King Annette:  
King Annette:  
[Volume:654;Page:77] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 The Deputy Prime Minister came down to the Chamber this evening as a man with a purpose—a man who is very very angry indeed. He would have us believe that he is angry because he could not return to his constituency to put up a fight for jobs that were lost today—such is his commitment to his electorate. Well we know that that is a lot of hogwash because the deputy leader of the National Party could have had leave from this Parliament any time he liked. He could have walked out of this Parliament caught the plane—and it would have been a rare experience for him to go back down home—gone home and dealt with those redundancies. You see he did not really care enough to go down home about those redundancies. He wanted to come in here— 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is consistent with the point of order raised by Labour—the member has made no mention whatsoever of Part 3. At least I mentioned the bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Sure. I am looking at the clock and I have given the member about the same latitude I gave the Minister. So how about looking at Part 3. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I certainly will talk to Part 3 in the same way that the Deputy Prime Minister did. You see this part of the bill is where the Government is setting up the real guts of what it is doing to Auckland. In this part we have the real cost of the plan. The cost on Auckland will be $350 million and I say to Bill English that that is an unfunded commitment. 
Mr English has talked about unfunded commitments for months in relation to the previous Government. I say to Mr English that perhaps he could have put $50 million into this unfunded commitment from the money he was not going to put into a cycleway. The money he was not going to put into a cycleway could have gone into this unfunded commitment for this part of the legislation. But the Deputy Prime Minister the Minister of Finance was a lame duck when it came to helping Auckland. He was a lame duck because he could not stop the Prime Minister from taking $50 million that could have gone into Auckland and giving it instead to his pet project—a cycleway. There was going to be no money for a cycleway Bill English had said and $50 million was not on the table. 
I say that Mr English is a lame duck because he could have been helping the people of Auckland. He does not care about the people of Auckland because tonight he could have had a deal that would give the people of Auckland an opportunity to have a say on this important bill. They could have had 1 week 2 weeks or 3 weeks at the most of submissions. They could have had a say and they could have felt that they were being listened to. 
Bill English has led the tactics on this bill. He has been responsible along with Rodney Hide and John Key for shutting up the people of Auckland and closing off their opportunities to have a say on a bill that affects every single one of them. Aucklanders will pay $750 per person for this change in Auckland. Do they know that? Has Bill English told them that? No he came in here crying crocodile tears about redundancies he could not care less about but he would not allow the people of Auckland to have just a few weeks to have a say on such an important bill. That is shameful. 
What are those members afraid of? I ask the Minister why he would not let the people of Auckland have a say. You have an offer on the table. It is not too late. I say to Gerry Brownlee that you can pick up the offer; otherwise I am saying to you that we will put forward amendments until you do listen. Until the National Government listens to the people we will be making the case for them. We will make the case for the people of Auckland because National has not had the fortitude to go out to the people and give them the facts. It has taken out half-page advertisements in the newspaper— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The member keeps bringing me into the debate. I indicated earlier by pointing to myself that she should not use the word “you”. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: This is a robust debate the robust debate of the year— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No—the member knows what the rule is. Members do not bring the Speaker—the Chairperson in this case—into the debate. I indicated that earlier on. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: This is a robust debate and we will robustly debate it because we are getting nothing from National except closure motions and angry speeches from the Minister of Finance. He would have us believe that he cares about others. But he does not care about the people of Auckland. We will be fighting this I say to the Minister and I do not know why he has lost his fortitude to go back out to the people of Auckland and at least give them a few days’ say on a bill that will cost them dearly.