Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:628;Page:731] 
1. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in all her Ministers; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: Yes. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is she satisfied that Mr Benson-Pope has not misled the House the media or the public by releasing the highly selective analysis of his police file and refusing to reconcile conflicting statements about it; if so is she concerned that public opinion and newspaper editorials continue to call for his resignation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That question raises issues that have already been dealt with in the House. The Government of course considers very carefully newspaper editorials but does not always follow them slavishly. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Why has she continued to have confidence in her Minister of Education Steve Maharey given numerous claims from New Zealand Qualifications Authority markers that they are being forced secretly to re-mark National Certificate of Educational Achievement exams and push students up to pass grades in order to come up with results that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority finds politically palatable? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Because the processes being followed are the standard processes outlined including check marking and no amount of repetition of a small number of complaints from Mr English will change the facts of the case. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Winston Peters who first called the  
New Zealand Herald  
“treasonous” for daring to disagree with him— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Who called out please? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I did not say anything other than that they were telling straight bare lies as they did again in this morning’s paper. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry but that is not a point of order. I will remind members once in this sitting and for the last time because more than one voice called out then that when members are asking questions or raising points of order they are to be heard in silence. That is the final warning. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Winston Peters who first called the  
New Zealand Herald 
 “treasonous” for daring to disagree with him— 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Could you remind the member that the honourable member’s title is the Rt Hon Winston Peters and that he should be addressed appropriately? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for that comment. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does the Prime Minister have confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs the Rt Hon Winston Peters who first called the  
New Zealand Herald  
“treasonous” for daring to disagree with him and then after quite specifically being told by the Prime Minister to get over it continued to attack the  
New Zealand Herald’s  
political editor stating that her comments in an article were “baseless false and without any merit whatsoever”; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Because if Ministers or indeed members were to have to resign because they described some comments in some media as baseless and false not many of us would last more than about a day or two in this place. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Why does the Prime Minister have confidence in her Minister of Health the Hon Pete Hodgson who has demonstrated to this House several times in the past month that he does not have a grasp on the major public health issue which is the looming avian flu epidemic? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member must have an extraordinarily excellent crystal ball if he knows what nobody else does which is that we are actually going to have a flu pandemic. Possibly the Exclusive Brethren included it with his special issue of their election propaganda. However unlike members opposite the Minister of Health has not made the mistake of thinking Tamiflu is a vaccine that will prevent the avian flu from occurring. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Prime Minister think it is reasonable to express a significant degree of frustration at a columnist who claimed that there was virtually a bilateral meeting with Condoleezza Rice the US Secretary of State when it did not happen—and four witnesses told her it did not—and then just yesterday described a meeting— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Sit down sunshine—I am talking.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would both members please sit down. The matter raised by the member in his supplementary question was out of order. The question must relate to the primary question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: In relation to the primary question of confidence in one’s Ministers does the Prime Minister regard it is a matter of significant frustration when a journalist knowingly reports information that did not happen claiming it to be information because she is some sort of expert; describes a meeting that did not take place as being virtually an attempt to persuade some country on a trade issue; then states in yesterday’s paper that two things happened: first an attempt to diffuse tensions which did not happen at all and second that I described myself as the “new boy on the block” which I demonstrably palpably am not as she would know if she looked at the Foreign Minister of Japan? It is that sort of nonsense that causes me to ask why she bothers to report. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Although I accept that the member might look like the new boy on the block in fact he is almost the same age as I am and certainly is not. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does the Prime Minister continue to have confidence in the Minister of Finance the Hon Dr Michael Cullen whose big-spending Budgets have according to the OECD Treasury and the Reserve Bank helped to push up inflation in the economy thereby contributing to nine successive interest rate increases since the beginning of last year? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If the member reads Reserve Bank publications as carelessly as he has obviously read the latest one I hate to think how carelessly he wrote the ones he was responsible for. 
Dr Don Brash 
: I seek leave to table the latest Monetary Policy Statement from the Reserve Bank which highlights the nine successive increases in interest rates that have occurred since the beginning of last year which have taken the official cash rate to its highest level on record. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is.