English Bill: General Debates 
English Bill: General Debates 
[Volume:608;Page:5475] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 Is it not interesting that that member was one of the few Labour members whose majority went down at the last election? 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Who was the other one? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The other one was Jill Pettis. There is a much more serious issue to be discussed today and that is the competence and judgment of Helen Clark who is out travelling the world on behalf of New Zealanders. She is not doing it on behalf of herself we must point out to her. She is not a foreign affairs commentator. She is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. When she has come back to New Zealand to explain what she said she has been pathetic. Let me remind the House about this. [ 
Interruption 
] 
That member should keep quiet because he has to sack the chief executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority today. The organisation in charge of all our children’s qualifications has been running amok and breaking the law under his supervision. The chief executive has been doubling National Certificate of Educational Achievement fees breaking the law and lying to a select committee. That member better get back in his box and sack the chief executive today. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: There isn’t a chief executive. What a fool. How can you sack someone who doesn’t have a job? What a fool. The member is a fool. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: An acting chief executive. What a fool. This is what Helen Clark said: “What everyone’s looking at is whether there is going to be a Franco/German/Russia linkup with good links through to the Chinese”. We asked her: who “everyone” is. This is the Prime Minister who weighs every word. This is the Prime Minister who is open upfront and accessible. This is the Prime Minister who—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I ask Mr Mallard to desist from a running commentary. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: This is the Prime Minister who means what she says— 
David Benson-Pope 
: And says what she means. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: And she says what she means—that is right. We asked her who “everyone” is and she could not name anyone. So I asked her whether everyone who is looking at this Franco-German-Russian link-up includes New Zealand. Does it include her? Is she as Prime Minister of New Zealand looking at the Franco-German-Russian link-up that makes the Anglo-American club look small? Is she the one who is looking at it? Well here is the upfront accessible “means what she says” Prime Minister’s answer to the question of whether “everyone” includes New Zealand: “It is quite clear that the original comment is in itself a question and it is a question based on whether—and I draw the member’s attention to that word—there is going to be this or that”—members should not miss that; it is based on whether there is “going to be this or that”—“and ‘that’ represents the opinions of the key players at that time.” That is our spokesperson on New Zealand’s relationship to the world. 
I say to the media and this House that Helen Clark’s accumulated burden of dishonesty is starting to weigh down on her. I say to the media in particular that they can take almost nothing this woman says at face value—almost nothing. That is what the  
Guardian 
 in England thinks. Members should look at this letter to the editor in our  
Dominion Post  
from journalists with one of Britain’s top newspapers. They say this in respect of the “law of the jungle” comments: “It is hard to imagine what else she could have meant when she asked ‘Who wants to go back to the jungle?’.” Of course her comments were precisely that the actions and decisions of Tony Blair were taking us back to the jungle. 
I can remember a former Prime Minister making a comment about the jungle. I think it was Rob Muldoon who got in enormous trouble for making that reference. That was in New Zealand; here is our Prime Minister in Britain telling one of our closest friends and allies that his actions and decisions are taking the world back to the law of the jungle. OK that is an opinion and I happen to disagree with it. But then she tried to say that she had never said it and the journalist who interviewed her said that she did.