Michael Cullen told us, it might be too big and bold for some people. It turned out that the person it was too big and bold for was Helen Clark, who now no longer has any confidence in her Minister of Finance. She now runs economic policy—as well as everything else! That is why the review was a document that members of the accounting fraternity across New Zealand described as a “three out of 10”. Even in the dumbed-down education system in this country, a fifth-former at any self-respecting secondary school would get a “not achieved” for that 26-page document, which took 7 months to write. Quite frankly, it is a disgrace.

On Sunday afternoon I was involved in a couple of radio interviews. One of them was on Radio Tarana, the Indian Radio station on 1386 AM, and before me was the Prime Minister, who was going to debate the issues around the business tax review. The Minister of Finance is no longer let loose to discuss that review. He had had very little input into it, indeed, after the Prime Minister had pruned it. But what the Prime Minister said, in a very interesting interview before I went on the station, was very illuminating. She said that she had spent the afternoon discussing some issues with Michael Cullen.

Well, we found out in the House today exactly what issues Helen Clark had been talking to Michael Cullen about. They have been polling furiously on the Taito Phillip Field inquiry. They have been polling their supporters, who have unanimously told them they have a problem, and they know that it is a problem that will not go away in a hurry. So Helen Clark got on the phone to Michael Cullen and told him that they had to find a way to make the thing go away, and that they had to do it in a hurry.

They rang up Jeanette Fitzsimons from the Green Party—the party they left jilted at the altar 12 months ago after they had promised the whole way through the election campaign that they would look after it—and concocted a little scheme that was about to cost the taxpayers of New Zealand, I would guess, an awful lot of money. They told Jeanette Fitzsimons to draft a notice of motion and read it out in the House. It would be a notice of motion without debate. When it happened they would make Mr Taito Phillip Field stand up and apologise, even though 2 weeks ago he had told the people of New Zealand that he was fully exonerated and could not understand why he was not going straight back into Cabinet. All of a sudden he was going to be getting up and giving us an apology—or so we were led to believe.

That was going to cost the Labour Government a few favours, and probably a few taxpayer dollars, when it came to the policies that would get rolled out on the back of it. But it was all OK, because it did not matter to Helen Clark who got carried out with that thing, and who got involved—

Darren Hughes: Don Brash agreed to it.

JOHN KEY: I tell that member that he had better listen up, because he may as well hear what is going on in his party. The member for Otaki, who only just won his seat—he nearly got carted out by a first-time member on our side because he is so lazy and does not go to his electorate and do anything—should listen up, because this is what was happening on that side of the House. This was the idea: a notice of motion, without debate, was going to be read out that was theoretically going to take that very untidy situation off the table and make it all OK. Taito Phillip Field was going to say sorry even though he did not think he was guilty, and even though Noel Ingram had written a report about him that was so damning my good friend and colleague Lockwood Smith could have filled up every single question slot we had today and yesterday, and will have tomorrow and Thursday, asking questions on it. Today he asked a very interesting question indeed, which I guess Government members did not want to hear. They learnt today that in the last 3 years Taito Phillip Field has had 262 special discretions for applications he has made—

Darren Hughes: How many has the member had?

JOHN KEY: I have had very, very few actually—because I do not get people to paint my house. I do not send them off to Samoa to tile my house, and I do not charge for my services. I do not actually have to have a notice of motion that says I am going to recommit to a principle saying I will act as a member of Parliament and do things for free. Because Taito Phillip Field—

Keith Locke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want the Speaker’s guidance. Is it OK for a member, after he has denied permission for a party even to table a document, to then quote it in the House?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Locke. That is a debatable issue.

JOHN KEY: Taito Phillip Field was going to say “Sorry”, even though he has been fully exonerated, apparently, by the report; even though he has had 262 special discretions; even though he has sent so many people overseas to work on his houses that no one can keep count of them, and even though we have had a web of people in this House—

Darren Hughes: The member has got the same problem—what about your Sydney house?

JOHN KEY: I tell Mr Hughes that my houses are owned by my trust or by my wife—and, by the way, I pay for them and I actually pay people when they work on them. I know that is a unique—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just bring the Chamber to order and say that the practice of members engaging in a constant barrage of interjections amounts to heckling, and that is entirely intolerable in a debating Chamber. I would like members to look at Speaker’s ruling 57/3, which says that interjections are out of order unless “rare and reasonable;”. I ask members to remember that.

JOHN KEY: That is quite right—Mr Hughes should go back to Otaki where he has one of the slimmest majorities in the country, and he should start knocking on a few doors and begging people to vote for him again.

