Street Maryan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Street Maryan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12678] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 The Prime Minister presides over a Cabinet that thought it could dig up just shy of half a million hectares of conservation estate and provide New Zealand with an economic step change. At least two Ministers Kate Wilkinson and Gerry Brownlee thought that it would be feasible to put up a proposition to Cabinet asking that 460000-odd hectares of conservation estate be dug up to provide New Zealand with an economic step change. So what happened? Well the people got in the way. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Stop being reckless with the truth. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: The people got in the way I say to Mr Brownlee and they protested. There were 40000 people in Queen St and 2000 people in Nelson which is a big march for a little place like Nelson. 
What have we seen? We have seen a humiliating back-down on the Government’s prize strategy for the economic plan. What has this back-down left in its place? It has exposed a vacuum where an economic plan ought to be. There is no economic plan; this king hit was going to improve the wealth and prosperity of this country. 
But still the Government keeps saying that it will continue prospecting. The Minister for the Environment the Hon Nick Smith for goodness’ sake said that the Government will continue prospecting on Dun Mountain just behind Nelson. But Dun Mountain was one of those areas that were going to be part of the national cycleway—part of the national cycleway. So I want to know whether the Prime Minister talks to the Minister of Tourism. It should not be hard; they are the same person. That should not be difficult. I ask whether anybody in one department talks to anybody in another department. I ask whether the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet talks to the Ministry of Tourism. Perhaps it takes its lead from the Prime Minister because he does not even consult himself between portfolios. 
Where is the plan? If we are going to continue prospecting in Dun Mountain where there is also a plan for a cycleway—which I welcome in the Nelson area—which will win: mining or tourism? Which will prevail: mining or tourism? What is the plan? Is it mining or tourism? Who knows? The Prime Minister clearly does not nor does the Minister of Tourism. 
In fact I suggest that the Prime Minister cannot run even his own office properly. On 30 June in this House Mr Key said that he had received a phone call the previous night from Bill and Mary Smith of Auckland who thanked him for their $40-something tax cut. I wanted some evidence of that so I presented the Prime Minister with some written questions asking when that happened whether the call was logged whether he took the call himself or it was referred to him because when he sat down after Phil Goff had asked him a question about the veracity of that answer I heard Mr Key say to Gerry Brownlee: “I just made it up.” “I just made it up.”—that is like the economic plan; he just made it up. 
The first answers he gave me on the written questions were that he could not answer yet but that he would answer soon. The second lot of answers that I got when he finally could answer were that—I will paraphrase for the House—he picked up a staffer’s phone that was ringing sometime after 5 p.m. but the call was not logged. The Prime Minister was stumbling around a darkened office because everybody went home at 5 o’clock so he picked up the staffer’s phone call. A response on a Tui billboard comes to mind. But even if the answer is true—I cannot disprove it so I will give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt and take him at his word—it means that the man cannot run even his own office or get somebody capable to run his own office. So I ask why anybody in this country should believe that he can run the country and can present a coherent plan to the people to get us into an improved economic position.