Davis KelvinHon KELVIN DAVIS (Deputy Leader—Labour): When we're talking about openness and transparency the question that the Acting Prime Minister has been asking right now is very relevant: who's the leaker? Who is the leaker in the National Party? There has been an investigation going on for how long? How long? And it's gone nowhere. We know nothing about the leak. The leak was all about Simon Bridges—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You granted the debate on the basis that it was a debate about the Prime Minister's decision to terminate the ministerial career of Meka Whaitiri. How then does the beginning of the speech by Kelvin Davis meet those criteria? Or is it a general debate and therefore a bit of a free-for-all?Rt Hon Winston Peters: If you would've followed the speech from the previous speaker Amy Adams it was seriously a sermon on values transparency morality openness and honesty. Now surely when you put those sorts of principles into the mix someone's entitled to start in their first breath to question whether or not there are examples of that not being held in the House. He hardly got going and Mr Brownlee objected to it. Surely he could've waited until he got into the substance of his speech.SPEAKER: I couldn't have put it better myself.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: It's interesting the defensiveness. They can raise issues around transparency with us openness and then what happens? As soon as we raise something about their lack of openness their lack of transparency they want to shut things down. But let me tell you about what the Prime Minister did do. The Prime Minister when she heard that there had been an incident acted decisively. She acted immediately. There was an investigation set up an independent investigation which took a couple of weeks to do the job that it was meant to do and in that time Meka Whaitiri wasn't sitting at home on full pay. She was actually going about her business as the member of Parliament for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti doing what a member of Parliament should do in a situation like this and that is looking after her constituents.So there was a report that was produced and within 24 hours the Prime Minister had made the decision to stand Meka Whaitiri down. It wasn't a decision that she made lightly; we know she wrestled with it. We know that she is a fair but firm leader but in the end she had made her decision and she made it swiftly—unlike the Opposition who we still don't know who the leaker is.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.Hon David Bennett: You have to go now.Hon Gerry Brownlee: The Speaker has ruled that this is a very wide debate but I would point out that when the Hon Amy Adams was speaking and raised the issue of the sexual assaults at the Labour youth camp earlier this year the signal was very clearly given that the debate should be narrowed with the sort of concertina-type movements of the Speaker's hands at that time. I do hope that there will be a degree of consistency applied to the speech of the struggling Kelvin Davis.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Madam Speaker point of order.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't need any help on the point of order. Thank you the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I will take your comments into account as I listen to the continuing debate.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: There is an issue though that the facts in the case are disputed. So there is a situation—SPEAKER: I apologise to the member for interrupting. There is a very strong convention in the House that Speakers are not given advice especially abusive advice as they leave the Chair. David Bennett will stand withdraw and apologise.Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The facts of the case are disputed and this is where this sort of little legal feature of natural justice needs to come into play. It's important that somebody is given the benefit of the doubt and is innocent until proven guilty but instead we've already heard from Amy Adams that in her mind there are some facts that are undisputed. She says she hasn't seen the report and yet she's saying that these certain things definitely did happen. Well we have to ask if they don't know anything about the report how is it that she has all of these facts? It's totally necessary that we allow the process to go ahead that there is an investigation. That investigation has occurred. That investigation came up with its findings some elements of which are disputed. There are some elements that are not disputed and it was on that basis that the Prime Minister made her decision to stand down Meka Whaitiri.We heard Amy Adams talking about how under John Key and Bill English things would've been acted on decisively and that none of them would be here if they had lost the confidence of the Prime Minister of the day. Well I've got a two-word question for that. The two-word question is Judith Collins. Why is she still here? We know—Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member has yet again referred to a matter where I was completely exonerated by the Chisholm inquiry led by retired Justice Chisholm. That is totally inappropriate for this particular debate. I ask that he withdraw and apologise.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well the difficulty that I have is that—Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I speak to the point of order?DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well I'm just ruling on this point of order if you don't mind.Rt Hon Winston Peters: No that's the point of order I want to speak about.