Hon Bill English: His majority will go down.

JOHN KEY: That is right; he will be carted out.

Hon Bill English: He should stay in Wellington.

JOHN KEY: Yes, he should stay in Wellington. If he is going to raise a thin majority he may as well hang on for a few days.

I want to make a point that is quite interesting. We had a scenario there where Michael Cullen and Helen Clark thought they could concoct a very convenient way to take that issue off the agenda. A personal explanation from Mr Taito Phillip Field—even one he would not believe in, because he had told the House he was exonerated and had done nothing wrong—would stop our side of the House debating the matter.

Then Michael Cullen got up and told us that he had offered the Opposition a debate on its notice of motion about why we on this side of the House have no confidence in the Speaker, Margaret Wilson. He said that he had offered a debate; what he failed to say, of course, was that he had offered an extension of about half an hour to the general debate—not the full debate that would have been taken by our side of the House.

I want to make reference to one other thing that happened yesterday. While we are talking about houses and Taito Phillip Field’s houses, I tell members that Wizard Home Loans came out with a very interesting matter yesterday and said that New Zealanders were finding it increasingly difficult to buy a home. I personally happen to believe that the data used for the Wizard Home Loans research is fundamentally a little flawed, although I accept the principle that homeownership is becoming more difficult. But I think that the real philosophical differences between the different parties in the House have actually been shown.

The Green Party came out and said there should be a capital gains tax. That was their answer. They said that foreigners, theoretically, were buying up houses, which meant that New Zealanders could no longer afford their own homes. Well, I hate to tell the Green Party that foreigners are not buying up bits of Pakuranga and the rest, which was the Green Party’s response.

The Government came out saying that it was going to spend $2.5 million on an ownership education programme—that was its idea about homeownership. But only one party in this House was going to fix the issue, along with the Resource Management Act and the Building Act, and was going to help New Zealanders with lower interest rates—the National Party.

SHANE JONES (Labour) : In a loud, clear, bilingual voice I say, e Te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā tātou katoa. Let me first begin by saying that this is a great day for the Government, despite a flow of negativity and invective from, and a complete disregard for the rules of the House by, the Opposition. The Opposition members have tried every trick in the book to distract attention from the fact that what lies behind their thinking is a vacuum, and what obsesses them is their own sense of disunity.

There are two young guys in National who will not give up the prize until they have hammered the daylights out of each other, although I was tempted to complain today that Gerry Brownlee almost—well, “assaulted” is hardly the right word, but certainly—assailed his own leader. He did not want the country to see how much of an embarrassment Don Brash was, pretending that he can lead the Opposition—ambling from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, wandering over here, and within 3 years aimlessly having the top prize. Well, even his own deputy is using a great Te Waipounamu myth to say: “Sit down, koroua; it’s our turn now. You’ve served our purpose.” But until such time as the two young bulls work out who is the No. 1 rangatira and who is rangatira No. 2, Don Brash serves a purpose. We all know that purpose is, firstly, to bide time, and, secondly, to hide the fact that other than personal attacks and wild and extreme ideas that have been tested and completely rejected by the electorate over the last year, the Opposition members offer nothing to the country.

That is why, when we contrast what we are doing with what the Opposition is doing, we find that people are eagerly anticipating, over the recess period, visits from Ministers, events organised by backbenchers, and the media from up and down the country being there to report. What are they going to report? They will report policies, ideas, and initiatives that are taking the country forward, as opposed to the ongoing highly negative personal sniping and attacks of the Opposition. The reality, however, is that the attacks and negativity are doing the National Party a great deal of damage. They do it a great deal of damage because the country does not want to see a continuation of such political venality. People want to see a contest—a contrast.

One type of vision is proudly announced by the Government and often reported upon—not, unfortunately, accurately—by the media. Where is the contrasting vision? Well, we saw the answer in Te Waipounamu a couple of weeks ago, when the National Party had its conference there. Sharper minds that dwell on media matters have already pointed out that it was reminiscent of a Soviet Union conference. People were brought from very, very distant areas and were completely confused as to what they were really hearing. However, they politely clapped, not wanting to emulate the behaviour of National’s own caucus in terms of its disrespect to its koroua, Don Brash—the man who, unfortunately, thought that just because one can be the king of monetary policy, one can lead Aotearoa. That was a big mistake; haere rā. But, unfortunately for the House, we are afflicted with Don Brash for—who knows how much longer? The two bulls have to sort that out.

