Samuels Dover: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Samuels Dover: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3396] 
Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Associate Minister of Tourism) 
: 
 Te mea tuatahi maku kei te mihi atu ki a koe e te Kaiwhakahaere Tuarua o te Whare Paremata mo tenei tau hou kei te mihi atu ki a koe. Kei te mihi hoki ki nga mema katoa o tenei Whare Paremata a me tenei Whare tupuna o tatou. I tenei ra kei te mihi whanui atu ki a koutou katoa tena koutou a tena koutou katoa. Kei te tu tonu tenei ki te tautoko I nga kaupapa i panuitia ai e te Peremia i nanahi nei nga kaupapa whakahaere mo te ao whanui mo to motu o Aotearoa.  
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
The first thing for me to do is to extend a New Year greeting to you the Deputy Speaker of the House of Parliament: greetings. Greetings also to all members of this House and to this ancestral House of ours. I extend a general greeting to all of you and to all of us 
.  
I continue to support the policies today that the Prime Minister announced yesterday—policies for all of New Zealand to work on. 
]  
I rise to support the speech that the Prime Minister made yesterday. I believe that the plan she rolled out for the coming year in terms of the Government’s agenda was very clear. The priorities have been made. It has been mapped out. The compass has been swung and it tells us how we will achieve the priorities and aspirations of New Zealanders.  
To most New Zealanders the compass reading was quite clear. Most New Zealanders understood what this Government’s plans and priorities were all about. Yet as I look across to the other side of the House at a group of Opposition members of Parliament specifically National Party members I see that they still seem to be in a state of hibernation. When the Prime Minister delivered her eloquent speech and spoke of the very clear mandate this Government had to roll out its plan I waited with bated breath to see how the Leader of the Opposition would respond. Then when I thought about it I wondered what Leader of the Opposition I was expecting to see rise to respond to the Prime Minister’s speech.  
I saw Gerry Brownlee sort of move then I saw my whanaunga Winston Peters and I waited for him to get up and take the call. Then I saw Bill English drag himself up and respond to the Prime Minister. I observed the expressions and the body language of Opposition members specifically those in the National Party. They seemed to be frozen in time. There was very little movement in my colleague John Carter’s eyelashes yet there was his leader Bill English about to respond. People were waiting to hear a big big bang in response to the Prime Minister’s speech but there was silence.  
Then I thought that as they were coming out of a deep freeze they would be defrosting slowly and that sometime perhaps they would come alive. Yet as I listened to the response of the Leader of the Opposition Bill English I actually felt sorry for him because basically all he talked about was the soprano voice of my colleague Chris Carter and also the Treaty of Waitangi. I acknowledge that he was at Waitangi. I know that this is the time when the Academy Awards are awarded when nominations are being received for the best actors and actresses of the year and I had to wonder to myself. I had seen the Leader of the Opposition Bill English at the Waitangi marae and I remembered the big headlines of the day before when he said: “I’m going to tell Ngapuhi what to do. I’m going to tell those Maoris that I’m going to demolish the Maori seats in the third millennium when I become Prime Minister; and I’m going to tell Ngapuhi that they’ve done the wrong thing by excluding the mainstream media. I’m going to do all this and I’m going to do all that.”  
When I sat with the Leader of the Opposition at Te Tii Marae things were very quiet. There was very little murmur about telling the Maori that they will get rid of the Maori seats and about telling Ngapuhi how to run the kawa on the marae. In fact Bill English got up and accompanied the karakia. He was asking for divine guidance.  
When we look at what is happening around here and understand some of the things that go on at the Academy Awards people are sometimes awarded for the being the greatest blooper of the year. When the Leader of the Opposition says that Labour will be here for another third term I wonder how long the National Party will be in Opposition. Will it be 5 years or 6 years? When we look at what Mr English said I think I believe him. Labour will be here for a third term. In fact I invite him to expand and say that it might be here for a fourth or fifth term. Sometimes one has the integrity to be able to get up and when one is outflanked on all sides—outwitted outflanked and outlawed—sometimes it is more dignified to get up and say: “I surrender.” They should put their hands up and say: “I surrender. We are defeated on all flanks.” and give credibility to the Labour Party that defeated them.  
He would have had more credibility with the people of this nation if he had said: “I surrender Helen you win. The Labour Party is doing a good job for all these reasons.” Perhaps some of the swinging voters whom ACT has attracted might come back to the National Party. I do not know. But when we talk about integrity and the contribution in this House people outside are fascinated. They say: “Look at all those actors. Look at Simon Power. He should have been in  
Moulin Rouge 
 or in  
Lord of the Rings 
. They are good actors.”  
We have Gerry Brownlee who wants everybody to be a look-alike like him under the Treaty of Waitangi. God help New Zealanders if somehow somewhere in the Treaty of Waitangi we are going to be he iwi kotahi tatou. That means we will all look like Gerry Brownlee. I know that the Speaker would have a few words about that and I certainly know that some of my colleagues around here would have a few words about looking like Gerry Brownlee. This is the way he believes that the Treaty of Waitangi and the issues around it should be resolved.  
I want to pick up the challenge that the Leader of the Opposition made in terms of debating the treaty. Let me say to this House that the National Party has been in here for 9 years and it did nothing about the Treaty of Waitangi. It did absolutely bugger all. The issues of the treaty were brought up time and time again but the National Party never put them on the floor of this House. That party now has the audacity to challenge the Labour Party. The Labour Party has written a lot of the Treaty of Waitangi into domestic law. We have done that. We get criticised for it. The leader of the National Party wants us to debate it any time. The response is that the Maori members of the Labour Party will go anywhere any time nominated by Bill English even the Waitangi marae to debate the Treaty of Waitangi. We will not pull back from it.  
I even saw my good friend John Carter shaking his head when his boss got up and talked about the Treaty of Waitangi. I know that he recognises the rights of the tangata whenua under the treaty. We are all New Zealanders. Kei te pai. But the diversity of New Zealand is really what is special. Maori Polynesians Hainamana Asians and Indians are the people who make up our country. Kia ora tatou katoa.