Brownlee Gerry: Urgent Debates — David Parker—Resignation from Executive 
Brownlee Gerry: Urgent Debates — David Parker—Resignation from Executive 
[Volume:630;Page:1983] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I begin by acknowledging the comments made to the House this afternoon by the honourable David Parker. When a member speaks in the House his word is to be taken and the National Party accepts David Parker’s word and the comments he has offered the House this afternoon. 
I reiterate the points made by Don Brash when he started the debate this afternoon. There is no question as to whether David Parker is a bad man. There is no question as to whether some further pernicious action should be taken against David Parker. But there is a real question about the integrity of this Government when as we have just heard a Minister can come to the conclusion on his own that he should not sit in a Cabinet and should not be part of ministerial decision-making at least for a time because of an action that was taken some time ago albeit inadvertently or mistakenly. David Parker walked out saying that he was not fit that he needed to be rehabilitated and that he was going of his own volition. He accepted that the standard he was accused of or had set was not acceptable. 
That contrasts very sharply with the Prime Minister who asked her secretary to paint a painting for her. She then signed the painting and said that she did it—that it was hers—and continued to say so until she was outed. She was investigated by the police she was found to have committed fraud prima facie and she then weaselled out of it by saying that others were doing it and why should she not get away with it. Then we have the Prime Minister apparently in a hurry to get to the rugby. She put no pressure on the police because they do not interfere in operational matters. She did not say to the policemen that they needed to catch that plane at a particular time and that they would have to go a little bit quicker across the Canterbury Plains. No she sat in the back of the car apparently unaware it was doing speeds of up to 160 kilometres an hour. I have to say in her defence that if I were sitting in the back of a car with Jim Sutton I would think that time had stood still as well. However the police set up barricades from one end of the island to the other the car flew through the countryside like a rocket and the Prime Minister sat back and said that it had nothing to do with her. Five policemen and a civilian driver had to go to court. They got punished and their reputations were snotted all over the place but the Prime Minister did not accept one iota of responsibility herself. 
Then there is the latest debacle where $446000-plus of the leader’s office funding which is under the direct authority of the Prime Minister has quietly slid into the Labour Party election coffers. The Prime Minister says that she did not know about it. She had no idea it was not her she was not responsible and she will not own up. That repeated behaviour stands in stark contrast to the honourable David Parker and the way in which he has handled this situation. 
When will someone point out to the Prime Minister that we have a case here of the two Davids? One is the favoured and one is the vanquished. It is OK to lie to Parliament apparently but it is not OK to make a mistake on a defunct company return. Well as a nation we will be in severe trouble if we keep tolerating this sort of nonsense from the Prime Minister. It is time that people start to ask her to be accountable. That is when we will see the shaking starting. 
We notice today that the portfolios David Parker was given just 6 months ago have quietly gone back to the people who had them before that. Remember the carbon tax? That was Pete Hodgson. He was the genius who told New Zealanders that we would make money out of the Kyoto Protocol. He was the genius who said that a carbon tax would be good for them and he was the Minister who got the boot because the Prime Minister backed off. I want to know where the Prime Minister is setting her goals given that she told the House today that New Zealand has a great future in burning coal for energy and that she has a Minister who has long been on the record as saying “no way”. 
Then we look at the interesting appointment of Trevor Mallard as Acting Minister of Energy. He is the guy who sat with that ministry for over 9 months last year and who presided over what will be cold long nights for New Zealanders this coming winter because he sat on his hands. Today he tried to tell us that because there is conflict in the electricity industry—the generators the Electricity Commission and Transpower have all got big issues going on with one another—we are better off than we have ever been before. Well when the cold nights come it will be Trevor Mallard who bears the price. 
Then of course the role of Attorney-General has gone to Michael Cullen. Well we will see how that goes. Michael Cullen is not a lawyer. We know that he has in the past expressed views—I am going down a track I will not go—that relate to judicial appointments that I think are quite despicable and quite inappropriate. 
But one can see the real problem the Labour Party has when one looks at its back bench. I want to know when Ross Robertson will be made a Minister. Why can he not be in Cabinet? I want to know when the great white hope Shane Jones is going into Cabinet. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Tomorrow tomorrow! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: He must be. I want to know when they are going to bring George Hawkins back because he was a very capable Minister in comparison to Mr Hodgson and his debacles Mr Mallard in his non-attention and Dr Cullen’s lack of interest in the portfolio. 
There is also of course the wider issue of how the Labour Party will present this particular situation to the public because at the end of the day the public are not silly. My call would be that most people—most fair-minded New Zealanders—looking at this situation and reading the report tomorrow on David Parker’s comments to the House today will see that this guy has acted pretty honourably. They will ask themselves how it is that Helen Clark can justify doing so very little about her own situation and so very little about Mr Benson-Pope’s situation and how she can justify trying to tell New Zealanders that if she does something it is OK. Remember those great words that by the very definition a Prime Minister cannot leak? Do members remember that? Let us just extrapolate that out a bit. What the Prime Minister was really saying was that by definition she cannot break the law. That is what was implied by Helen Clark that is what is meant by Helen Clark and that is of course what she is now hoping New Zealanders will turn their eyes away from. 
I want to reserve my last comments in this debate for the Rt Hon Winston Peters—a man who used to have a lot of promise a man who readily now leaps to the defence of this rotting Government and a man who stands up in the House day after day extolling the virtues of Helen Clark and her co-Ministers. All I can say to Mr Peters is that he should get out the cheque book he should write a cheque for 40 grand and he should post it to Bob Clarkson MP for Tauranga.