Let us talk about the business tax review. What contrasting ideas will match that review? Firstly, we have heard from the Opposition that personal tax cuts have not been announced. Well, we have a couple more years to go; we will wait and see about that. The Minister of Finance has said that when cuts are made to the corporate rate it raises implications for the personal rate, so we will wait and see how that goes. What else has National said? Nothing—other than to stir up the chambers of commerce and the small number of groups from the business community that have any credibility left. But National is finding that a lot of the ideas promoted by our Minister of Finance are quietly being both embraced and endorsed by its own constituencies, because they can see that one cannot go forward by dividing the country, whether on the basis of urban and rural areas, of ethnicity, of being employers rather than employees, or of being women rather than men.

Divisiveness was at the vital centre of what National sought to do last year. National came perilously close to achieving that, yet despite the fact that it was taking money from all and sundry—from people who would not vote—it completely beggared its own strategy by its unwillingness, firstly, to be transparent and, secondly, to own its own strategy. Every day the media wait patiently to hear National’s ideas. National seems to think that if it has no ideas the country will forget the fact that it is devoid of ideas, and it will all of a sudden generate ideas at some point in 2008. Well, National tried to do that the last time round, and it failed miserably.

Of course, not only do we have good ideas but also we have great support from our friends. We have the mātāmua of the House, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, and the Minister of Revenue, who I am very glad to say is coming to Tai Tokerau and taking up the talk about the business tax review with the painters, traders, real estate agents, lawyers, and accountants—in fact, the demand to come and hear him talk about the policies is so huge that I am on the verge of selling tickets. Those policies have been released but have not been fully implemented, because we are giving people the opportunity to have input on them—to shape, influence, and enhance them. One can only do that if one has a policy. One can only do that if one is prepared to put initiatives before the community, rather than coming to this place week after week and spouting the same old negativity and highly personalised sniping—disrepute.

Beyond the business tax review, we have our KiwiSaver scheme. That scheme is eagerly anticipated by young families. It will provide an opportunity for them to derive some capital to improve their housing prospects. What have we heard as a contrast to the savings scheme? Nothing. What is on offer, other than a convenient recitation of the fact that Jenny Shipley led a charge to destroy Winston Peters’ superannuation scheme? Hello, kei hea Jenny Shipley; kei hea tēnā wahine? She is reduced to finding work in Shanghai. Kei hea tēnā wahine? Kei te ngaro tēnā wahine. That means that somewhere in a distant place, where we cannot hear or see her, she is missing.

R Doug Woolerton: She was missing when she was here, mate.

SHANE JONES: She was missing when she was here! Well, she put the korowai on certain people to lead the party forward. She put the korowai on them by trying to disgrace and undermine a great rangatira of Ngāti Wai. And today, to that rangatira from Ngāti Wai, the leader of New Zealand First, I offer our best thoughts. He is over in Australia, flying the flag and fighting the good fight. He will be back, looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, very soon. This is a great day for the Government. Kia ora tātou.

RON MARK (NZ First) : The saying that comes to mind when I think about Winston at the moment—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will use the full name.

RON MARK: You are so correct, Mr Speaker—the Rt Hon Winston Peters. That saying is this: there is nothing so sterile as someone saying “I told you so.” When I look across the House at National members—and I have heard the debate thus far—what do I see? I see a party carping on. The one thing that stands out very clearly about the National Party is that it is totally, absolutely united in its disunity. It is a party that has sat here carping for 9 years. It does not matter how much its members dance, how many questions they throw, or how much smoke and dust they try to kick up. Everybody in the country knows that it is all done in order to try to avoid answering the one question we all know needs to be answered and will be answered. It is the question National Party members are asking themselves: how much longer will they have to tolerate Don? Today in the House we saw that exemplified so perfectly—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member cannot use a member’s nickname; he must use the full title or the position.

RON MARK: I mean the Leader of the Opposition, temporarily placed, Dr Don Brash. And what did we see today? He got sat on his butt by the big hand of Gerry Brownlee, who slapped his hand on Dr Brash’s shoulder and shoved him back into his seat. Can members imagine some young buck on any marae in this country daring to step up and put his hand on Tumu Te Heuheu’s shoulder and forcibly slam him back into his seat? It reminded me of the time Mr Brownlee threw someone down the stairs at a political party meeting, an action for which he was convicted in the courts of this land.

The question is how much longer we will have to sit in this House and hear the moaning and bleating. Is it for just 9 years, or will it be for 12 years in Opposition? Whilst the National Party continues to perform the way it does and moan and berate the things that happen in this House, New Zealand First is getting on with the business. We could see the advantages in the current situation. Yes, we have supported the Government with supply and confidence, but we have done so for some very good reasons. Let us talk about those. We will have 1,000 more police on the beat by 2008. [Interruption] I ask Mr Bennett what part of that is wrong. Do I hear Mr Bennett saying that he does not want any extra police officers in his electorate? If so, we will write about it tomorrow and say he does not.

