Peters Winston: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: General Debate[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10473. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Politics is a matter of trust. The Government boasts of its transparency and accountability and that is very apposite right now. I am reading a poll which Government members have not got—and thank God we have—that says that the last spokesman’s statements are utterly wrong and that they are in trouble. I cannot share it with them because it is confidential but there it is and it is all bad news for the backbench. The so-called Panama Papers are like the real-life embodiment of John Grisham’s novel The Firm.Hon Member: That’s last week.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know it was last week. It will be next week and the week after and the week after and the week after because this is a perfect storm built from secrecy and deceit and above all the Prime Minister’s arrogance. That is a new feature in his behaviour.Government members have been so cocky that they decided to get a retread as the person who is going to investigate the wrongdoing that has been happening to this country’s formerly good name. They started off with the Inland Revenue Department doing the job and then they decided to get an international tax expert. Then all of a sudden because the polls were coming in we had a re-run of the comment made exactly 46 years ago to this day: “Houston we have a problem.” That was exactly 46 years ago today: “Houston we have a problem.”So Mr Key pulled out not the overseas tax expert but a Wellingtonian who has travelled overseas to the Bahamas to advise them to do the exact thing that is happening here and that saw the foreign trusts in this country treble under the financial money-mover Mr John Key Prime Minister. So who is Mr Shewan? Well he was involved in the Westpac Banking Corporation disgrace of trying with the three other Aussie banks to dodge paying their tax in this country. He was their adviser. They settled out of court for $2.2 billion.Denis O’Rourke: Some adviser!Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes some adviser. And then you have got the other cases all the way to the Privy Council—the highest court that we have got in my view—all saying this man is no tax expert. But why has he been chosen? It is not because he is the poacher turned gamekeeper. No he is the poacher out to help poachers and he will not change. Mr Key you see could not get an independent expert because he cannot stand the sunlight of disclosure and that is what this is all about.You can run all the protection rackets you like to try to protect National now but it will not work and those of us who have got experience know just how long that can take. The good news is that we have got months and months to dissect this series of disgusting scandalous transactions where New Zealand is mentioned—how many times? It is 60000 times. I asked the Prime Minister: “Of the 70 State and governmental leaders around the world in the Panama Papers is your name one of them?”. He gets up and answers: “I’m not doing any transactions in Panama.” Is that an answer to my question?Hon Members: No.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No it is not. Does he think that is going to be successful?Hon Members: No.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No it will not. I know people like Mr Mitchell from the Rodney electorate and places like that and the member for the Bay of Plenty. I know that they are smiling over there. But right now their knees are knocking big time because I know reaching into the old National Party that about one in three voters knows that this has got an acrid stench and it is sadly coming into the party they thought would never behave like this. I have got news for them and it is all bad—very sad as well.Sadly the new National Party a bunch of Tea Party clones will put up and say anything to defend its behaviour. It will say anything just to hold on to power. Unfortunately the polls are now—and if you take the one on TV ONE the other night it is a total waste of time. This poll says that the flag did make a massive dent and this is before he was discovered dealing with a group of Chinese business people to try to change the flag outcome in New Zealand. We always knew he was in the pocket of the Chinese but this is outrageous—this is outrageous. Also the poll was before the Panama Papers and my message to Television New Zealand is: “For goodness’ sake for the first time go and get a reliable poll and stop misleading people.”