Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Volume:634;Page:5645] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 It is interesting to note that at a time when the Government has been able to tell the nation it has a record surplus when we have had Ministers in the Chamber trying to say that this is a great Government doing wonderful things in the health field a Government whose Minister of Health today told us that he is able to get 10000 new operations for just $50 million a Government whose Minister of Education came into the House today and said that the investment it is making in education is the best thing it could possibly do for the future of New Zealand and a Prime Minister who wants to say that the leadership she and her Government offer New Zealand is as good as it could ever be it chooses to talk about the National Party rather than about its own record. The Government does not want any scrutiny of its own very poor behaviour in Government. 
What Labour has chosen to do is to put itself above the law. It decided that the only way it could win the 2005 election was to overspend the electoral cap and it did so by a huge margin. When the Government knew that it did not have the money to spend from its usual backers it dived into the taxpayer purse and flogged it. Tomorrow the Auditor-General will tell this House exactly that; that Labour chose illegally to take taxpayer funding and apply it for election purposes. That is why the Government has to pay back the $446000 for a start. We can expect that there will be a much bigger sum attached to that. 
We know how Labour hates to be put in a position where it looks bad. We could see that today by the way its members have been speaking. So they have cooked up this neat little deal where the Auditor-General’s report will not see the light of the parliamentary day until after 2 o’clock tomorrow. What is the significance of that? The significance is that this House itself cannot discuss that report until the following Tuesday at the very earliest giving the Labour Party and its 9th floor spin doctors 5 days to condition the public to whatever response it might make. That is the behaviour one would expect from a Government led by a dictator. It is the sort of behaviour that confirms the deep corruption that runs through the veins of this Government. It is the sort of behaviour that New Zealanders are overwhelmingly rejecting. 
Labour members can stand up and talk all they like about the National Party. What they really need to do is look at what New Zealanders are saying about them because they are not listening to the sharp rhetoric about health; they are not interested in Mr Maharey’s grand pronouncements about education; they do not believe Dr Cullen’s pronouncements about the economy; and above all they do not believe the Prime Minister when she says Labour has not broken the rules. The only way to fix it is to first pay the money back then recognise the fact that this theft of taxpayer money—this inappropriate misuse of taxpayer money—led to an election overspend and a breach of section 214B of the Electoral Act in a way that was knowing and is described by that Act as a corrupt practice. 
New Zealanders do not like that sort of thing. That is why they are speaking so loudly and giving Labour a clear direction. So we are disappointed that the opportunities for the Opposition to publicly state tomorrow an opinion on not only the Auditor-General’s report but also the Speaker’s response to it inside this House is being denied by a Government that has for far too long believed itself to be above the law. I want to send a message to the small parties that prop up Labour and keep it in Government. There was a great saying that mud sticks. Well it does. People who support that crowd will go down with them.