We will have 250 extra non-sworn staff, and $500 million put into law and order—into policing—over the next 3 years. So whilst Simon Power—young Simon—goes round the country talking it up and doing nothing, we are here getting it done. New Zealand First has got in more support for the police—more staff, resources, and cars—and an increase in the minimum rate of superannuation, up to 66 percent of the net average wage. That is what New Zealand First has got in. That is what is going to happen under this Government with the agreement. A golden age card will be introduced in mid-2007, identifying senior citizens and public sector entitlements, and providing a range of commercial discounts. Is that good news? That is very good news. How many of those senior citizens, when they get their golden age cards in their hands, are going to say they do not want it? Even Don Brash, whom Gerry Brownlee is about to make redundant, will be eligible for a golden age card, courtesy of New Zealand First. And is it not a good thing, being that he will retire from this House?

There is a significant increase in funding for elder care. There is already $150 million in there, and we are working on doing more. There will be a full review of the immigration legislation and administrative practices within the Immigration Service, which is something that National said, all the time it was in Government, was not needed. National told the country that New Zealand was like part of Asia and that we should have an open-door immigration policy. That has come to an end, and the review is happening now.

An increase in the minimum wage is New Zealand First’s first step towards raising it to $12 an hour. National members sit there and tell the country that it is OK for people to be paid $9.54 an hour for working at the Nurse Maude Association, and $10.54 an hour for elder care. People pay for their own petrol to go into town and work in residential care for $9.50 an hour, and National thinks it is all right and that nothing should be done about it. New Zealand First has acted. Those people will have a minimum wage of $12 an hour by 2008.

What about support for a Buy New Zealand Made campaign? What a great initiative that is. That is happening under the agreement between New Zealand First and Labour. There will be an Export Year in 2007. New Zealand First has banged on about it and tried to tell this country for about a decade that the backbone of this nation’s economy are those that export—the primary production sector. We have only just started to hear National members talking in favour of the primary production sector. Before that, they were saying it was a sunset industry. When they were in Government they were saying that farming was old hat. That was National. Members should not listen to what they are saying today. They are in Hansard; they are on record. They went around the country. Farmers around this country were nailed by National and were deserted by them in droves as National talked up the e-economy. Well, where the heck is that today? So an Export Year, which will promote exporters and promote the need of New Zealand to support people involved in the export sector and to support manufacturers, is a great decision and a great initiative.

The people of Tauranga were promised by the Rt Hon Winston Peters a toll-free harbour bridge, and it will be toll free. That agreement was struck between New Zealand First and Labour—it is done. [Interruption] There is no sense in Mr Bennett sitting there bleating on. He has another 3 years to keep going, and if National keeps going the way it has been, there will be another 3 years after that. He should think about that.

I just want the National Party to focus on those things. They talked about stopping the carbon tax. Who did it? New Zealand First has done it. It is finished; it is done. What about the sale of strategic assets? We have put a hold on that, as we have always said we would. We have agreed to the terms of reference for a review of Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) funding for physiotherapists. National bleats on about these things and says we need a review of ACC funding. Firstly, New Zealand First said that about 3 light years before National woke up, and, secondly, it is done.

Given the disunity and confusion that exists in National’s ranks, and given the fact that they are over there, still carping on, while New Zealand First is sitting here working constructively with the Government, heads down, getting these things done, the only question that remains to be asked is when John Key is finally going to do the deed. When will we see Don Brash get his throat cut? When will we see either Bill English or John Key step forward? Or has the big hand of the enforcer, Gerry Brownlee, staked his bid firmly on the shoulder of Don Brash, as we saw today? Is it going to be Gerry Brownlee that will get the endorsement? One thing that is for sure is that it will not be Tau Henare, because, given the way the National Party MPs are running around this country bagging him behind his back, he will be lucky even to make it into Cabinet—if, indeed, National ever gets back to the Government benches.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) : The whole Taito Phillip Field episode just gets stranger and stranger. We are now in the weird world of Labour spin, where the punishment is given out before the crime is even known, and where MPs apologise this week for what they said last week they had not done. The Prime Minister repeated again today the line that Taito Phillip Field has been punished for the outcome of the Ingram inquiry because he lost his ministerial warrant. Well, he lost his ministerial warrant after the election, before the Ingram inquiry reported. The punishment was given out before the crime was known.

