English Bill: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial ResignationText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial Resignation[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17494. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): The member Dr Russel Norman is usually moderate if sometimes assertive in his criticisms but some of those criticisms particularly in respect of domestic violence were simply objectionable. It is disgraceful to allege in this Parliament that any political party sponsors a justice system where somehow people can buy their way out of justice. It is simply wrong.He could have made a more reasonable point about the judgment of the Minister in picking up the phone but he did not. He chose instead to slur to smear and to moralise from the position of someone who says: “Everyone should be treated equally but I went off to see Dotcom.” who could be a critical part of forming a Government that he wants to be part of. Why did he go off to see Dotcom? He was not visiting my neighbour in Dipton who might expect the same treatment from a Labour-Green Government as Kim Dotcom got. I challenge the member to get up and say that Phillip Mills’ Green growth agenda will not be adopted in any form by a future Labour-Green Government—that there will be no subsidy schemes no incentives and no support—because if it is it will look like Phillip Mills has bought the Green Party with his $65000 donation. So I just suggest to the member that he get off his high horse—take just a couple of steps back down off the saddle—before he wades into this kind of fantastical moralising.Actually I am going to indicate support for Maurice Williamson as a Minister. As a Minister Maurice Williamson was a good Minister. I worked with him on a whole range of issues. Maurice Williamson was the Minister who put together the package for dealing with leaky homes showing in the process of that a great deal of understanding of the human pressures that go with having a leaky home the technical issues that were involved and the patience needed in trying to square the circle and find some kind of workable solution.Maurice’s enthusiasm for technology is I think well-known but it has had a real impact for New Zealanders. The SmartGate process at the border is largely a product of his enthusiasm. The roll-out of ultra-fast broadband is in no small part due to his strong advocacy for it when the National Party was back in Opposition. He has also done a lot of work over recent years on one of the more difficult aspects of Government and that is getting Government agencies to work together. In this case it was the border agencies the Ministry for Primary Industries the Customs Service and the Immigration Service. They have had to learn how to work together and to also have a wide-ranging technology upgrade to ensure that New Zealand stays suitably connected to the rest of the world. In fact Maurice has even been able to make the portfolio of statistics look exciting through his enthusiasm for the integrated data infrastructure which is going to make a real difference to many New Zealanders as the Government becomes more effective in delivering results through its public services.But Mr Williamson knows now what we all need to keep in mind—that is in return for the privilege and opportunity of being a Minister we are fully accountable for all the judgments we make as a Minister. Although day to day those judgments can fall short of the ideal and they sometimes do—they sometimes do—there are some judgments we make that as the Prime Minister said go over the line. One of those judgments is topick up the phone to take a point of view on the work of the police in their prosecutions. There has been some discussion about the extent of interaction of politicians and the police around investigations but none of those excuse that particular judgment. It was a poor judgment and he has been held to account.But of course if the Leader of the Opposition was held to account he would not have his job either. It is interesting to see today that the Greens are a better organised Opposition than the Labour Party is once again. Once more we saw a small sign of why the Greens are a sharper better dominating operation. They got their letter in first for a snap debate a snap debate that has been known about for what—5 days? 6 days? And in that time the Labour Party was too busy messing up its variable savings ratio policy to be bothered or to have the time to be able to get the letter in for the snap debate. [Interruption] Well there is accountability in the National Party and in the National Government. The Minister goes over the line; the Prime Minister takes action. How many mistakes can David Cunliffe make before he is held accountable by the Labour caucus? Well we know the answer: he can make an endless number of mistakes because by changing the rules he made sure the caucus could not hold him to account.Let us just look at today’s little episode. We have asked the Labour Party one question about its compulsory KiwiSaver policy: how much will contributions have to go up to make a difference to interest rates? That matters because putting up contribution rates cuts the incomes of hundreds of thousands of low-income New Zealanders. I thought the Labour Party would give us a number but David Cunliffe decided one answer was not enough. He tried three. So he said first “I haven’t got that number on me.” Then he said: “The research has been done. I’ll bring it next time.” And then he said: “There is no number.” So we go into an election campaign—I will say “helpfully” from our point of view but probably not so helpfully for accountability within the Labour Party—where under its signature policy the leader of the Labour Party cannot tell New Zealanders by how much their pay will be cut if they vote for him.We have seen the sharp contrasts in accountability. David Cunliffe keeps his secret trust donors secret. Here is a question for the Labour front bench: who donated to DavidCunliffe’s secret trust? To use the words of the Deputy Prime Minister of a proposed Labour-Green Government who bought David Cunliffe and is he accountable to his own front bench and his caucus for those donations? Maurice Williamson has been accountable—he has paid a price; he lost his job—for an action he took on behalf of someone he knew. Will David Cunliffe be held accountable in the same way? I am waiting for Labour members to get up and explain to us whether David Cunliffe will be held accountable in the same way that Maurice Williamson has been held accountable. No? Well it is all about accountability. How can the Labour caucus hold David Cunliffe accountable if they do not know who his donors are? We look forward to hearing about it.