Peters Winston: Urgent Debates — Tranz Rail Shares—Insider Trading 
Peters Winston: Urgent Debates — Tranz Rail Shares—Insider Trading 
[Volume:640;Page:9950] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. We learnt the other day that the Securities Commission was able to get out of one David Richwhite $20 million and from a number of others sums of up to $7 million in respect of a transaction in 2002 where insider trading took place. What is important about that is that this is the first time two gentlemen—Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite—have ever been investigated in this country in terms of their commercial behaviour. 
 In fact Michael Fay had the effrontery to put a case before Parliament which the Parliament was happy to entertain by way of a defence of his behaviour and it is now part of the parliamentary record. For example just 2 weeks ago I saw at the back of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 
an article totally exonerating Michael Fay. Now how weak and insipid and corrupt can the newspapers of this country be when they set out to make a defence for a person who even then within 2 weeks because of his associations would be found to be guilty of what is nothing but a fraud on his fellow investors. 
Bob Clarkson 
: It was not fraud. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh yes he is guilty as sin. Why do you think he paid $20 million? Because he is innocent? I know why that member would not know anything about guilt; that is the way he does business. He is trying to do it right now in getting the ratepayers of Tauranga to buy out his complex over there. 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Exactly! Oh yes he is. Perjury—well we know all about that do we not? Perjuring oneself before a court—we have heard all about that and that is why he will never understand. There is the biggest defender of the behaviour of David Richwhite and Michael Fay sitting in this Parliament and he should be ashamed of himself. Over half a billion dollars was extracted by these men from the taxpayers of this country and this is the first time that officialdom has investigated them. 
I want to congratulate the head of the Securities Commission and her staff on at last 18 long years later doing something about these people who are held out to be paragons of virtue but who are nothing but crooks—and cheap crooks at that. Do we not remember the first transaction? They got themselves 30 percent of the shareholding of the Bank of New Zealand in June 1989. It never went to the market; it just went to them. Then there was the bail-out of November 1990. The National Party was barely in power and it was asking the taxpayers for a billion dollars to bail out the Bank of New Zealand which was owned by the people of the country and 30 percent owned by that time by Fay Richwhite and Co. 
If that was not bad enough there was the Adbro deal where all the bad debts were farmed off and then because the only two shareholders would be the Government—via the bank—and Fay Richwhite what did those people do? They paid themselves a finders’ fee. They paid themselves a finders’ fee—a finders’ fee for a fully subscribed company—and Ruth Richardson and the National Party did that. Disgraceful! It makes Donna Awatere look like an angel. That is the stink and the stench that this Parliament has tolerated. One party in particular has attacked the beneficiaries of this country and has sounded high and mighty about Donna Awatere—but there those members were covering up for their mates and paying a finders’ fee. If that was not bad enough on 20 July 1993 they sold the railways of this country which were a century old for a lousy $328 million. Three hundred and twenty-eight million dollars! That did not go to the market either. 
 A year before Fay Richwhite and Co. were the advisers and then in April 1993 Fay Richwhite jumped across the table and said: “Hello we act for the buyers.” What does one call that? It is grinding corruption. A political party across the House—namely the National Party—condoned it and those members have the effrontery to now come to Parliament and say that they should be in Government. Within the space of just 24 hours when the market heard about the price the share price jumped $188 million. That is what they gave to their mates. But it did not stop there. When it was known what those people were doing as the owner of a business out of the Cook Islands they began the cover-up. That is why today this Parliament should debate this issue; and whilst it is debating it pray tell me why people like Bill English and his ilk are fit to be in Government if they would condone that. They have never ever criticised it and worse than that they actually decided to enter a campaign of character assassination against someone who was asking questions from Parliament about these people. They even had the effrontery to kick me out of the caucus. Can members believe that? They booted me out of the caucus because I was saying that that outfit stank and they should not be covering it up. 
On and on it goes and today here they are the same old faces in the same places. Members should read  
The Hollow Men 
. Who is back? All the people who did that—the people who supported Michelle Boag and others. Those same men are in behind those people over there and the disclosure in  
The Hollow Men 
 is their own disclosure. 
Bob Clarkson 
: What about the overspending? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Number one I did not lie about my electoral returns did I? This man said his was $10000. A very sympathetic court said oh no it was not. It was more like almost twice that. But I say he spent $80000 and I still believe he did. If he can get up and say that because he has some business mates he can get lesser rates than everybody else in New Zealand then he has breached the spirit of the law of this country and he knows it. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
]  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: We are hearing a point of order from the Hon Bill English. 
Hon Bill English 
: It is not in order for a member to refer to another member as telling lies. In fact this whole matter was thrashed out before a court and in the House Mr Peters is obliged to accept the result of the court proceedings even if he does not believe the member. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The matter was really irrelevant to this debate. I was listening to the member. He was talking about a court case; he was not making accusations. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He had the effrontery to treat me as though he was looking in the mirror. He said I was corrupt and I am not going to take that from a little hoon who has been here 5 minutes and whose public behaviour and past misbehaviour has been scandalous. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member will please be seated. The member knows he cannot refer to other members in those derogatory terms. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I apologise but the point is that he is the last person to raise this issue; and second everyone in this country knew and every political party knew including the National Party that one had to have a declaration on costs that was fair and actual not some mate’s rates—one-tenth of the cost I am paying—and that is how he did it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Please be seated. 