Then today, in a deal with the Greens, Dr Cullen tried to head off this Parliament’s absolutely legitimate right to debate a motion that it put down itself about confidence in the Speaker, by concocting an arrangement whereby a motion would be passed noting things that arose out of the Ingram report, and then Taito Phillip Field would get up and apologise. Last week he said he did not do it; the week before that, he said he did not do it. The Prime Minister stood beside him at a press conference and said he did not do it. The apology certainly would have been one of those “Clarkisms”: “If I created the perception that there was a conflict of interest … ”. In fact, here it is. It states: “… resulting in calls on Taito Phillip Field to apologise to the House for not ensuring a clearer separation between his private business and his duties, resulting in a perception that could reduce public confidence.”

The problem is that this issue is not about perception; it is about reality. I have to say, the sad reality is that in its 90th year the Labour Party—the friend of the worker, and the party of Michael Joseph Savage—has endorsed a member of its own party trading political favours and exploiting immigrant labour.

I can tell members why Labour wanted to head off this issue today. It is because my colleague Lockwood Smith has asked a very legitimate question several times in this House about the other 261 ministerial directives that were issued at the request of Taito Phillip Field. Those directives were issued by the Hon Damien O’Connor, who is a good friend of Taito Phillip Field MP. We heard today of three more of the individuals who were issued work permits. Most of them had been illegal overstayers—one for up to 7 years. So we have not just a friendship between those two MPs but an overstayer conveyor belt. The illegal overstayers turned up at Taito Phillip Field’s office and got on a conveyor belt that took them straight through to Minister Damien O’Connor’s office, and he ticked them off. He ticked off 261 people.

Actually, now we are not sure whether it is 261 overstayers. Lockwood Smith has asked whether the Minister of Immigration and the Immigration Service have investigated all the other discretionary ministerial directives. The answer to that is no. But even if they said yes, we could not believe them. The reason is that they cannot even count the number of ministerial directives that were issued. In a reply to a parliamentary question, we were told the Immigration Service said that Taito Phillip Field had made 432 requests and 261 were approved. Then, yesterday, Lockwood Smith was told that it was not 432 requests; it was only 261.

What do Labour members say about it? They ask how many we have had. Such requests do not come up in my electorate very often—I am working on one at the moment—and a couple a year is about the most I have had.

Darren Hughes: What?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: A couple a year is about the most I have had. In the member’s Otaki electorate, he would be lucky if he had 20 or 30 a year. Labour is trying to make it sound completely normal that one member of Parliament got 261 discretionary ministerial directives. This was an overstayer conveyer belt. People who had had work permits turned down several times have been running through this racket.

The person who has yet to answer any questions about that, in his ministerial role, is Damien O’Connor. Why was Damien O’Connor approving work permits for people whose applications had been turned down several times, and for one person who had been banned from returning to the country for 5 years? Any member of Parliament can say how hard one has to try in order to get a work permit for people who do not quite fit the criteria.

John Key: What’s so special about Taito Phillip Field?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The reason there is so much public interest in this issue is that it is demonstrative of the growing dishonesty of the Labour Party. In the case of Taito Phillip Field, of course it matters that the Prime Minister has chosen not to find out what really happened, and has thereby chosen to besmirch the whole Parliament. The Speaker has played a role in making a decision that we found unacceptable, so we put down a motion of no confidence and that will have to be debated at some time.

But this issue matters to more people than just Taito Phillip Field. I want to give members an example. This is an example of a situation where spin has overtaken any sense of integrity, and that matters for people who should matter to this Parliament. I picked up an interesting report on Friday, from the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services. In the light of the events surrounding the Kāhui twins, I thought it was probably worth reading.

What did I find? Here is the first paragraph: “The Judge Mick Brown report on care and protection led to the Care and Protection Blueprint. This took so long to gain traction … that it was superseded by the Baseline Review of the Department of Child, Youth and Family (CYF) which gave rise to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) taking ‘leadership’ of the sector … The consequent Family Services vision combined elements of the Blueprint with and elements of Te Rito (the family violence strategy).” And nothing happened. Here is the third paragraph: “New Directions lost its way.” That is the New Directions that would have been launched as a new strategy. “Effective Responses”, which followed it, “was abandoned and overtaken by Early Intervention. Differential Responses then appeared and is now an isolated pilot and is being developed …”. Further back in the report, we get “Programme-itis” and “Pilot-mania”. Piloting something with a shiny new name looks good to politicians, officials, and the media alike.

