Key John: Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Key John: Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:633;Page:4566] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 On Thursday the House will adjourn for a 2-week period and members on the Government side cannot wait for that adjournment. They cannot wait because the last 2 weeks have been a living hell for them and they know that it is a long long way from being over. The instruction from the whips to the Labour Party caucus meeting this morning was simple: “Hang in there for 2 more days. Hang in there and keep your heads up high because we’ll just guts it out till Thursday and see if we can make it all magically go away.” 
Last week was a pretty interesting week. We had been led to believe 7 months ago that there would be this big and bold business tax review—so big and bold Michael Cullen told us it might be too big and bold for some people. It turned out that the person it was too big and bold for was Helen Clark who now no longer has any confidence in her Minister of Finance. She now runs economic policy—as well as everything else! That is why the review was a document that members of the accounting fraternity across New Zealand described as a “three out of 10”. Even in the dumbed-down education system in this country a fifth-former at any self-respecting secondary school would get a “not achieved” for that 26-page document which took 7 months to write. Quite frankly it is a disgrace. 
On Sunday afternoon I was involved in a couple of radio interviews. One of them was on Radio Tarana the Indian Radio station on 1386 AM and before me was the Prime Minister who was going to debate the issues around the business tax review. The Minister of Finance is no longer let loose to discuss that review. He had had very little input into it indeed after the Prime Minister had pruned it. But what the Prime Minister said in a very interesting interview before I went on the station was very illuminating. She said that she had spent the afternoon discussing some issues with Michael Cullen. 
Well we found out in the House today exactly what issues Helen Clark had been talking to Michael Cullen about. They have been polling furiously on the Taito Phillip Field inquiry. They have been polling their supporters who have unanimously told them they have a problem and they know that it is a problem that will not go away in a hurry. So Helen Clark got on the phone to Michael Cullen and told him that they had to find a way to make the thing go away and that they had to do it in a hurry. 
They rang up Jeanette Fitzsimons from the Green Party—the party they left jilted at the altar 12 months ago after they had promised the whole way through the election campaign that they would look after it—and concocted a little scheme that was about to cost the taxpayers of New Zealand I would guess an awful lot of money. They told Jeanette Fitzsimons to draft a notice of motion and read it out in the House. It would be a notice of motion without debate. When it happened they would make Mr Taito Phillip Field stand up and apologise even though 2 weeks ago he had told the people of New Zealand that he was fully exonerated and could not understand why he was not going straight back into Cabinet. All of a sudden he was going to be getting up and giving us an apology—or so we were led to believe. 
That was going to cost the Labour Government a few favours and probably a few taxpayer dollars when it came to the policies that would get rolled out on the back of it. But it was all OK because it did not matter to Helen Clark who got carried out with that thing and who got involved— 
Darren Hughes 
: Don Brash agreed to it. 
JOHN KEY 
: I tell that member that he had better listen up because he may as well hear what is going on in his party. The member for Otaki who only just won his seat—he nearly got carted out by a first-time member on our side because he is so lazy and does not go to his electorate and do anything—should listen up because this is what was happening on that side of the House. This was the idea: a notice of motion without debate was going to be read out that was theoretically going to take that very untidy situation off the table and make it all OK. Taito Phillip Field was going to say sorry even though he did not think he was guilty and even though Noel Ingram had written a report about him that was so damning my good friend and colleague Lockwood Smith could have filled up every single question slot we had today and yesterday and will have tomorrow and Thursday asking questions on it. Today he asked a very interesting question indeed which I guess Government members did not want to hear. They learnt today that in the last 3 years Taito Phillip Field has had 262 special discretions for applications he has made— 
Darren Hughes 
: How many has the member had? 
JOHN KEY 
: I have had very very few actually—because I do not get people to paint my house. I do not send them off to Samoa to tile my house and I do not charge for my services. I do not actually have to have a notice of motion that says I am going to recommit to a principle saying I will act as a member of Parliament and do things for free. Because Taito Phillip Field— 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want the Speaker’s guidance. Is it OK for a member after he has denied permission for a party even to table a document to then quote it in the House? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr Locke. That is a debatable issue. 
JOHN KEY 
: Taito Phillip Field was going to say “Sorry” even though he has been fully exonerated apparently by the report; even though he has had 262 special discretions; even though he has sent so many people overseas to work on his houses that no one can keep count of them and even though we have had a web of people in this House— 
Darren Hughes 
: The member has got the same problem—what about your Sydney house? 
JOHN KEY 
: I tell Mr Hughes that my houses are owned by my trust or by my wife—and by the way I pay for them and I actually pay people when they work on them. I know that is a unique—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I just bring the Chamber to order and say that the practice of members engaging in a constant barrage of interjections amounts to heckling and that is entirely intolerable in a debating Chamber. I would like members to look at Speaker’s ruling 57/3 which says that interjections are out of order unless “rare and reasonable;”. I ask members to remember that. 
JOHN KEY 
: That is quite right—Mr Hughes should go back to Otaki where he has one of the slimmest majorities in the country and he should start knocking on a few doors and begging people to vote for him again. 
Hon Bill English 
: His majority will go down. 
JOHN KEY 
: That is right; he will be carted out. 
Hon Bill English 
: He should stay in Wellington. 
JOHN KEY 
: Yes he should stay in Wellington. If he is going to raise a thin majority he may as well hang on for a few days. 
I want to make a point that is quite interesting. We had a scenario there where Michael Cullen and Helen Clark thought they could concoct a very convenient way to take that issue off the agenda. A personal explanation from Mr Taito Phillip Field—even one he would not believe in because he had told the House he was exonerated and had done nothing wrong—would stop our side of the House debating the matter. 
Then Michael Cullen got up and told us that he had offered the Opposition a debate on its notice of motion about why we on this side of the House have no confidence in the Speaker Margaret Wilson. He said that he had offered a debate; what he failed to say of course was that he had offered an extension of about half an hour to the general debate—not the full debate that would have been taken by our side of the House. 
I want to make reference to one other thing that happened yesterday. While we are talking about houses and Taito Phillip Field’s houses I tell members that Wizard Home Loans came out with a very interesting matter yesterday and said that New Zealanders were finding it increasingly difficult to buy a home. I personally happen to believe that the data used for the Wizard Home Loans research is fundamentally a little flawed although I accept the principle that homeownership is becoming more difficult. But I think that the real philosophical differences between the different parties in the House have actually been shown. 
The Green Party came out and said there should be a capital gains tax. That was their answer. They said that foreigners theoretically were buying up houses which meant that New Zealanders could no longer afford their own homes. Well I hate to tell the Green Party that foreigners are not buying up bits of Pakuranga and the rest which was the Green Party’s response. 
The Government came out saying that it was going to spend $2.5 million on an ownership education programme—that was its idea about homeownership. But only one party in this House was going to fix the issue along with the Resource Management Act and the Building Act and was going to help New Zealanders with lower interest rates—the National Party.