Key John: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Key John: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5811] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 That speech was typical of Michael Cullen and the Labour Party members who just cannot seem to get the order of things right. If we go and ask average Kiwis what they expect we find they have a pretty simple order of things. The first thing they want from the Labour Party is the money back. They do not want validating legislation that somehow makes them feel good. Michael Cullen was on  
Agenda 
 on Saturday morning telling New Zealanders that he had to make the accounts be all tickety-boo so he was going to ram through validating legislation. Well here is a novel idea for Dr Cullen. If he wants the accounts to be all tickety-boo he should not break the law in the first place. That would be a good start. The second way is to pay the money back. I tell the House that no New Zealander should be under any illusion: we were always going to be here passing validating legislation under haste. We always knew that from the moment Labour members got caught with their fingers in the till there would be validating legislation. The only thing that changed was that when the public found out the facts—when they really knew what went on—then Labour had to pay the money back as opposed to just passing the validating legislation in the first place. 
How ironic in a party that absolutely polls itself to death for this bunch of poll-driven fruitcakes to have woken up on 6 September to read a poll that stated that 81 percent of New Zealanders wanted them to pay the money back and that 75 percent of their own supporters knew that Labour’s actions had been criminal and wrong and wanted the money returned. I say to the Labour Party: here is a novel idea. To get the order right the No. 1 thing is to pay the money back. No. 2 how about an apology? How about a bit of regret? How about saying sorry to the people of New Zealand who trusted the Labour Party—trusted it with their taxpayers’ dollars? Labour caucus members went into their caucus room today and moaned and complained about having to put their own money back. Instead of feeling sorry for themselves they should have felt sorry for the people of New Zealand the people whom they misled for 13 months. How about Labour saying sorry instead of rushing with validating legislation? 
Something very interesting has happened over the last 13 months. Labour members have come up with every excuse in the book. They have tried the lot; we have heard the lot. This has been a spin extravaganza from the party that has perfected spin. I ask the Labour Party to spare us the spin—we have heard enough. 
Let us run through the different spins now. The first of them was that somehow the rules had changed and it was all a bit different. That is not what the Auditor-General actually said in the  
New Zealand Herald  
when he was interviewed on 22 August. He made it quite clear that he had warned the Labour Party that he expected there to be no surprises in its spending and that he drew a line in the sand. 
 There was no ignorance of the rules there was no kind of mistake and the referee did not change things afterwards. What happened was that Labour Party members who knew they would lose unless they spent one hell of a lot of money in the last 10 days and who knew absolutely that they would get carted out said: “To hell with the rules let’s get the money from wherever we need to get it from.” Now that they have been caught they have the audacity not to say sorry and to feel sorry for themselves. Well we do not feel sorry for them. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member who is on his feet but in the barracking the Hon David Benson-Pope accused Mr John Key in a most unparliamentary way and I ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
JOHN KEY 
: The second part of this long and miserable tale that we should not forget is Michael Cullen’s own actions. This is the man who threatened the  
New Zealand Herald 
—who said to the  
New Zealand Herald  
and its owners APN that Labour would have no hesitation if it had to in ripping up the legislation relating to APN. He made a veiled threat that APN knew and understood. That is the level Labour was at with its back to the wall. The message was pretty clear: stop talking about the fact that the Labour Party had been caught with its hand in the till or Labour would have a closer look at the legislation relating to APN. 
As is typical from Labour as we saw yesterday regarding charities when this Government does not like anybody it changes the rules and it does not matter who is collateral damage along the way. 
The third person to get in the way of this Labour Party trying to avoid paying back its debts was the Auditor-General. Helen Clark with more venom than we have ever seen attacked the independent person in New Zealand politics the Auditor-General. She should be ashamed of herself for the way she attacked that man. He is quite rightly a superstar in these events. He is not the guilty party—the Labour Party is. That was yet more spin. 
The fourth part of Labour’s spin came from Pete Hodgson who came right out and said that the Labour Party would not be paying the money back. Yet he had the audacity to go out and make a statement to the  
Sunday Star-Times 
: “the public would say that it was clearly for political purposes—and for Christ’s sake of course it is you know? If it wasn’t we would put out a pledge card the day after the election not before it.” When one issues a pledge card that says “Vote for me and we’ll do these things.” one is on pretty safe ground to assume it is an electioneering expense. 
Steve Maharey knew that. He did not get up and complain in caucus today when he had to front up with his $15000 because he knew that he was part of a cabal of individuals who were as guilty as sin. That was the fact. 
And then the last of the five spin-merchant campaigns came when Trevor Mallard decided he would play a dirty tricks campaign on the National Party and on our leader. So absolutely no one was going to get in the way of the locomotive Labour Party; it went right through all the way. It was prepared to take out anybody and anything that got in its way. The only minor problem that occurred for the Labour Party was that 81 percent of New Zealanders have woken up to what it was on about; they want their money back they want a bit of contrition they want an apology. What they do not want is validating legislation rushed in through urgency—the kind that makes the Minister of Finance feel happy. 
So why are we here passing validating legislation in urgency? We all know that is because the Labour Party is facing a lawsuit that it does not want to face and the simple way to get rid of that lawsuit is to pass this validating legislation. The person taking that lawsuit Mr Darnton admitted on Newstalk ZB tonight that once this legislation is passed under urgency—the Government forced by its support partners to do so—that lawsuit will go away and we all know it. 
How sneaky this whole campaign has been. Let us go back and have a look at what really happened in 2002. The Labour Party produced a pledge card that very conveniently on the side of it had “authorised by Mike Smith c/o PO Box something”. Labour did everything it possibly could to make that card look like an expense paid by the party as part of its campaign. Of course National did not know because we were tricked as everyone else was tricked. It was only when the crest turned up on the 2005 card—an action the Auditor-General made happen because he knew that that would alert other political parties—that my colleague Mr Simon Power brought it to the attention of the authorities. 
So the Labour Party can never get up and tell the people of New Zealand that it did not know what was going on—that the rules changed and that somehow it was a little bit different. This Labour Party has been sneaky this Labour Party has broken every rule in the book and this Labour Party has been caught with its fingers in the till. 
I finish by saying that when a political party comes into office and forms a Government it does so with the trust of the people of New Zealand. It is expected to use its money to spend it wisely and to do that with integrity authority and honesty. One thing above all that has been proven over this very sorry saga is that that party will never be trusted by the people of New Zealand again. The people of New Zealand know a bunch of crooks when they see them and even crooks in the dock have a policy of saying sorry and showing some remorse. So before Labour members get up and force through this legislation I offer them this bit of a starter: why do they not get their cheque books out pay the money back say sorry and for once in their lives accept they have done wrong.