What is the connection between these two matters? The Government that is willing to dissemble about Taito Phillip Field and cover up is a Government that has also abandoned the protection of children in New Zealand. It has buried that in spin and launches of strategies and visions so badly that the Christian Council of Social Services, which strongly supported the Government when it came into office, has seen fit to write a public document that gives the Government one out of 10 for some aspects of its child protection policy, and three out of 10 overall. That is because Helen Clark and her Ministers are totally obsessed with how things look in the media, with the perception of action, and with what they can say in order to move on. The reality—the humdrum business of reality, like exploiting immigrant labour when one is a Minister in a Labour Government and protecting the people behind the Kāhui twins—has disappeared way behind them. They are way ahead of reality. They are in a hyper-world, where the truth is whatever they say it is.

Taito Phillip Field’s misdemeanours, unfortunately, are so substantial that they will catch up with the Government, and the damage to the Kāhui twins and the social horror expressed at that is so damaging that it, too, will catch up with the Government.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : The people of New Zealand and people around the world have been sickened by what they see happening to Lebanon today. I think it is important for us, as a small, moral country that has stood up in favour of our nuclear-free policy against the United States in that respect, and that has stood up for principle, to cast its weight on the side of peace and ending the suffering that is happening today to the people of Lebanon and Israel, and to the people in Gaza. We should follow the example of some other small countries that are about the same size as us, like Norway, that have made a special purpose of being peacemakers. Norway is engaged across the world in peacemaking. It has been engaged in the Middle East, not always successfully, but we should try to do that.

If we speak out loudly and clearly to tell the truth about what is happening in Lebanon, our voice will resonate around the world, because it will be in contrast to many of the other powerful countries whose voices are somewhat muted—countries that are not really telling things as they are. Even worse, of course, the most powerful nation, the United States, through its Government is backing Israel’s murderous assault on the Lebanese people and refusing the calls for a ceasefire. Basically, it is saying there will be no ceasefire until the whole of south Lebanon has been flattened and all its people evacuated—that is, those who have not been killed or wounded in the meantime.

We have seen on TV exactly what that assault means. In the town of Qana a couple of days ago we saw 54 people slaughtered—37 of them children—in an Israeli air raid. Just as shocking to me as that sad sight of babies being pulled out of the ruins was the shots of the town itself. I think it was a town of about 10,000 or 20,000 people originally. It seemed, from the TV images, that the whole town had been destroyed. People, over generations, had built up a livelihood in that town, and now, in a couple of weeks, their town has been totally destroyed and they have been forced out.

Of course, there is talk from the Israeli authorities and the American authorities about there being “collateral damage” in war. But what we saw there was not collateral damage. I think New Zealand has to be at the forefront of the world in saying that what Israel is committing in Lebanon today are war crimes. People who commit war crimes will ultimately be brought before the World Court and convicted. That is what must happen to the leaders of Israel in the future. They must know that now. The whole point of setting up an International Criminal Court is to stop people doing what the Israeli Government is doing, and to tell them that they will be brought to justice if they do. It is quite clear that war crimes is the appropriate term to use, because in the Rome treaty, which is part of our legislation—it is appended to our legislation setting up the International Criminal Court 4 years ago—war crimes are listed. One of the crimes listed in that document is “attacking or bombarding, by whatever means towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives;”.

That is exactly what Israel is doing in south Lebanon, east Lebanon, and the southern suburbs of Beirut today. A second war crime in our legislation is: “Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such an attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians … clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;”, which is exactly what Israel is doing in its widespread and extensive bombing in south Lebanon today. Of course, Hezbollah is also guilty of war crimes, under that definition, by sending its rockets into towns like Haifa in Israel. But we have to state these facts.

What the Israeli Government officials are saying is quite horrific. For instance, Israeli army spokesperson Captain Jacob Dallal was quoted in the New Zealand Herald last week: “In the war on terror in general, it’s not just about hitting an army base, which they don’t have, or a bunker. It is also about undermining their ability to operate … That ranges from incitement on television and radio … and … grass-roots institutions that breed more followers, more terrorists …”. Grassroots institutions such as orphanages, schools, and aid centres are being bombed by the Israelis today as part of war and as a deliberate policy, and that is a war crime. A headline in Saturday’s was: “You are ALL targets, Israel says”. According to that article, Israel’s Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, “warned that the area”—south Lebanon—“would now become effectively a free fire zone and anyone found in it would be regarded as a target, and advocated bombing villages to make the advance of land forces easier. ‘These places are not villages.’ he said. ‘They are military bases in which Hizbollah are hiding and from which they are operating.’ ” Under that justification, the whole of south Lebanon is being destroyed. We must say what it is—it is a war crime.

