Twyford Phil: General Debate 
Twyford Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:675;Page:21292] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 Last Friday was an utter fiasco. All the years of planning the hundreds of photo opportunities the hundreds of press releases and the assurances from the Minister for the Rugby World Cup the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport came to nothing. There were 2000 rugby fans who were denied the opportunity to go to the opening ceremony and to the game at Eden Park. People were crushed in railway carriages for hours people were passing out in railway carriages from a lack of air and people on Quay Street were crushed in the crowd. That is an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment to New Zealand and it is an embarrassment for New Zealanders. 
I want to talk about accountability. What we have seen in the last few days from this Government is an absence of accountability. We heard Murray McCully at the weekend deny that there was any problem. He said: “Oh well you have to look at this in the context of a normal Friday and Saturday night.” He was playing down the problems. He was denying that there had been any serious breakdown of systems. We have seen John Key pointing the finger at everyone—everyone—but the Government: Len Brown is to blame and Auckland Transport is to blame. He even tried to point the finger at the people who pressed the emergency stop buttons in the railway carriages because in certain instances they had been holed up in those carriages stationary on the tracks for hours on end. This is a complete failure of ministerial oversight. 
What happens now? We see Murray McCully like my colleague David Shearer said declaring martial law over the Auckland waterfront and behaving like some tinpot general. A few days before Murray McCully said there was no problem. A few days later he declared and used the emergency powers in the Rugby World Cup legislation to take control of the Auckland waterfront. Well what changed? It was not a problem on Saturday. On Tuesday suddenly it was a massive problem and Murray McCully had to use the emergency powers. 
I will tell members what changed: this became a political liability for the National Government. It panicked. It hit the panic button because it could see what a disaster Friday night was for it and inevitably the public will blame the National Government. So who is in charge here? We have a notorious micro-manager the Minister the Hon Murray McCully. We found out today that he even selected the colour of the jackets that the volunteers are wearing at the Rugby World Cup. What I want to know is if the All Blacks do not play well in their next game will Murray McCully insist on choosing the next team? 
What we saw yesterday was a hatchet job on the Auckland Council and on the Auckland Mayor Len Brown. We know that from the beginning of the week Government and council officials were working closely together on a plan to address the inadequacies of crowd management and public transport that took place on Friday night. They were working together they had a plan and it was going to be unveiled. What did the Minister do? He unilaterally briefed journalists on his plan to invoke the emergency powers from the Rugby World Cup legislation. He did not even have the decency to pick up the phone and tell Len Brown what he was doing. I think that that is a disgrace. It is a political stunt. Everything we have seen from the Minister Murray McCully in the last 24 hours has been about trying to sheet blame home to somebody else. In this case Murray McCully’s sacrificial lamb is the Auckland Council and Len Brown. 
This is a new low in this Government’s relations with Auckland. It is not only an admission that its planning and preparation over the last few years has been a complete failure but also a demonstration and a confession that this Government cannot work constructively with Auckland. We saw it throughout the Auckland super-city reform process and we saw it with Murray McCully abusing the Auckland Council over Queens Wharf. The three Ministers who are responsible for this Government’s handling of the Rugby World Cup—the Prime Minister John Key the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce and the Minister for the Rugby World Cup Murray McCully—are all Auckland MPs yet their relationship with Auckland is completely dysfunctional. It ranges from handwringing to lecturing to abuse and now they have used emergency powers to take control of the Auckland waterfront. Why? Because this Government always knows best. Steven Joyce insisted against the advice of the mayors of Auckland and public opinion on setting up Auckland Transport under a corporate model. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.