Goff Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Goff Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:652;Page:1301] 
1. Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does the Prime Minister agree with the  
New Zealand Herald 
 and others that Gerry Brownlee’s procedural blunders in the House last Thursday were “a major embarrassment to the Government which made it look like it didn’t know what it was doing”; and when is he going to take decisive action against the Ministers that he promised he would act against if they did not perform? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No I do not agree with the  
New Zealand Herald 
 but I can confirm that by the end of this week at the very latest all stages of the Electoral Amendment Bill will have been passed. What I do find embarrassing is the way that the first action of the member when he became the Leader of the Opposition was to grovel to the New Zealand public to ask for forgiveness for the fact that the Labour Government had passed the Electoral Finance Act in the first place. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: When will the Prime Minister apply the Government’s apparent commitment to “three strikes and you’re out” to Gerry Brownlee who has now made significant blunders on three occasions in just three sitting weeks; or does he expect Labour to go on rescuing him from the consequences of his own incompetence? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is good to see that the Leader of the Opposition is so deeply focused on the Standing Orders that he does not seem to care about the economy. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. A Minister particularly the Prime Minister is required to address a question and I do not believe he did so—I think he deliberately avoided it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think experienced members know that if they ask political questions like that one they are likely to get political answers. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How does the Prime Minister expect the country to have confidence in him when he promised sincerely that the Government would lead by example on wage restraint but as the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services he has agreed to hefty pay rises for the Beehive political staff with more than a trebling of the number earning more than $150000 per year a trebling of the number earning more than $120000 per year and an increase in the average salary by $13000 a year while at the same time the Prime Minister generously gave people on the minimum wage a net increase of $3.78 per week? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is true that we have paid higher salaries in Ministerial Services. It is also true that we have hired a lot fewer staff than Labour did. I might add that it is interesting to see how many extra communications staff members were added between April and October 2008 by the Labour Government—and I wonder why that was. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: In respect of the Prime Minister’s answer can he guarantee in terms of the number of Beehive political staff that the figures he quotes represent the total complement of political staff he intends to employ and that the numbers include contracted staff and political staff who are privately paid for or paid by the Parliamentary Service? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: To the best of my knowledge the staff numbers that were released reflect the staff that the Government has. We have fewer staff in our communications department because we are quite happy to operate with fewer people who are of a higher quality. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How can the Prime Minister justify keeping his promise that “We will be looking at wage moderation across the state sector at all angles.” and that those in the Government sector should have job security and therefore “should take that on board” when he triples the number of people in his own department—political hacks—being paid more than $150000 a year? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I assure the member that there will be wage restraint. I have made it quite clear that that vote will not be increasing though staff are not expecting pay increases— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: They just got them! 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Actually they did not. We hired different staff.