We as a Government have to do a number of things—tell it like it is; call for an unconditional, immediate ceasefire; join those nations that are calling for that; and join the UN leaders who are calling for a ceasefire in south Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. They are telling Israel to stop all its attacks, and, of course, telling the Palestinian forces and Hezbollah to stop their attacks, as well.

Thirdly, we should be pushing for negotiations on the immediate and long-term issues in those conflicts in Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and engaging all the parties. This means we must accept Hezbollah and Hamas as parties to those negotiations. That is an essential thing that New Zealand should not flinch from pushing for. There cannot be a peace settlement unless all the parties to the conflict are engaged in that peace settlement.

Fourthly, it is good that Helen Clark has talked about New Zealand perhaps having a role in peacekeeping over there. We can help. Unfortunately, the Israeli Government does not really seem to be interested in genuine peacekeeping. There has been for a long time a call from Palestinians for an international force to be put in the West Bank and Gaza. That has always been turned down by Israel. Israel seems to want a pliant, so-called international force, like the pliant South Lebanon Army, which was a pro-Israeli force that occupied south Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s and totally failed. A critical thing about peacekeeping is that any force that goes in to Lebanon must fully recognise the sovereignty of that State and not go in without Lebanon’s full agreement and cooperation. Not to do so is the road to disaster.

It is not anti-Israeli to say the things I have been saying. A week ago on Saturday, somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, marched through Tel Aviv calling for peace, an end to the Israeli bombardment, and an immediate ceasefire. It is very pro-Israeli to call for an immediate ceasefire.

We have to take an approach to the conflict in the Middle East that respects all the ethnicities and cultures of that area. What we should do is relevant to the speech made by Don Brash on core values and bedrock values. He did not accept that all cultures have values that we must respect, but that is what we must apply to the Middle East situation today.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : It is a pleasure to take a call on the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill. I thank all my supporters in the gallery for coming along for it. Often I put out a media advisory and no one turns up, so this has given me renewed faith. On that note, I welcome my very good friend Charles Chauvel into this House. Charles is another fine product of the Gisborne – East Coast education system. He has had perhaps a slightly more eminent career than my own, but I am very, very pleased to have Charles here, as a good friend. I look forward to his speech, which, unfortunately, members will have to wait a little longer for.

I record in this House my embarrassment at the unbelievable display of arrogance and rudeness that we saw from National Party members prior to question time today. It is no wonder that people in this country hold politicians in such low regard, when they see a carry-on like that on their television screens and hear it over the radio. Mr John Key spent most of his speech in this debate complaining about the Greens’ notice of motion, which National did not support. He explained why National had declined to support the motion and why it was so important for democracy that National did that. But he did not explain why, then, Dr Don Brash rang our whips to tell them that National would allow the motion. I suggest that in the National Party the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

Nowhere was that highlighted more than in the speech that Dr Don Brash gave on immigration recently. He talked about New Zealand values. Those values were the acceptance of democracy, of the rule of law, of personal freedom, and of the legal equality of the sexes. That is very interesting. I want to know why a man who believes that the equality of the sexes and democracy are the foremost qualities and values for a New Zealander to have took $1.5 million from the Exclusive Brethren in the last election campaign. Dr Brash took $1.5 million from a right-wing religious sect that oppresses women and whose members do not vote. Why would he stand up not 9 months later and claim that democracy and the equality of the sexes were the most important things to him? Dr Brash then said that maybe those things should be part of the oaths of New Zealand. Why, then, did the National Party state in its minority view on the Oaths Modernisation Bill that it was not appropriate to have those very values put into oaths in this country?

I suggest that Dr Don Brash is on his last legs. If he is on his last legs, then he can count on Gerry Brownlee to knock them out from underneath him, as we saw before question time today. Dr Don Brash stood up to take a point of order and was shoved back into his seat by Gerry Brownlee. The Leader of the Opposition stood in this House to take a point of order, after the Prime Minister had just suggested that we did not know who the real leader of the National Party was. Both Dr Brash and Gerry Brownlee stood up, and who was shoved back into his seat? Dr Don Brash was shoved back by Gerry Brownlee, who is one of the pretenders to the leadership of the National Party.

Equality between the sexes and the rule of democracy are both very important. We in the Labour Party stand for those values very, very firmly. I remember an incident when some female National Party members stormed out of a pōwhiri because they were very concerned about the status of women in Māoridom. Again, I ask National members why they are so concerned about the status of women in Māoridom when they show no concern for the status of women in the Exclusive Brethren. We are talking about double standards over and over again.

