Brownlee Gerry: General Debates 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debates 
[Volume:607;Page:4977] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 We know that a Government is in severe trouble and on its way out the door when its members come down to the House on a Wednesday with a second-rate B team like that to try to smack the Opposition around. A proud Government that is supposed to have a proud record spends all its time talking about the Opposition. We know then that its time is up and it is on its way out. First the junior Minister Paul Swain stood up after having a whole morning—he does nothing else—to prepare a speech. He treated the House to the biggest load of irrelevance we have ever heard. Then we heard Trevor Mallard try to give us a lesson in how to instil unity in a caucus. 
The Labour Party has a big problem and it can basically be summed up by saying that this country is being led by a Prime Minister who is slippery devious and—to say the least—frequently reckless with the truth. This is a Prime Minister who behaves in an imperious manner sets herself as being aloof from normal people and wants to portray an image of being quite infallible. She is a Prime Minister who only apologises when she is caught. What a long list of incidents we now have where the Prime Minister has been caught! Let us go back to the “paintergate” scandal last year. 
Simon Power 
: That went well. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Yes that went well. The Prime Minister claimed that she had painted a painting that she had never been anywhere near. The Prime Minister then took what is commonly known as the “Homer Simpson” defence: “It wasn’t me I wasn’t there and it didn’t happen.” Did that work? No sooner or later she was found out. