Peters Winston: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 21 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3235. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to oppose Supplementary Order Paper 41 which divides the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. We have to ask the question as to why on earth after all this time with all the protestations of how far out from today the public of this country was advised the Government has finally got around to finding a title. Right now the Minister for Building and Construction is in the chair. He is mum on why the Government is calling it “MOM”. He is not saying a word not rising to his feet. He has been challenged pretty seriously in a very narrow debate as you know Mr Chair. You would expect at least to get an answer at this stage in the debate but no nothing at all. 
The fact of the matter is that the legislative change we have got here this change of title begs the question of how fragile and brittle and ham-fisted the thinking and preparation behind this bill has been. It is really indicative of the fact that as the debate has gone through month after month and their reasons have been proven to be so flimsy and immaterial they have kept shifting their ground. Today here late in the piece they are shifting their ground on the title. 
Dr Norman is entirely right. You usually expect the far left to have this sort of psychobabble Freudian type of psychology where people read between the lines or get subliminal messages and to expect that to happen by way of this title is I think a bridge far too far. Frankly why do you not just call it the “Mixed Ownership (Hell I Sold My Country Down the Drain) Bill” or the “Mixed Ownership (How I Decided to be a Quisling) Bill”? [ 
Interruption 
] No no. This is it. I am talking about this title. Why have you not called it the “Mixed Ownership (How I Became a Benedict Arnold Against New Zealand Interests) Bill”? That would fit everything that those members over there are doing. So why have you chosen “MOM” the mixed-ownership model? 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: What about the “When Winston Sold the Airport Bill”? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: There you go. I am going to respond to that. He said: “How about the ‘When Winston Sold the Airport Bill’?”. Everybody knows the National Party had that policy. Everybody knows that the only thing that saved it from going to international interests was the demand that it go to New Zealand interests. 
Everybody knows that I said at the end of the experiment that it was a big mistake and that I regret it. But when they came along on Wellington Airport I walked out of the second most powerful job in this country. That is my bona fides. That is my good faith. I would not sell Wellington Airport. I would not do it twice because I knew I had made a mistake. I also went on to stop the multinational agreement on investment. 
Those are my bona fides and I do not want a johnny-come-lately who has been here 5 minutes from south-west Auckland to get up and try to say what Winston Peters has done or what his record is. My record compared with yours makes me a paragon of virtue on these issues—unlike those people there who will do anything to sell their country down the drain as long as the whips say that is part of the caucus agenda. So I hope we do not see any more of that behaviour or hear any more of that conversation or criticism because I have got a lot more to talk about on the National Party’s record if you want me to. But it is too wide for this debate—it is too wide for this debate. 
I go back to my point. The sum of $120 million has been used to prepare this legislation and possibly millions on deciding what the title will be and very late in the piece showing how flimsy the preparation has been they come up with this. Then of course they have the audacity to say: “You know the Greens are spending $70000 trying to get a petition up.” They spend $120 million on things like trying to find the title and they have the audacity to criticise someone else. How fraudulent and deceitful is that? It is $120 million for them and no one can use a little bit of money to try to stop this sort of behaviour. 
I want to say that there is a better name for this legislation and I have given you a number of options. It should not be called the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill. It is not a matter about public finance at all frankly in that concept. They came along with one title and late in the piece they want to change it. They should have called it under New Zealand First’s view and interpretation very reasonably arrived at the “Benedict Arnold (How the National Party Sold Down the Country) Bill”.