I will read out a line from Dr Brash’s speech. When talking about immigration and the countries from which we should accept immigrants, he stated that many migrants to the West “… generally, have come from cultures that don’t share the bedrock values that New Zealanders take for granted”. In this House, I want Dr Don Brash to name the cultures that he thinks do not share the bedrock values of New Zealanders. I want him to absolutely name them in this House—to come clean. He should not hide behind weasel words and pretend that everyone will draw their own conclusions about whom he is talking about. Dr Don Brash should tell us that, because when he goes flitting around all the ethnic groups and talking to all the ethnic organisations, I think they will probably want to know which of them Dr Brash thinks do not share the bedrock values of New Zealanders.

But probably the most bizarre thing in Dr Brash’s speech was his suggestion that the reason New Zealanders are leaving to go overseas is the Treaty of Waitangi, and that they are sick of racial separatism in New Zealand. I think that any people who leave New Zealand because they think we have racial separatism here will get a really big shock when they go to just about anywhere else in the world. I think that perhaps one of the biggest problems we have in this country is that when we look at Parliaments around the world, we see that although they disagree on issues, they all agree on one thing: one does not run down one’s own country. We do not run down our own country in the eyes of people overseas who might want to invest here or who might want to live here, and—most important—the people who were born here and who have chosen to make New Zealand their home. Until the National Party values New Zealanders far more than it has been shown to value them over the last 6 years—or, in fact, over the last few decades—it will never regain the Treasury benches.

I am very proud to stand up in this debate and support the work the Government has been doing for all New Zealanders—and that is the difference between a Labour-led Government and a National-led Government. National governs for its mates; Labour governs for everyone. And it is not easy to govern for everyone, because different people want different things. But that does not mean that we should fail to attempt to formulate policy and pass legislation that is in the best interests of all New Zealanders—even those who may not support us at the ballot box.

I want to talk about the Working for Families package. It is a wonderful package, which is putting more and more money directly into the pockets of working families who need it the most. National opposed that package philosophically because of the way the Inland Revenue Department administers the scheme. Apparently, the fact that the department administers the scheme in a way that National is not comfortable with is a reason to tell working New Zealand families that they do not deserve to have the extra money this Labour-led Government is delivering for them. Well, Labour thinks the most important thing is that the money goes where it is needed the most.

We know that working families in this country with children need assistance. It is expensive to raise children nowadays, and we want to make doing that as easy for them as possible, so that many of the issues that can arise later on in life, where a family does not have a lot of money, will be circumvented by putting that money in and easing the financial burden. That will give parents more flexibility to decide how many hours they will work, and they will make decisions in the best interests of their family, not decisions made simply on the basis of what they can or cannot afford. If that means that members of Parliament have to go without the $100-per-week tax cut that National promised us at the last election, then Labour is prepared to make that sacrifice. Labour is prepared to make that sacrifice.

Labour is committed to providing a strong public education system. Since 1999 we have had over 2,700 extra teachers beyond the number required for roll growth. We have increased the schools operations grant funding by more than 13 percent in real terms, and we have guaranteed all kids the right to go their local school. But if I have to pick one area of education where Labour is making the most difference, it is in the area of early childhood education. More and more of our preschool children are being brought into early childhood education and engaged in education developmentally and socially before they hit school.

In housing, income-related rents, assistance for homeownership and modernisation, Healthy Homes, and rebuilding a housing stock decimated by the last National Government are making a big impact in this country.

The reason I talk about those things is that this House has been very much focused on child abuse lately. All members and all parties in this House have stood up to deplore child abuse and have said that they want to do whatever they can to stop it. Well, those policies will help to address many of the systemic problems that lead to child abuse. We now face a generation of young teenagers who grew up in households that faced the 1991 “mother of all Budgets”. They grew up in households that were forced into poverty by a National Government that told them their poverty was good for the country and it was essential that that happened. People at the top did not suffer; the people at the bottom did. We are dealing with the fall-out from those policies, and this Labour Government, over the last 6 years, has pulled that situation back. [Interruption] Oh, look; those members laugh—it is funny to them. Poor people do not vote for them, and that is why those members do not care about them. That is why they continue to support policies that would drive New Zealand families into poverty, would give them less choice in education, and would see unemployment rise. Those members think that a certain amount of unemployment is good for the country, and they know it is not their voters who would be unemployed.

I just want to congratulate the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and the Rt Hon Helen Clark. This country is on a path to prosperity because of this Labour-led Government.

• Debate interrupted.