English Bill: Urgent Debates — Justice Minister—Compliance withCabinet ManualText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Urgent Debates — Justice Minister—Compliance withCabinet Manual[Sitting date: 12 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16565. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister):That is a bit rich coming from a man who has been white-anting David Cunliffe around Wellington because of his leader’s appalling misjudgment over the donations to his leadership campaign. I will give Grant Robertson credit for consistency. The things he is saying about Judith Collins he is also saying about David Cunliffe. I will give him credit for that.Hon Anne Tolley: And David Shearer.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well no he did not say those really nasty things about David Shearer. He just said David Shearer was hopeless. He did not say he was untrustworthy or had bad judgment; he just said he was hopeless. Therein lies the contrast between the way that this issue with Ms Collins has been dealt with and the way that David Cunliffe as potentially the leader of another Government has dealt with his personal issues around the trust that he has set up.Another thing I take issue with in regards to Grant Robertson is that Mrs Collins has worked assiduously in the interests of every New Zealander and the best measure of that is the lowest crime rates that New Zealand has seen in 30 years—the lowest crime rates we have seen in 30 years—and 25 percent fewer young people going through our courts. The member is simply wrong—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have granted an urgent debate on a specific matter. The fact that room is being freed up in the cells for people involved in this is I think irrelevant.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a valid point of order.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Let us be clear about the difference between the handling of this issue and the handling by David Cunliffe. Mrs Collins has made full disclosure and has accepted that her actions demonstrated some poor judgment. That has been underlined by the Prime Minister and his view that these actions were unwise because they gave rise to a perception of a conflict of interest. Mrs Collins was working as a Minister of the New Zealand Government and as we expect all Ministers to do being supportive of New Zealand businesses doing business in a difficult market a challenging market in China.What is very clear though is that she has made full disclosure and accepted that a misjudgment was made. That has all been dealt with quite transparently. Let us contrast that with the actions of the leader of the Labour Party. First he did not declare his trust. How did that come out? Well we do not know. We think it came out because fellow members of the Labour Party caucus or organisation leaked it to the media. Certainly unlike Mrs Collins the leader of the Labour Party did not reveal the actions that he took. Mrs Collins’ actions are clear both from the response to the Official Information Act request and from her public statements made today. David Cunliffe never brought to public light that he had set up a secret trust. We found that out by virtue of leaks from the Labour Party. Then David Cunliffe said—Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have granted an urgent debate for the House on a matter that is of significant public interest related to Minister Judith Collins. It has nothing to do with David Cunliffe or any members of the Labour Party and yet the majority—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. That is a repeat of an earlier point of order that was not a valid point of order. I am listening very carefully to the debate. The Minister is attempting to respond to the challenge outlaid to him by Grant Robertson and he is within the rules. I do not want to have another interrupting point of order that is invalid from this side of the House.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want to put it on the record that I resent your suggestion that my point of order was invalid. You might have ruled against it but it does not—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I have ruled.Hon Trevor Mallard: You’ve ruled wrong.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Trevor Mallard will stand withdraw and apologise. [Interruption] Order! Stand withdraw and apologise.Hon Trevor Mallard: I withdraw and apologise.Hon BILL ENGLISH: All the actions of Mrs Collins are clear from the public record. David Cunliffe failed to reveal as he is required to by the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament the existence of his secret trust—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The level of interjection from the Opposition side of the House is totally unacceptable. It will inevitably be a robust debate; that I expect. But when the level of noise and interjection gets to the level it has got to now I will have no choice but to ask somebody to leave this House.Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is pretty clear that the Labour Party does not want to hear the contrasting behaviour of David Cunliffe when he made a severe misjudgment. He did not reveal publicly his secret trust. Judith Collins through an Official Information Act request and her public statements has revealed all the actions relevant to the potential conflict of interest. We know about David Cunliffe’s trust only because of leaks from the Labour Party—from the “Anyone But Cunliffe” brigade led by Grant Robertson trying to white-ant their leader. That is how we know.We do know that Oravida as a company used the appropriate legal procedures to donate money to the National Party. That is on the public record. We do not know who donated to David Cunliffe because he devised the mechanism to keep it secret. He asked the donors whether they would reveal their identity. Some of them did; two of them did not. How do we know it was not Kim Dotcom? We do not know because the Labour leader unlike Mrs Collins has kept in place an arrangement designed to deceive the public—designed to deceive. As of today he still will not reveal those donors. So I challenge David Cunliffe to meet the standards Mrs Collins has met and go out to the front steps and reveal those donors. He said he did not know who they were and then said he would give them the money back. How does he know who to give it back to if he does not know who they are? So I want to see David Cunliffe meet the same standards as Judith Collins—go out to the front steps of Parliament and declare who the secret donors are. Until he does that the Labour Party has no credibility criticising a Minister who has revealed all the relevant actions and all the relevant participants in dealing with this perception of a conflict of interests.It is a bit rich but typical of the Labour Party to over-egg this situation and typical of it to apply to others standards it will not apply to its own leader. David Cunliffe’s trust issue remains unresolved. He set out deliberately to create a device to deceive the public by hiding the trust and actually he hid it from Parliament. He did not declare it in the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament. So now he can rise to the challenge put by his deputy leader Grant Robertson because after all those two are meant to be working together not separately as everyone else believes they are. When Grant Robertson says everything should be revealed well I believe that David Cunliffe should reveal everything. Until he does no one will take any notice of what the Labour Party is saying on this issue.