Peters Winston: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8256. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 One more speech like that and Mogadon will be out of business. “People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public”—so said philosopher Adam Smith. And when John Key met with the Skycity Casino people there was a meeting of minds. A group of wheeler-dealers were meeting with New Zealand’s chief wheeler-dealer who by a twist of fate and some gullible voters ended up being the Prime Minister of this country. 
Remember the background to all of this? Three years ago the Prime Minister’s chief of staff went on a blokes’ holiday to Las Vegas with the lobbyists for Skycity Casino. In June 2010 the  
New Zealand Herald 
 said: 
“John Key’s right-hand man is living it up with big-spending lobbyists in the casinos of Las Vegas sparking questions about their influence on Government policy.” By some strange coincidence another lobbyist from the same firm is on the board of Television New Zealand (TVNZ). We know that the dirty deal was done nearly 3 years ago. 
The Deputy Auditor-General’s report into the Skycity convention centre despite being a woeful whitewash lays bare a lack of transparency and exposes a sordid saga of inconsistency and failure to follow appropriate processes. The money trader running New Zealand is making this country into a banana republic. He prostrates himself before big business especially overseas big business. We know that John Key promised Skycity that it could get the land from TVNZ. Why does the National Party hold all its important functions at Skycity? Why does the National Party hold all of its important functions at Skycity? It is because they are all in each other’s pockets. The Deputy Auditor-General’s report such as it is shows that the process was deeply flawed far from robust and far from fair and the public are entitled to expect better than that. 
Mr Key gambled that the deal would escape scrutiny but the sordid secret is now out in the open. The common mistake made by New Zealanders is to think that John Key and the National Party give a tinker’s damn about ordinary people like in the old days National did. New Zealanders’ great mistake is to think that today National gives a tinker’s damn. The frightening part of all this is that John Key thinks that this is the way of doing business and that it is normal. I am actually shocked that he cannot see what is wrong with it. That is the part that is so disquieting. 
It is a Government out of control. Ask the teachers who have been waiting for 2 or more years to get their pay system fixed. He will not sack the Minister of Education. Do you know why? Because she is the last National Maori standing. The journalists in this country should wake up. The reason why Hekia Parata is still there is that he cannot afford to fire the last Maori standing in his party. It is the final sop to Maori and a grossly insulting one at that. The only Maori better off under this Government are the Maori Party and its cohorts in the Treaty trough. Ordinary Maori are struggling with low wages or no jobs and this Government does not care. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: That sounds like a speech from Richard Prosser. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Do not tell me you have discovered you are Maori over there. Do not tell me you have discovered you are Maori. There is no leadership. Instead there is the slippery salesman doing slippery deals with anybody anywhere anyhow. This is not New Zealand’s Government any more; it is John Key’s own piece of Wall Street. He holds this country in contempt. He is an insider trader posting posts that Mr Key and his cronies understand. 
Look it is high time that people understood one thing about this Skycity matter. It was the biggest tourism affair. It is the biggest development. It is a huge issue according to Mr Key. He goes to a meeting financed by the taxpayer. Over there are these serious businessmen. And there is no pre-meeting actual meeting or post-meeting record. Ladies and gentlemen anybody who makes that claim is a liar.