Maharey Steve: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5813] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 That was the man who at the present time is travelling the world and telling people that he will be the next leader of the National Party. He has talked about the notion of restoring trust but I say to that member that before he can take over the leadership of the National Party he should say he is sorry about the 1990s. Was there one single promise that National kept in the 1990s? Was there one single thing National said it would do that it actually carried out? 
John Key 
: Say sorry! 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Mr Key may first like to say on the way through to taking over the leadership that he is sorry about the 1990s and that if National ever gets a chance to be back in power this time it may try to keep one single promise. On the way through to the leadership Mr Key should also have a crack at telling us about the trust funds. What is in the trust funds? How much money is in the trust funds? Who put the money in the trust funds and what do those people want in return for that money? 
Second now that Don Brash has admitted he did not take the appointments with the Exclusive Brethren out of the diary can he try to recover a little of his memory and tell us when the meetings were what went on what the deal was what the $1.2 million was for and why a major party was getting alongside a sect like the Exclusive Brethren which has a fundamentalist agenda that is being pushed in country after country. Why did the National Party defend those people in advancing their agenda—people who want to send New Zealand boys and girls off to war yet who are pacifists themselves? That is called something beginning with “h” I think. I ask Mr Key to let us have Mr Brash clear up the issue of the Exclusive Brethren on the way through to the leadership. 
Third National should have a crack at paying the GST back—at writing out a cheque for $115000 for the GST. It is unbelievable I tell Mr Key that Mr Brash—Dr Brash; whatever he wants to be called—the man who helped to invent GST did not understand the implications of not paying GST on the broadcasting money. He invented the thing he sat on the committee and he is now the leader of the party. He was the person in charge of the National Party campaign but he did not know about the GST. Well I say: “Pay it back—pay the money!” It is $115000. Mr Brash should have his cheque book out here tonight sign the cheque hand it over and not keep on saying there is a legal reason not to pay it. There is not a legal reason. Mr Power who is one of the few people on the National side of the Chamber I have any time for at all is a lawyer. He could spend a little time advising Mr Brash there is no legal impediment to paying the money back. So I say to Mr Key to let us have the GST payment on the way through to his taking over as leader. 
If Mr Key apologised for the 1990s if he told us about the trust funds if National unpacked the Brethren and if it paid the GST back then maybe the New Zealand public would say that Mr Key looked like a person who was a little on the honest side of things. But until that day arrives the legacy the National Party has is of its members breaking every single word they have ever put on a piece of paper and today of sitting here but not paying the GST back. That is amazing. 
When I first came into this House there was a man here called Richard Prebble. Richard Prebble used to take us aside when we came to the Chamber to make our speeches and he would say we knew too much about the topic. He would tell all of us new entrants that that was a waste of time. He said we should want to know nothing and then we could go in and make extraordinary speeches because we would not have the impediment of the truth in front of us. And that is what I am hearing from National speakers today and tonight. They have been to the “Richard Prebble School of Politics”. If someone does not know anything about the argument then he or she can come in here and rave on as if somehow we live in Zimbabwe and we are about to pass legislation like Mr Mugabe’s. In Zimbabwe there would not be an Opposition to sit in Parliament and talk about passing legislation but this is not that situation. But if people are of the Richard Prebble style of politician they can get away with ignorance because they have to have that sort of thing if they are to make an argument. 
The argument is extremely simple. People should forget all the stuff that has gone on over the last little while and the fact that there was a leaked report and a huge debate. The fact of life is that we have just received the final report and we have just found out what the Auditor-General was actually saying. We have just heard the Speaker’s report from the Chair—[ 
Interruption 
] Members are becoming very excited here; they should calm down. We have just had those two reports and now we can begin to react to them. That is what in our calm considered way the Labour Government is doing. We are now responding calmly to the information we know. We know we have to respond to the fact that the Auditor-General has broadened the definition of what it is reasonable to do as a parliamentarian—what we understood about spending money not being allowable unless one was doing just normal things and not asking for any kind of vote. He has broadened that definition and we will have to legitimise that kind of expenditure. 
We know that even if we pay back the money—which Labour is committed to doing; we will refund that money—the expenditure will remain unlawful. So we are passing legislation that will help not just ourselves but every member in the House Katherine Rich included—a member who as Michael Cullen said is one of the few members on the Opposition side we also respect. We say that we understand that in doing this we are helping everybody out and we will go ahead and do it. We know that the Minister in charge of this legislation has suggested we validate the expenditure quickly. That is what we are doing. We are also going to have an external review. That is what we are doing. In other words we are making sure that we leave this Parliament in shape so it is able to carry on doing its work. 
But what do we hear from the National Party? Its members have gone on and on this evening about an issue that has nothing at all to do with validation. For one person after another—people with the integrity of Murray McCully—it has just been an opportunity. It was amazing to watch Murray McCully rise in the House with indignation. It was such good method acting that it was as though Robert DeNiro had arrived in the House to tell us with all the moral authority of someone like Moses that we should all behave ourselves—and that is in spite of the way that member has behaved in this House year after year. Does anybody remember tourism? Does anybody remember what Murray McCully did with regard to tourism? Let us get the situation right here. This is simply National Party posturing. 
I want to finish with this thought for the National Party. The National Party quite clearly started off this term with a plan to character-assassinate people and to run issues that have nothing to do with policy. Do you remember Madam Assistant Speaker that it ran a whole lot of that over the summer period? Do you remember what happened? National got nowhere; it went down in the polls. It has done that again. Why are National members so desperate tonight? I will tell members why. They have put all their eggs in the basket of this particular issue. This is the issue they have fought on for months. The whole country has had no policy at all from the National Party. National has a leadership change to come and it has no policy whatsoever. The National members need this issue to work for them. That is why they are so desperate. That is why there is so much venom. That is why there is so much bile. That is why so much hatred is coming through from the National Party. National members are desperate for this issue to work. 
I say to the National Party that it will not work. Once this legislation is through the public will put this issue behind them. They will move on and they will start to ask questions such as: “Who can run the Government?” “Who can run this country?” and “Who has a vision for the future?”. There is only one party with a vision for the future. It is called the Labour Party. The National Party is in the gutter. It is looking at the stars but it will never get there.