Mallard Trevor: Urgent Debates — Heather Roy—Ministerial Resignation 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Urgent Debates — Heather Roy—Ministerial Resignation 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13225. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I join my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell who has just resumed his seat in acknowledging the death of Koro Dewes who was someone I spent quite a lot of time with over the last 35 years. I first went to Tikitiki with him in I think early 1975 and we spent some good times in the wharenui around the fire until the—well I was about to say until the early hours of the morning but it was probably later than that. He was someone who made a difference to my life and he was a very special person. There are some other stories I could tell that might be appropriate for the marae but probably are not appropriate for the House. 
Having joined with the member on that point I will take a contrary point of view on whether it is necessary within politics to have transparency and accountability. We have had a party ACT that has stood for those principles. Openness has been extremely important from its point of view. What we have seen yesterday and today is a party that is attempting to shut down debate and not give reasons to the public for as it was described by Rodney Hide the case that was made for change by John Boscawen. Of course parties change their leaders and deputy leaders all the time. I think the closest parallel to this case that I can remember is David Lange taking out Bob Tizard in the early 1980s or— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: 1979. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —in 1979. It was pretty bitter. Roger Douglas was in the Labour caucus at that time and he was one of the main proponents of that change. I gather he was on the other side on the receiving end on this particular occasion. 
We have heard some things in this House today from Rodney Hide that can only be nonsense. He has talked about his respect for Heather Roy. If he had any respect for Heather Roy at all he would be honest with this House and with the public of New Zealand about the reasons she has gone. 
Hon Annette King 
: And he would have voted for her. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well I am not saying that he has to vote for her and I am not saying that the party cannot change. I am saying that we expect from members of this Parliament and from people who are getting extra salaries as a result of being leaders of parties some sort of honesty transparency and straightforwardness as to the reasons for what they have done. What is also interesting to me is the degree of complicity from John Key in this change. His closeness to Rodney Hide has become clear. We have been told in the House today that John Key knew for 13 days that Heather Roy was to be taken out but he would not return a phone call from Heather Roy. We have to be very careful how we express this in the House but I would have said that a man of courage a man of integrity and a man who supported his Ministers when he is Prime Minister would have taken that phone call.  He would have had the backbone to take the phone call and listen to Heather Roy. He did not have to say anything or agree with her but to say that he would not talk to her because Rodney Hide has told him not to is an indication of who is pulling the strings in that particular relationship. 
It has been a little bit apparent for some time that this has been coming. Heather Roy is straightforward. She is honest. She does not take the Boscawen approach and the Hide approach of knifing people in the back. She has made it clear that she wanted an ACT Party that had enough votes to make a difference. She wanted an ACT Party in the House that was not dependent on one member in the way that it is now. She wanted ACT to have broader appeal and to be a principled party the way it was when Richard Prebble and Roger Douglas had a leading role in the party in the past. She said that the current approach that is being taken is not good enough but she also asked some other questions. 
I understand that one of the questions she asked was whether it was appropriate for the ACT Party to be taking money from David Henderson when he was not paying his other bills. She asked whether it was appropriate for the ACT Party to be taking money from David Henderson when he was not paying the Inland Revenue Department and the Christchurch City Council. She also asked whether it was appropriate for David Henderson Bob Parker Rodney Hide and John Key to go to Queenstown together and spend time making political arrangements. Was it appropriate for the four of them to be together in Queenstown? Was that appropriate for Rodney Hide as a Minister? It was even less appropriate for the Prime Minister to spend time with Bob Parker Rodney Hide and “Davo”—as he is called by Rodney Hide—Henderson. I think that Heather Roy asked the right questions as to what is appropriate behaviour for the Prime Minister and for her own party leader. I think the idea of meeting in that way with David Henderson is wrong. The idea of taking money from someone who is not paying the Christchurch City Council or the Inland Revenue Department is wrong and a party should not do it. I commend Heather Roy for blowing the whistle on that sort of arrangement. 
I think we are beginning to get pretty close to what the real story is—that is that Heather Roy said to Rodney Hide that she thought it was inappropriate for him to take documents from her office. I understand that he has denied taking documents that he was not meant to have. Well certainly within the previous Labour Government there were documents that were top secret documents that some Ministers got and others did not. It was not a matter of security clearance because we did not clear our Ministers but we had arrangements whereby our senior group of Ministers—if for example the Minister of Defence was a less senior Minister and that person was involved—had clearance for those documents and other Ministers did not. We thought that that was appropriate especially when it concerned the safety of New Zealand service people or security people abroad or in New Zealand. I am not sure whether we agreed but Helen Clark said that the arrangements would be like that. 
I want to know why Rodney Hide took those papers and why he gave them to Nick Kearney a former member of the ACT board. I am not saying that he gave them to him directly; there might have been a staff member involved. Nick Kearney was until last night a member of the ACT board. He resigned from the ACT board because he was caught trying to give New Zealand defence assessment papers to a blogger. He picked the wrong blogger because that person was an ex-military person who had integrity and who said that that was inappropriate and should not happen. Apparently now the SIS is involved. I do not want to go too far down that track because you know we do not talk about those matters too much in the House. I ask the ACT Party why Heather Roy got the sack because one of Rodney Hide’s mates on the board got some secret papers. It is absolutely wrong. John Key who is in charge of the SIS and the overall security intelligence situation in New Zealand needs to tidy that party’s act up and not let it sack a Minister for having integrity.