Wilkinson Kate: General Debate 
Wilkinson Kate: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:11797] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 Mike Moore said it all did he not? Mike Moore said it all. Members should listen to this: “This politics of personal destruction is fearful. Why is Labour so good at it? Because we practise on each other. Helen Clark is superb at it…she’s dispatched more Labour leaders than anyone else too. Now Labour is planning a major re-shuffle. It’s needed.” But it gets better. He also said: “We have the largest Cabinet in the Western world per head of population. Killing the wounded is the hardest job in politics particularly if they have been loyal subjects. They are bled slowly swirling rumours appear planted from Beehive sources then when the victim is anaemic too exhausted to fight back someone is dispatched to put the pillow over their head.” Mr Moore continues that it is very hard and that the circle of close mates gets smaller and weaker and he asks: “Exactly what does the ‘consort’ Judith Tizard and the legion of Ministers outside Cabinet actually do? Perhaps it’s good they don’t do much. They manage the remarkable feat of being self-important expensive trivial and irrelevant at the same time.” 
 While all this is happening Rome is burning. Just look at our justice system. I appreciate that the Minister is probably preoccupied with the obsession to bring in what has been described as the second of the most self-serving bills in history to enter this House. The first was this Labour-led Government retrospectively legalising and validating its own unlawful overspending of taxpayer money at the last election. That was the first. That was reprehensible enough. The second is the undemocratic also reprehensible Electoral Finance Bill to take away New Zealanders’ rights of freedom of speech at the same time as giving this Labour-led Government carte blanche to spend whatever it wants of taxpayers’ money and to say whatever it wants yet at the same time deprive New Zealanders and community groups of their rights to spend what they want of their own money and deprive them of the right to say what they want. That is absolutely reprehensible and it is a disgrace to the democracy of this country. 
While this is happening Rome is still burning. The justice system is in disarray. Only last week the Auckland District Law Society said this: “Of note were his concerns at a justice system particularly in regard to civil work that is almost grinding to a halt because of unreasonable delays. It is of huge concern … that in all aspects of our work that we hear the same and continuing concerns that access to justice is not being provided in our community either because of the barrier of legal aid or a justice system that is not able to effectively and efficiently deal with people’s cases—and that is a serious concern because it impacts on peoples’ lives.” 
While this is happening the Minister is fiddling. We have a legal aid crisis and the Minister fiddles. We have had a legal aid crisis that the Minister has known about for months and months and still he hides his head in the sand. We have fewer and fewer lawyers doing legal aid work. Family aid lawyers have dwindled from 2000 to 1000 in 12 months and still this Minister does not recognise that. We have more and more examples of victims—battered women unable to get legal representation and unable to get access to justice and who find the process simply too hard and just walk away from the process. That is what is happening in Blenheim as an example. We have criminals charged and let out on bail because the court logjam means they will not get a trial date for over a year. We have the trifecta of the justice team of the Labour Government—three Ministers—all fiddling away whilst our justice system burns. There is a priority for this Government and it should be the justice system and not the persecution of the Opposition.