Hon Bill English 
: Point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: No please be seated. I just say to the member that he needs to come back to the debate on this matter. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The point I am making is that here we have after all this time since 1989 the first investigation by officials of this company Midavia Holdings and two men—David Richwhite in particular but the investigation includes Michael Fay. And what do we get? A strike. In the first investigation they have been found to have misled the shareholders—to have robbed shareholders in fact—and to say there is no guilt is really just nonsense. Their experience has been to take political parties—and one party in particular—and get alongside them with huge donations then have their way with regard to the assets of this country built up by the New Zealand people over a century. 
Darren Hughes 
: That’s right. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That’s right. Who gave Fay Richwhite a special Telecom deal in 1993? Who gave Fay Richwhite the special Telecom deals robbing the country blind in 1993? I ask members to guess which party did that. 
Hon Members 
: National. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: National. Who sold New Zealand Rail for a bargain fire-sale price on 20 July 1993? Who tried to cover up the exposé of these people’s behaviour when out of the Cook Islands they constructed the law and set out to rob the Treasury of New Zealand Australia and Japan? Who did that? I challenge the next speaker of the National Party—and I hope it is Bill English—to get up and apologise for the way that that party aided and abetted this criminal activity for criminal it was. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: There will be silence during points of order please. 
Hon Bill English 
: No member of the House is allowed to accuse any other member of aiding and abetting criminal activity. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is correct. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I withdraw and apologise Madam Assistant Speaker. Let me ask members this question: who if he or she were acting in the interests of the New Zealand people would lease the rail track for $1 a year? I ask members where in the world one would see a group of people who would lease the whole nation’s rail track to these business people. Do I have 5 more minutes Madam Assistant Speaker? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Five more minutes. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It should be 5 more hours—I have enough material on these people. The fact of the matter is that the rail track was leased for $1 a year. Who did that? It was the very people sitting over there saying they should be the next Government of New Zealand. 
Jill Pettis 
: And they’d do it again! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: And they would do it again. That is the tragic thing about  
The Hollow Men  
and all the emails that Nicky Hager somehow discovered for they disclose that these people in the National Party have learnt nothing and would go down the same road of privatisation again. That has to be a party with a split personality because the very thought of doing that must offend so many National Party supporters and people who have been in the National Party for a long time. It is an effrontery to the party’s history to act in such a treacherous way when it comes to the interests of the New Zealand people and the taxpayers of this country. So I want the next National Party speaker to get up and explain why the previous National Government when all this rotten conduct was going on in business did not even raise a finger. 
Hon David Parker 
: Capital Markets—what did they do there? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well Capital Markets was the combination of the BNZ and Fay Richwhite and another very wealthy guy called Brierley. They owned one-third each and it was a company in the Cook Islands that was setting out to rob blind the New Zealand Treasury the Japanese Treasury and banks and the Australian Treasury. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: How much did they get when they flicked it on? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well that is amazing you see because we have people who say: “I should be the next Minister of Finance.”—that is Bill English. Well perhaps he can explain in the background of that treachery what on earth qualifies him to ever be trusted again. That is the point. As soon as he had the chance last time after we had been in Government he upped and flogged Contact Energy did he not? That is why we pay the electricity prices we pay today because they always— 
Hon Bill English 
: No. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
:Yes he did—1 October 1998. The member should get his facts right when we have an argument. That is what he did. All I am saying is I am glad that at last for the first time in 19 years some official and her staff who deserve all the praise did something about it. And the first time they did it they got a strike. As for the heads of the Inland Revenue Department I say they are a disgrace to this country and the present head of the Serious Fraud Office in my view is a disgrace as well because in his 10 years in the job he has failed to even do a thing about this. Oh yes he can jump in in a below-the-threshold case like Donna Awatere’s which was way below the threshold of $500000. Oh yes he can do all that. But he would not raise a finger against these over-mighty subjects of New Zealand who have spent most of their recent life offshore. 
Hon David Parker 
: Wouldn’t even pay taxes! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is right—in places where they do not pay any tax at all. I have a note here. I cannot really read it to members. It is just one line: “How greedy can these b’s be?”. The answer is that they had an insatiable greed. In satisfying it they corrupted New Zealand politics and New Zealand politicians and there is no way out of it. That is a fact. So the next National speaker can get up and tell me why National involved itself in the cover-up why it entered into a process of character assassination why it did all of that against the interests of the people of New Zealand and expected to get away with it and now it believes that it should be the next Government of New Zealand. Because the good book says: “By their deeds you shall know them.” It is as simple as that really. 
I am glad this debate has come up and I thank my parliamentary colleagues who have had the decency to prevail upon those who would shut this debate down because it is the first one we have had where these individuals have been taken by their behaviour to the point of having to admit their guilt—and guilt it is!