Peters Winston: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial ResignationText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePeters Winston: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial Resignation[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17497. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Thank God for that. Oh what a tangled web she did weave when first she did practise to deceive. Maurice Williamson’s action in contacting the police was a breach of ministerial rules. There was no grey area in his actions; it was a blatant breach of how Ministers must behave. Maurice has done the appropriate thing and resigned. His Prime Minister has lauded him for doing so and has lauded himself as Prime Minister for taking that action.But what about Judith Collins? Where is the accountability here for cronyism for sleazy favouritism and for corruption? The Minister of Justice was asked you mayrecall some simple questions about a company connected to her family and her engagement with the company’s business whilst on a ministerial visit to China. What is relevant is that connection because it determines whether there was a serious conflict of interest in her actions whether there was a breach of the Cabinet rules and whether an allegation of corruption can possibly be made. The Minister’s response was to do everything and anything but tell the truth. She explained one of her three engagements with Oravida in China as being a casual meeting on the way to the airport.Hon Gerry Brownlee: What’s the debate about?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The debate is about ministerial standards and whether someone—Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it’s not. Read the letter.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know that the last person to understand ministerial standards is one Gerry Brownlee because as you recall there was a new casino to be set up in Christchurch and the new directors were going to be Gerry Brownlee and the head of the National Party. He got found out for that. So the last person to be able to speak here on a matter of convention would be Gerry Brownlee. Judith Collins said she was on the way to the airport.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Tell us about the brown paper bag at the fisheries do.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He is excited now. I have struck a nerve. We have struck a nerve. Turn the cameras on to him. I want to see how upset he gets when he hears the truth. Every action she took was to both withhold the truth and divert focus from the truth. All these actions were bound to fail. And do you know what? She began to regard herself as being above the rules above the law and above convention. She believes she is beyond reproach and beyond accountability. She blames her staff and she blames the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Williamson crossed the line it is true. Collins crossed the line countless times and she must go.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member will use the member’s full name.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Certainly I will. The Hon Judith Collins crossed the line countless times and now she thinks that when all else has failed she can take leave hide from further scrutiny and have this scandal blow over. What is the taxpayer to make of that? You have got Maurice Williamson taking the cop saying that he made a mistake and resigning but not this one. It seems that when a Minister comes under pressure she stops work takes a rest and takes a holiday.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. When the Speaker decides to require Parliament to set aside time for a debate on a matter that is of public interest and significance it needs to be on a topic that is very clearly stated in the letter to the Speaker. There were four letters today I understand and in each case it was sought to debate the circumstances around the resignation of the Hon Maurice Williamson. What we have at the moment is a speaker who is using this opportunity to make accusatory statements in a way that is completely unacceptable and unparliamentary. I would ask you to call him to speak within the bounds of the debate that is in front of us. Otherwise we are unreasonably using up time on a day that belongs to another event and ultimately the time of members tomorrow.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: You would have heard the speech given by the Hon Bill English. You will also know what the complaint was that came to the Speaker with regard to ministerial rules. That is what the whole issue is about. What we have got is a very embarrassed person trying to constrain the debate.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I am going to speak in this debate very shortly but I would ask you to perhaps read to the House the letter that was supplied to the Speaker which led to the debate.Grant Robertson: This debate is one around a number of topics to do with accountability and to do with the ministerial resignation. The Hon Bill English delivered a speech of around 8½ minutes approximately 6½ minutes of which were about the Labour Party about David Cunliffe and about issues related to that. This is a robust debate but Mr English’s contribution has raised a number of issues. Mr Peters has been speaking for a few minutes now on topics closely related to ministerial behaviour—far more closely related than most of Bill English’s speech. I would ask for consistency. Bill English was allowed to complete his speech; Mr Peters should be allowed to complete his.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say to members that in addressing this issue—[Interruption] We have a point of order on the floor. Can I just say to members that when addressing this issue members when they respond to a speaker are generally given 1 or 2 minutes to respond to what the other speaker has said. This is a debate about the resignation of the Hon Maurice Williamson from his ministerial portfolios. Members may refer to other members in passing but we need to remember that the reason for this debate is the resignation of a Minister from his portfolio. So I just ask the members to recognise that when we come to debate this issue and recognise also that all members are honourable members.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Maurice Williamson did not engage in a cover-up but what we are seeing now is one. The real issue is who caused all this pressure. Of course the answer is when a certain Minister set out to deceive. Maurice did not deny it. He said: “I made the phone call.” His explanation fell short and he went. This is how democracy is destroyed—when instead of setting standards and principles of acceptable ministerial behaviour the Minister and her Prime Minister so demonstrably fail the rules. They seem to be in another world—a different realm from that of Maurice Williamson. It is a world where standards of ministerial conduct do not apply to them. Why has Maurice gone?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Williamson.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Why has the Hon Maurice Williamson gone? If I was him I would be feeling a bit upset because it seems that there are nakedly different standards. Why is Judith Collins still a Minister if there is a consistent set of Cabinet rules? Is it the National Government’s contempt or disdain for the public? Is it arrogance of the type you saw in that point of order by Gerry Brownlee? He thought as Rumpole from down in Christchurch that he could offer something by way of a moot point that we should all take seriously. There is no possible justification Mr Brownlee for your colleague to remain a Minister. It is simply an outrage an insult to the New Zealand public. It is an affront to democracy. What is the taxpayer out there to think? When they are under the stress and pressure of work do they get a chance to walk off home not be accountable and face no more questions as to how they are going? No they do not. They stick it out because that is part of the job and a ministerial post paid for by the taxpayer demands the same standards.Who thinks that it is a mere coincidence first that following the dinner—this is what happened. This is new. It is not known by the members over there because they are so indolent and lazy. You had the Ministry for Primary Industries recall of 3 August. You had the 6 August letter from Julia Xu complaining about what has happened to the company Oravida. Then you had the 20 and 23 October engagements before and after by one Judith Collins. Then you had the sanitary certificate secured by her connections in China for the company. And then guess what happened. Its sales which had hit rock bottom took off like a rocket. They soared to millions and millions of dollars and Mr Brownlee thinks he can get up and excuse that. It is a disgrace. We know that the National Party is cracking behind the scenes. We know that the reason MauriceWilliamson and Judith Collins should be thanked by us is that they have finally unveiled the real character and sordid nature of the modern National Party—cronyism sleaze corruption all sorts of secret funding.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Can I just say to the member—Jami-Lee Ross: Point of order.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I know what the member is going to say and I have been thinking about it myself. I would just like to refer members to Speaker’s ruling 26/5 in relation to corruption and disloyalty. I want to read it to the House because I think it is important when we are looking at this debate. “It is not only the right but the duty of a member who can show that there has been anything in the nature of bribery or corruption on the part of other members to bring that matter before the House in the proper constitutional way but a member must not make veiled suggestions during the course of debate.” That was Speaker Statham in 1934 so it goes back some considerable way. I just want to again advise members that all members are honourable and that is it. Refer to each other as honourable despite what we might think as otherwise. All of us here are aspirational and we call a member what we would want for them and us all to become. I caution the House that we tend to see things in the world as we are not as it is and when we point one finger at someone else we point three at ourselves. So I just caution the member. If he can be careful please in the way in which he is addressing the House.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There is more to come. The reason Judith Collins is not telling the truth to this House is that the moment she does she will not just cease to be a Minister; she will cease to be a member of Parliament. For somebody who used to be on the Law Society—a serious administering body up there in Auckland the biggest group of lawyers in the country and perhaps the most talented—I say that Judith Collins is withholding the truth and so are her colleagues because they know the consequence. The trouble is that there is Mr Brownlee more to come.