McCully Murray: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcCully Murray: General Debate[Sitting date: 22 August 2007. Volume:641;Page:11361. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays): These are indeed troubled times for many New Zealanders because they look at the state of the financial markets at the difficulties confronting many as they try to tackle the maintenance of their homeownership and at the fact that something like 750 New Zealanders a week are leaving to live in Australia according to statistics released for the year to the end of July. They look to the people who hold ministerial warrants the people with flash houses and the people with chauffeur-driven limousines and they ask what the Ministers of the Crown in this Government are doing to make their lives more secure.What those Ministers are doing is trawling through the wastepaper baskets behind John Key. That is what the Ministers of the Crown in this Government are doing. That is all they are doing and New Zealanders are entitled to draw the most uncharitable conclusions about that.I have a simple message for the Labour Government today which is that it should stop playing petty politics over New Zealand’s international relationships. In the last week we have seen that playing petty politics with New Zealand’s international relationships comes at a price. It comes at a price for New Zealanders and it has come in particular at a price for New Zealand’s national airline. It is indeed ironic that we should see such outbursts of partisanship at a time when we have the most bipartisan Opposition leader on international relations to sit in this Parliament in over 30 years—the most bipartisan Leader of the Opposition on international relations this Parliament has seen in over 30 years.I would have thought that the Labour Government would embrace such a moment. I would have thought that Labour members would say it is great that they can take international relations off the domestic political agenda. But in the last week and inprevious months we have seen that it does not really matter what it costs New Zealand as long as Labour members can find some cheap line to throw at the political juggernaut that is bowling over the lot of them. I want to remind the House of the cost the national airline will pay and I would ask the Ministers opposite whether they will give us information on this because New Zealanders deserve to know.Mr Goff and other Ministers decided to drag Mr Key’s name through debates in this Chamber by trying to bring international relations unnecessarily into the political debate. They were prepared to put almost anything at risk. We have seen as a consequence that the Minister’s relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been put at risk that the relationship with the national flag carrier has been put at risk and most important that our most important international relationship—that with Australia—has been put at risk. At the end of last week we would have thought that they had learnt their lesson that they would draw a line under this and move on but just yesterday we saw the Minister of Defence—the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade—yet again taking another cheap shot in the direction of the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs. I say that it is time that that tactic stopped.I want the Ministers opposite to tell this House today just what the cost will be for Air New Zealand. We know that $18 million worth of charters are now at risk but what New Zealanders have yet to grasp is that Air New Zealand conducts a great deal of work for the Australian Defence Force. It does a great deal of mechanical engineering work for the Royal Australian Air Force and I want Ministers to tell us just how many of those contracts have been put at risk. What will the Australian Government’s position mean for those contracts? What will it mean for new contracts? New contracts are coming up for tender in the coming weeks. Will New Zealand be able to tender for those contracts?We know that the Royal Australian Navy uses Air New Zealand’s workshops for significant work on the gas turbines on their frigates. Are those contracts at risk?Darren Hughes: John Key agrees with Helen Clark on this.Hon MURRAY McCULLY: Well I think that New Zealanders are entitled to know what the cost is. We know that Air New Zealand derives in total some tens of millions of dollars of revenue from those contracts and we want an answer.