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well I'm going to rule on this point of order. Would you please sit down? The difficulty that I have Hon Judith Collins in ruling on that is that he's only mentioned your name; he hasn't actually referred to any indiscretion. So he has actually nothing to withdraw and apologise for. However I'm sure that the member will continue to listen in case the Hon Kelvin Davis goes further.Rt Hon Winston Peters: That's my point.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well I'm glad we're in agreement.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Then there's also Richard Worth. Now Richard Worth is a name that is a footnote in history and yet we still don't know the reasons behind his disappearance from Parliament. We will never know. We asked the questions. We asked the same questions that they're asking and yet we were never given any reason and we never will. So you know we just find it extremely disappointing that somebody can stand up on that side and point the finger at us when we know that in the former National Government Ministers disappeared without a trace and nobody is any the wiser as to the reasons they disappeared.Then the member Amy Adams who spoke raised the issue around Todd Barclay. Now if the National Government was so decisive why did the Todd Barclay debacle linger for months and months and months? We know that the former leadership of the National Party was slow and they were not the decisive machine that we've been led to believe in this House.There's any number of former Ministers that've had their day in the sun sadly. I've already mentioned Richard Worth. There was Phil Heatley—he resigned over financial irregularities with his Crown credit card. Pansy Wong—remember her? She resigned over abuse of taxpayer-funded travel perks. Nick Smith is still here. He resigned over abusing his office to help a close friend. Kate Wilkinson—that's another name that was once bandied around these walls but has disappeared through the ether of time. Peter Dunne himself—resignation connected with a leak from the GCSB. John Banks—he resigned. Maurice Williamson—old Maurice. He resigned after being caught abusing his position to help a wealthy businessman avoid domestic violence charges. When that party over there is pointing the finger over at us that means there are three fingers pointing back at them. They know that they've got issues to hide.We also—no I won't go into that. There's a Minister that—rumours circulated around her treatment of staff in the last Parliament in the last Government. We know that media are aware of those issues and those allegations. That party over there—they know that we know. They need to be really careful about what they're saying about us over here because they've got skeletons in their closet as well. There are certainly double standards when it comes to the National Party.As I've said the Prime Minister—she was decisive. She heard about the allegations around Meka Whaitiri and within 24 hours she'd decided that there needed to be an investigation. That investigation occurred. It took a couple of weeks to happen. As soon as she found out and received the report and read the report within 24 hours she had made that decision to stand the Minister down from her duties. As I've said it was not something that she took lightly but as I've said the Prime Minister is compassionate. She is a firm but fair leader and it's fairness that was necessary in this case because you can't just go dumping people based on allegations. It's a matter of having a look at the facts at what's happening and then making your decisions from there.As we've heard from Amy Adams—she said that people will soon get sick and tired of certain things. Well let me say people are getting sick and tired of the National Party barking at every car. They bark at every single issue that's going on. They don't have a focus. They know that this Government is very very popular. They know that the work of the Minister of Finance is starting to show rewards. We've talked about the growth in GDP over the last quarter: it's more than what they expected—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could we focus on the debate please—could we focus on the debate please.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Yes sure Madam Deputy Speaker. They know that this Government is doing well. They know that the Prime Minister right now is showing her leadership skills across there in America representing New Zealand well. She's been a leader on that stage. The Prime Minister's showing leadership overseas. She's showing leadership domestically. She's a Prime Minister that we are all very proud of and she's shown her leadership mettle.Now some people think that leadership is all about waving the big stick and trying to talk tough and be tough but there are different forms of leadership and our Prime Minister shows that you can be compassionate you can be fair you can be just but you can still make the hard decisions when you need to and that is exactly what Jacinda Ardern has done. She's made the hard decisions. She's had to deal with this issue with former Minister Whaitiri. I was there in the office when she had the discussion.I'm sorry that's another thing that was raised by Amy Adams: talking about the Māori caucus. She talks about the Labour Māori