Little AndrewANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): Talking of fronting up and accounting for oneself which would certainly be new to members on that side of the House I want to say this: in life bad things happen and a test of character is how you respond. Maybe 4 years ago you lost an America's Cup and you were in charge of that campaign and you were in charge of the group who did it. So you come away and you face up to your shortcomings. You have honest conversations you pick yourself up you dust yourself off and you face the future. You might have spent generations being excluded from sports coverage like the Women's Rugby Sevens Team but you keep on going and you do the right thing and then you get victory and then glory is yours.But in leadership things happen that you do not expect to happen and sometimes they are wrong. If it is your organisation where that happens if it happens in your party then you take responsibility and you take action. New Zealanders are starting to see a huge contrast between at least two political parties where both have faced a difficult situation. One has a leader who runs and hides and cannot front up to New Zealanders and the other steps up and takes responsibility. If there is one thing that defines the New Zealand character it is that you accept when things go wrong and you put it right. That is what I grew up knowing. That is what I was taught when I was growing up. You step up and you take responsibility and you do the right thing.Faced with the circumstances that the Prime Minister was faced with with Todd Barclay Bill English's response has been a model of the failure of leadership. It is one thing to be heavily involved in trying to sort out what was then an employment dispute involving somebody who worked closely with Bill English—of course he would want to get involved and try to get that sorted out. But it is another thing completely to fail to step up and do the right thing when a backbench MP he was responsible for was caught up in allegations of a possible unlawful recording of a staff member and caught up in a police inquiry.This whole thing about Todd Barclay is not about an employment dispute—it has not been for 18 months. But it has been about allegations of potential criminal conduct. It has been about whether a member of this House fulfils his moral responsibility to be an exemplar to his community and cooperates with a police investigation. Bill English knows all about this case. He knows all about this matter. He was told about it by Todd Barclay. He told Glenys Dickson what Todd Barclay had told him—that there were recordings of her conversations. He told Stuart Davie that there were conversations and he told Stuart Davie that there was a settlement that was larger than normal because of the privacy breach" and he said it was part-paid from the Prime Minister's budget to avoid potential legal action. The Prime Minister knows everything there is to know about this case.In addition to all that he gave a statement to the police. So when asked this year whether he had had any contact with anybody involved in this matter he said—because he thought nobody else knew any better—that he had no direct contact. Then the story broke—no; before that he was asked by the police whether he minded if his statement to the police was released to somebody who had asked for it under the Official Information Act. He refused to give his blessing. He refused to release his statement. Then the information was disclosed last week almost in full.He was asked early on and he claimed that he did not know who had told him about those recordings. He knew everything. He knew everything. Later he claimed that there may not even be any recordings and then it was put to him that he was offered an opportunity to listen to those recordings. Seven days on and he still cannot be straight with New Zealand. Seven days on and we are still no nearer the truth about what he knows and about what he did and that is not right.In this day and age New Zealanders expect their leaders to be upfront and honest to take responsibility to front up to put to bed any doubts about who knew what and when. All along this has been dressed up as an employment dispute and it is not that. Somehow the whole thing has got out of control. It does not help when you have a party leader who shows no interest in taking it back under control.It is time for leadership from that party actually for New Zealand. It is time to front up and do what New Zealanders expect—step up open up and take responsibility for what he knows he is."