Peters Winston: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Peters Winston: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5454] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 There can seldom be a time in Parliament when one could experience such an awful horrible series of events where for example the Green Party which had promised never to vote for urgency is now supporting extraordinary urgency and where the Maori members of this Parliament who know the true malaise of alcohol and the degradation it has caused amongst their people— 
Government Members 
: Ha ha! [ 
Interruption 
] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The fishwife can laugh but I am on my feet speaking and what is she doing? She is looking old and haggard and acting like a fishwife on market day. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No that is out of order. Carry on. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is not Mr Speaker. She can laugh— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will be seated. I said that comment was out of order and it was. The member will withdraw it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am on my feet and totally aware of what is going on. Are you going to stop them or what? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please be seated while I am on my feet. Interjections are allowed and they are allowed within reason. They were not out of order. Carry on. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Excellent! If they cannot stand the riposte or response that is their problem. But the reality is that the Green Party which was tonight represented by Mr Rod Donald made a commitment a long time ago never to vote for urgency but tonight it supports extraordinary urgency. All around New Zealand beginning about— 
Rod Donald 
: That is not true. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is totally true of course. He will deny it now—like he has denied every promise the Greens have made. 
The reality is that at about 4.30 this afternoon we learnt that there was to be a debate under extraordinary urgency later on today. Everybody around New Zealand asked why would we possibly have such an urgent debate. Most New Zealanders remember the great debates of the last 20 years and the one in 1980 where the PSIS headed by a former Labour acolyte and activist called Stan Rodger was going to collapse and late one night a National Government moved urgency through all motions of the debate to save the PSIS. At that time we had a crisis that accorded with the Standing Orders and I want to talk about Speakers’ ruling 11/2 on this matter because that is what this debate should be about. I quote: “… exceptionally it may be necessary for the House to continue sitting beyond midnight to pass a particularly urgent piece of legislation. Primarily this will involve Budget legislation but it could also apply in other cases of real emergency for example where there was a need to pass legislation to deal with the collapse of a commercial or financial organisation or in a matter involving state security. To deal with these latter cases provision is made [in the Standing Orders] for another motion to be termed a motion for ‘extraordinary’ urgency.” 
Mr Speaker you are the one who decides this issue. When a leader of a party and a Government comes to you you are the one who decides whether it is a matter of extraordinary urgency. My question is how on earth could you have possibly decided that putting up the tax on liquor was such an issue—to stop the whole of the proceedings of Parliament and go all night on a question of raising the excise on liquor? Show me a precedent where any former Speaker would have done that. This debate is not about whether it is right or wrong to put the liquor tax or excise up. This whole debate is about the abuse of Parliament. 
The Clerk does not need to rise; I have not challenged him yet—but he is doing it already. He knows that I am talking about a serious issue. One does not abuse Parliament by having extraordinary urgency on a matter that in a week’s time will be in the Budget and will be decided that night. No no. But having had a few patchy weeks in politics having been “done” in the House every day the Labour Government has decided that it will get rid of all the bad news—like putting up alcohol tax—tonight. Forget the great and grand issue of a democracy and the crisis that may one day beset a nation where every party sets aside its own personal and parochial view and deals with the national interest. That is what extraordinary urgency is about. 
I was a young politician when I first saw this Parliament stop to save the PSIS. Today it is a great credit union. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Destroyed it! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no. Excuse me we saved it. We got a receiver in and we saved it and today it is a great credit union that belongs to the people. That is an issue to do with Speaker’s ruling 11/2 which I just read out. Well I am asking all those members why they would they allow themselves to be so abused—the Greens the United Future members and those back-benchers over there—by the spin of their party executive and the Speaker himself— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will be seated. I am on my feet. I ask him to be seated or he will be leaving. The Speaker cannot be brought into the debate. The member is perfectly entitled to criticise the executive or the Government for doing what they are doing but he cannot criticise the Speaker or bring him or her into the debate. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Mr Speaker you will not prejudge what I am going to say. I am saying that the Speaker himself was there back at the time I am talking about. He was a young MP back in 1980 when there was the question of the PSIS. You have no right to jump into a debate about which you are obviously embarrassed because you allowed that debate. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is wrong and if he makes that comment again and brings me into the debate his speech will end. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: OK I have made my point. Everybody knows it. Every parliamentarian who has ever stood in a Western democracy knows what I am talking about. But extraordinary debates— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Oh! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh yes but that walrus would never understand. He has no love for this Parliament. He has no dream of a democracy that sometimes rises above shallow petty party politics and actually does great things. The PSIS was one of those events and I have seen others. But I have never in my life in politics—and I have been here longer than most people—ever seen this Parliament used to raise the excise on liquor. 
Jill Pettis 
: No because you’re pickled. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will stand withdraw and apologise for that comment. 
Jill Pettis 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I should make the obvious point. The member should not draw the obvious inference if she is going to make an interjection. She looks like she is. I am not. If members cannot take it they should not say it. 
In my closing 2 minutes I want to say this— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Don’t smile and try to be churlish. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Ah yes the member should tell us why he left boarding school. He should not try to be smart. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I wasn’t at boarding school. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh yes the member was. He should not enter the debate if he cannot handle it. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Don’t misquote Michael Laws’ nasty little stories about attending boarding school—he got the wrong man. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I did my research. Why is the member so embarrassed? If Laws is wrong why is the member so embarrassed? 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I’m not embarrassed. I was never at boarding school. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Methinks he protests too much. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please continue the speech. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: All I want to say is this: I have had a long career in politics. I was out tonight speaking to a group of businessmen— 
Jill Pettis 
: Ha ha! [ 
Interruption 
] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It would be foreign to the member. Usually it is market day for her. 
I was out tonight speaking to a group of businessmen—[ 
Interruption 
] it would be foreign to that member because it is market day—and they asked me at 7 o’clock why there would be urgency today. Was it the crash of Tranz Rail? Could Tranz Rail not pay its debts off? Was it AMP’s share price or what? It must have been some huge gigantic financial event. When I came back to Parliament I could not believe that it would be about the petty tawdry business of taxing the workingmen’s pleasure in this country.