Robertson Grant: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13708. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): It is always extraordinary to follow Jo Goodhew the only Minister of Women’s Affairs ever to vote in this House against paid parental leave. That is an unbelievable record that she will leave behind in this House.It is movie time for Nick Smith. We are up to the sequel in the series. The first movie as most people will know was entitled “Fatal Attraction: The BronwynPullar Affair”. That is how things began. For those who do not recall the details of that case it concerned Nick Smith writing a letter on a ministerial letterhead as Minister for ACC and intervening in that case. I might say that there was a guest star in that movie—Judith Collins. While we are discussing that we still do not know who leaked the email out of Judith Collins’ office. We still do not know that today. There are some suspicions around but she was certainly a guest star in that movie.Now we have reached the sequel. The sequel is a remake of a well-known filmThe Dam Busters—or in this case “The Accidental Dam Buster” with Nick Smith. What is not well-known about theDam Busters movie is that it is actually based on an operation in World War II called Operation Chastise. It would be fair to say that there has been a great deal of chastising going on on the other side of the House. Nick Smith is very grateful for the fact that Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce are not here because Operation Chastise was taking place in the Beehive earlier this week.Nick Smith just cannot stick to one story about what has happened. What Nick Smith told us on 17 September is: “I did not give the department an indication of what that submission would be.”Hon Annette King: “I did not have sex with that woman.”GRANT ROBERTSON: He also said: “I did not know that this draft document even existed until this morning.” As my colleague Annette King says there are echoes here of “I did not have sex with that woman Ms Lewinsky.” Nick Smith cannot keep his story straight in this matter.What we are seeing here from Nick Smith is a continuation of his form his complete lack of respect for any kind of due process and a continuation of the crony capitalism that is now the mark of this Government. Nick Smith has the ACC case. He also has the Canterbury Regional Council case. It is important to remember that when Nick Smith was asked why he cancelled the Canterbury Regional Council elections in 2010 he said: “Because I’m worried about the outcome.” That is what he told New Zealanders.His lack of respect for democracy is so great that he cancelled those elections. So he has form in this. He also has form in the funding of the Mackenzie Basin consultative process on behalf of Jacqui Dean where he overrode the Ministry for the Environment’s funding processes to put in funding for his pet project.This National Government does not believe in the old “one rule for all” saying that we used to hear from Don Brash—no it does not. There is one rule for National Party Ministers. They can intervene. They can meddle. They can show up on behalf of their cronies because that is the kind of Government we have now. It is a Government that works in the interests of its mates and not in the interests of ordinary New Zealanders and the people who work every day to earn a living in this country.There should be a third film in this series and that isGone with the Wind—or “Gone with the River” because that is what Nick Smith should be. If John Key has any standards for ministerial behaviour Nick Smith should be gone. He has misled this Parliament. He has misled New Zealanders. He has intervened in a process that the Department of Conservation legitimately wanted to be involved in. We stand here today with a staff member having resigned from the Department of Conservation because of this Minister’s interference.John Key needs to say to Nick Smith that his time has gone—there has been one too many breaches of what New Zealanders would see as the standards of ministerial behaviour. John Key is letting it go because his Government is on the ropes. Nick Smith’s behaviour has fallen well short of the expectations of New Zealanders. This is a continuation of the cronyism of the meddling of a Government on its way out.