Peters Winston: General Debates 
Peters Winston: General Debates 
[Volume:607;Page:4427] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Four Ministers turning up on Harley Davidsons amongst the poor people of Southland does not disguise the fact that we will have an energy crisis and that Government in its fourth year is responsible. 
However today I want to expose the total duplicity of this Government over the leaking-homes crisis and express outrage on behalf of thousands of New Zealanders and homeowners who have been grievously let down. They have been failed by this Government’s timidity and weakness in coming to the aid of those in need of aid because of their leaky homes. It is outrage that the Government insisted that leaky homes were not rotten leaky homes but were issues of “weathertightness” and a media beat-up—the very words used by the Prime Minister. Political-speak has reached a new low. 
Not content with fiddling while the homes of New Zealanders rot beneath the floors and in the walls we have witnessed the spectacle of a team of Government Ministers in utter and total disarray. They have been engaged in some form of morbid pass-the-buck because the Prime Minister cannot find a Minister with the metal to say: “The buck stops here with this Government.” The Government has a poor imitation in Lianne Dalziel. She started the rotten social policy on immigration and now she is to be the “Minister of Rotting Homes”. She is content to tell people who have lost their life-savings in a rotten home: “Tough luck. You are on your own.” 
Meanwhile the same Minister is sanctioning the installation of the failed chief executive of the Building Industry Authority as its now highly-paid senior adviser. Why is that? What is his pay rate? What is his purpose? What hold does Bill Porteous have over this Government? Clearly he has been paid to take the rap for George Hawkins who was warned repeatedly of the problems and who mumbled stumbled and fumbled along saying that he was not told officially about the problem. Jill Pettis is trying to interject. Once again we have the fishwife in town; it must be market day! George Hawkins was warned in writing but he said he was not told officially. 
This leaky-building crisis is one of the worse cases of Government neglect and failure that I have seen in more than 20 years in Parliament. This Government started the rot in the 1980s with Clark Cullen Prebble Shirley Goff and the gang of free-marketeers stripping from New Zealand home-building laws all home protections in the name of reform and championing free enterprise. The responsibility lies fair and square with the New Zealand Labour Party. Everybody remembers that. Those same people threw out the codes then they let the cowboys in and the rest is history. When they are now asked to act like Pontius Pilate they change the language put out their damn spin and call it “weathertightness”. Everybody knows that we are talking about rotting homes and people have lost all their wealth. 
The Government had a chance to clean up the building industry when it announced the terms of reference for the select committee investigation into this issue. But did it seize the chance like any responsible Government in any Western democracy would do? No not this Government. It watered down the inquiry then produced a hopeless report. Last night on the radio Lianne Dalziel couldn’t answer even one question about what would happen when it would happen and how it would happen when it comes to rotting homes. The Prime Minister can laugh in the House as she did at question time. She is all arrogance. She laughs while hopeless incompetent Ministers maintain their jobs. They cannot answer questions in the House they cannot answer questions outside the House and they cannot debate: they just cannot do their jobs. Lianne Dalziel in charge of rotting homes? That is a classic is it not? She cannot handle immigration. She is hopeless. Every day that there is a new discovery she says she did not know about it. She was on  
Assignment 
. When she was asked if there was any evidence of any forgery and fraud she said no. The television camera showed all the evidence right in front of her and she said she would have a review. We had a catastrophe—the murder of a Japanese student in Auckland. All those students were over here illegally. It is true they came in 1997 as tourists but who allowed them to switch their status? Lianne Dalziel and Helen Clark did. They should stop this obfuscation and sheer duplicity and own up to the fact that they themselves are responsible. 
Lianne Dalziel was on the radio last night as the new Minister responsible for that issue—because George Hawkins was hopeless—and she could not answer one of the questions she was asked. Where among Western democracies would that sort of situation be tolerated?