caucus as if she's an authority on Māori issues as if she actually knows anything about what's happening in the Labour Māori caucus. Let me say: our Māori caucus is strong and one of the things we do is we stick to our tikanga and one of our tikanga is to stand up and support our people when they need our support. It doesn't mean to say we pass judgment. It doesn't mean to say we agree or disagree but we know in Māoridom that it's important to stand beside your people. It's important to be there just to hold them up just to help and that's how we were raised. That's a tikanga that we understand and we know and we don't have to justify to any member of Parliament from the Opposition who has absolutely no idea around tikanga Māori no idea around kaupapa Māori. She has absolutely no—and yet she's standing there in judgment of us.Quite frankly as Māori we're sick of people like herself standing up and judging us for the way we do things. We don't have to justify our tikanga and the way we operate to anybody least of all Amy Adams.Hon Member: Arrogant.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Oh arrogant? So now being Māori is being arrogant. You know just trying to be ourselves and operate in our space and the way we do things according to our customs to our tikanga—all of a sudden it's arrogant. Well that shows what the National Party—the way they think about Māoridom. That's the way the Māori who live in Hamilton—that's how they're treated by their members over there.Hon David Bennett: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That member made a reference to Hamilton and I never even made the comment that the member was talking about so I ask him to withdraw and apologise.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well he didn't actually—Hon David Bennett: He mentioned Hamilton and pointed at me.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. I was about to refer the member back to the topic of his speech but in fairness he did not refer to the actual member by name. But I would ask the Hon Kelvin Davis to stick to the topic. It has nothing to do with Hamilton and what Māori people who live in Hamilton might think.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: There was a reference to the Labour Māori caucus and the way that Amy Adams portrayed something—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually it's the Hon Amy Adams.Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The Hon Amy Adams portrayed something that she knows nothing about and then there was a comment made that talking about Māori issues and talking about the way that we as the Māori caucus support our people is arrogant. As soon as we stand up and start explaining our cultural norm our cultural perspectives and how we like to do things how we like to support our people how we supported Meka Whaitiri in her conversations with the Prime Minister all of a sudden it's called arrogance.Hon Gerry Brownlee: What about the victim? What about the Māori victim?Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Well there's the most Māori person in the National Party caucus who I believe was a woodwork teacher and now he's lecturing us and telling us how Māori have to operate.So as I've said the National Party again are barking at every car—and there's the Hon Gerry Brownlee barking. There are more barks over there than at your average Crufts dog show barking at every car. They have absolutely no idea about the way we operate in the Labour Party and the support that we gave to Meka Whaitiri as a Māori member of Parliament because our caucus our Māori caucus bases the way we act on tikanga and that tikanga that we displayed there was just to go and support her in a time of need and that's a very Māori way to do things.The topic of the conversation—in fact in terms of us talking with the Prime Minister about Meka's situation we were basically there to say We are there to support Meka Whaitiri as a person." and there's nothing dishonourable and nothing to hide around that. We were just there simply to support her as a colleague and as a person in a very very stressful time and that's something that we are very very proud of. For them to characterise it as anything else other than us being there to support a colleague is outrageous at the very least but again it just goes to show how little they know about the Māori things and we as Māori shouldn't have to justify the way we operate.As I've said the Prime Minister has been firm she has been fair and she has been decisive in dealing with our colleague Meka Whaitiri. She wanted Meka Whaitiri to be able to have her say which is natural justice. She wanted to see what the independent investigator had to say and then she made her decision based on the evidence that was put in front of her. There were some things that were contested; there were some things that were not contested. On the things that were not contested the Prime Minister made her decision to stand down Meka Whaitiri.Just as a final thought I'd just like to acknowledge—and I'll just quickly spin into Māori here: E mihi whānui atu ki te whānau o Meka Whaitiri mōhio ana mātou ngā taimahatanga kei runga i ōna pokowhiwhi ngā pokowhiwhi o te whānau. Ka tuku atu mātou ō mātou aroha ki a rātou i tēnei tāima taumaha nā reira huri rauna tēnā koutou katoa. [I broadly acknowledge the family of Meka Whaitiri we know of the burdens that she is shouldering that the family is shouldering. We send our love to them at this difficult time; therefore greetings to all of you here.]"