Collins Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Collins Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7350] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Just for the benefit of those listening that was the Labour Government’s Minister of Health Pete Hodgson. One would not know after 10 minutes of hearing what John Key may or may not have thought during the 1981 Springbok Tour that that was in fact the Minister of Health who should have been talking to us about how it is that we can put $4 billion extra into health every year and end up with fewer operations. At no stage did he mention Herceptin. At no stage did he mention women dying of breast cancer who can be cured if they get the right drugs. At no stage did we hear that. All we heard about was John Key’s thinking about the 1981 Springbok Tour. If that is the best that Labour members have to attack John Key with well bring it on. 
I saw today a Prime Minister slinking in her seat. She was sitting so far down that I thought she had gone out. I actually had to sit myself up to look. She was sitting there chewing her wine gums. Slinking is what this Prime Minister is doing. John Key laid it on to her today. He sorted her out and she slunk. All Labour members can talk about is 1981. Well frankly who cares? This country needs better than that sort of rhetoric from the Minister Pete Hodgson. 
In 1999 Helen Clark who slunk today all through question time said that her Government would “restore public confidence in the political integrity of Parliament and the electoral process.” What did she give us? She gave us Taito Phillip Field. I talk about this from the position of being the Pacific Island Affairs spokeswoman for the National Party. I feel deeply upset that Taito Phillip Field has in fact been treated significantly differently from almost anyone else in Labour. When Taito Phillip Field did not want to cooperate with the police that was fine. When David Benson-Pope did not want to have a videotaped interview for historical child abuse claims it did not even get a mention. When Taito Phillip Field did not turn up for Parliament for 6 months that was fine too. In fact what we had was Labour putting out its spin machine and saying that he had been suspended from Parliament in August. 
Taito Phillip Field has never been suspended from Parliament. He is perfectly entitled—and I expect him to—to turn up and take his seat at the back of this House. He has never been suspended from Parliament. He is still being paid. He is still utterly entitled to all the privileges and responsibilities of a member of Parliament. The only thing that any of us here can think that Labour thinks is bad about what he is alleged to have done is that he said that he is considering suing Helen Clark for defamation and that he wants to come back as the member for Mangere whether or not it is with the Labour Party. Those were his crimes according to Labour. There was nothing wrong according to Helen Clark with anything else he did. There was nothing wrong before the last election in 2005 when she was happy to go around Mangere and South Auckland when she was happy to say to the Pacific Island voters in New Zealand: “Give us your vote because we love you.” I have noticed absolutely that Labour members have been away from almost every Pacific Island function in Mangere and South Auckland where I have been. They are not there. They have forgotten the Pacific Island vote. 
One of the things that I know Taito believes absolutely and firmly is that he has done nothing wrong. I believe that he thinks he has done nothing wrong because the Government has always acted on the same premise. Did Helen Clark cooperate with the police over “paintergate”? No she did not. What happened? Oh I know a member of her staff burnt the evidence. That is called perverting the course of justice. What happened? Nothing. So why should Taito Phillip Field feel any differently? 
What happened about Don Brash’s stolen emails that Helen Clark Michael Cullen and other people in this House had? Supposedly they were destroyed. In other words evidence was destroyed by members of Parliament. They are people who should be prosecuted for corrupting the justice system. Yet what happens? Nothing happens. Shane Ardern had a slight flush of blood to the head and put a little tractor up two steps of Parliament House. What happened? He got prosecuted. Taito Phillip Field has operated in this way for years and years as the MP for Mangere. That has been absolutely known by the Labour Party. Labour has absolutely accepted it as the price it has to pay for those votes. Labour has put up with that because it suited them. 
If we need to have any further evidence we should just look at the way that Damien O’Connor approved well over 200 visas a year for people who would otherwise not have got them. When those of us on this side of the House put in applications and letters to Ministers we might do it once twice three or four times a year. We do not put them in unless we think there is some real chance of something good happening in the best interests of New Zealand. Yet we in this House are supposed to believe that Damien O’Connor saw applications coming in for visas written by the MP for Mangere for people who lived on the North Shore. There is no way at all that these people were Samoan and therefore it was natural that they would go to a Samoan MP. No these were Thai people—nothing to do with Samoa or Mangere. These people were going to him because they knew that they had a nice easy passage through to the Minister in charge Damien O’Connor. What has happened to that Minister? He is still there. He is still a Minister. He is in charge of the Department of Corrections. And we all know how that is going. 
So why should Taito Phillip Field be treated differently from the Prime Minister in this case? All he has ever said is that he wants to be in Parliament whether or not it is with the Labour Party and that Helen Clark has defamed him. That is what he said. Everything else according to the Labour Party is just fine. One moment the man is completely vindicated by the Ingram inquiry—a completely toothless inquiry that was set up with no right or power to call witnesses. That inquiry was never going to do anything other than give a whitewash of the event. Taito Phillip Field came out thinking that he was vindicated. Helen Clark came out saying Taito Phillip Field was vindicated that it was the end to the matter and that it had been fully canvassed over 9 months and with $500000 of taxpayer money. He was never vindicated. It was never a satisfactory inquiry. It was never going to be. What happened to the very people who could have given the evidence: the Siriwans? They were never interviewed properly. They had one telephone call. Mr Siriwan was in Samoa and the interviewer was in New Zealand. That is what happened. 
In the meantime children in this country live in poverty and we have kids going to school with absolutely no food in their tummies and none at lunchtime or anything else. This uncaring Prime Minister says it is all just Tory charity and a bit of nonsense and that there are not any hungry kids in her electorate. That is rubbish. I say to her that she should come to my electorate. I will show her four schools in my electorate where children have to be fed when they arrive at school. I do not care if we ask the parents of those kids whether it is a bad example to have their kids fed at school rather than at home. Who cares? These kids are hungry and they need to be fed. 
At one school in my electorate 60 children are fed every morning. The reason is that nobody is in charge in those homes. They have no idea of parenting or of what is in the best interests of children. It is time that we had a John Key - led National Government that says that kids must come first. We should stop being so PC stop worrying about the adults and their sensibilities and let us start putting the kids first.