Key John: General Debates 
Key John: General Debates 
[Volume:619;Page:14815] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 What a way to start the day! There was the Prime Minister on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald  
and the  
Dominion Post 
—her wish absolutely complete—abreast what we on this side of the House could only describe as the Tokelauan Learjet. There she was ready for business with Roman sandals on her feet a baseball cap on her head and most important her cellphone at the ready. That cellphone was loaded with global roaming because she was ready willing and able to receive phone calls as she had before from that red-blooded male and recent author—who will one day be king for Labour—John Tamihere. 
Mr Tamihere is used to making phone calls to the Prime Minister. I might add though that normally he is asking for forgiveness—for the time when he told the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 what he really thought of the Hon Steve Maharey and for the time when he told Margaret Wilson not to worry because “Swainy and the boys” would sort out her botched-up employment relations legislation. 
On this recent occasion the call to the Prime Minister was very different—more sinister more vindictive and more vengeful. It was a phone call designed to knee-cap a now former civil servant and northern regional manager of the Community Employment Group Ms AmokuraPanoho. Mr Tamihere had information gathered by his own staff in a covert operation that any Mossad agent would be proud to be part of. That information stated that Ms Panoho had used Government resources to further the Maori Party which was about to undertake a serious challenge on Mr Tamihere’s own seat and on all those Labour-held Maori seats. 
The information was wrong but that did not stop Mr Tamihere from issuing a press release and repeating it on National Radio. The information was wrong but that did not stop Trevor Mallard Coordinating Minister Race Relations from making a fool of himself by issuing an inaccurate statement on the radio which he had to go grovelling to the public to apologise for. The information was so wrong that those two “Keystone Cops” have created a cast-iron case of constructive dismissal financed by the public of New Zealand. 
That was not the first time Mr Tamihere has undertaken this kind of behaviour. Just a week earlier he led the witch-hunt into his former employer the Waipareira Trust. Mr Tamihere said that an audit review was required. He made serious accusations against the Waipareira Trust which have now been proven to be false. Those accusations were based on the fact that five trustees of that board are Maori Party members. That is why Mr Tamihere made those accusations and why he went after Ms Panoho. 
This is a pattern of behaviour that does not befit the democracy we have in New Zealand. I have only one question for Mr Maharey who said today—as he has said so often in the House—that Ms Panoho resigned of her own volition. If she resigned of her own volition why does she want her job back now? 
The future Prime Minister of New Zealand Don Brash reshuffled his caucus—his Cabinet—on Monday. He is leading National with what some political commentators have described as the “dream team” in finance. Modesty prevents me from going through my curriculum vitae in the House today but suffice it to say that I have had a job in finance. I have been in the real world domestically and internationally for 20 years. But I am not on my own in “Team Finance” here in the National Party. We have the former Governor of the Reserve Bank Don Brash who held that position for 14 years.