Beaumont Carol: Urgent Debates — Heather Roy—Ministerial Resignation 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Beaumont Carol: Urgent Debates — Heather Roy—Ministerial Resignation 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13228. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I find this extraordinary. ACT is supposedly the party of transparency led by Rodney Hide who has shown us all in the time I have been in Parliament his complete lack of transparency and accountability. There was his travel of course and now we see that a Minister has been deposed and the people of New Zealand have not been informed at all as to the reasons for that. We have the unbelievable situation of the Prime Minister telling us that despite knowing that this was on the cards for nearly 2 weeks as we found out recently he has no idea why. That is what he told the public of New Zealand. 
What are we to make of this? What are we to make of the demise of Heather Roy? Is it because she did not do a good job as a Minister? Is it because of some of the very serious matters that my colleague Trevor Mallard has outlined about secret papers and papers being taken by Rodney Hide? 
Certainly we know that Rodney Hide is indeed a bully. As a member of Parliament from Auckland I know that to be true as do all Aucklanders. We have seen his bullying behaviour and tactics over the formation of the super-city. We now see that with a caucus of five members he cannot control a situation without having to throw out one of his own members—in fact his own deputy. We do wonder what that says about his ability to establish a structure that works for the diverse population that makes up Auckland. 
But who is in charge here? Certainly we have to wonder whether the real reason that Heather Roy is gone is that Rodney Hide has all of the power in the ACT Party. After all every single one of those members is reliant entirely on Rodney Hide and on Rodney Hide winning Epsom. Without Rodney there is no ACT Party in this Parliament. He certainly has enormous power and we know that he is a bully. If we put those two things together then clearly Rodney wanted Heather Roy gone. We do not know the precise reason—whether she challenged him as has already been asserted or whether he felt she was not up to the job. The Prime Minister as effectively the person in charge of our Cabinet the most senior person in the country cannot tell us the reason either. Well I think that New Zealanders have a right to know. 
I will also take the time to talk about what this says about the consumer affairs portfolio. I congratulate the new Minister of Consumer Affairs. I think that is only proper as I am Labour’s consumer affairs spokesperson. I will be working with Mr Boscawen in a productive manner I am sure. But what message does it send about the importance of this portfolio? Basically ACT can just get rid of the current Minister and put another one of its members in her place. I wonder about that. 
Consumer affairs is particularly important in tough economic times like the times we are facing at the moment. The unemployment rate has risen to 6.8 percent in the last quarter and 159000 people are unemployed. There have been 19000 more people unemployed over the last 3 months. In tough economic times making sure that consumers are well informed making sure that consumers are protected from rorts and rip-offs is particularly important. Having some sense of what has happened to the Minister of Consumer Affairs seems to me to be an important question for the public of New Zealand. 
The Minister has effectively been summarily dismissed—something that this Government is very fond of. All New Zealanders for the first 3 months of their employment will be in the situation where they can be dismissed without any reason being given and without any recourse to justice. Of course that is precisely the situation that Heather Roy is in. 
I will make just a few comments about consumer affairs in a very constructive manner to Mr Boscawen as the new Minister. I think that a number of areas need to be looked at such as improving consumer knowledge and protection and looking after vulnerable consumers. I am hopeful that Mr Boscawen’s stated concern for the victims of loan sharks may mean that we will have more interest shown in this particularly important issue—one that National and ACT to date have shown complete disdain for and a lack of concern about. 
I recommend to Mr Boscawen that targeting exploitation is pretty important. Of course there is the need to update consumer law but in a way that takes account of the view of consumers. One of the areas that I think is a problem for an ACT Minister of Consumer Affairs is that consumer affairs requires regulation which is something that we know ACT is not particularly aware of. Finally the other matter is the need for recognition of greater global consumer awareness. Thank you.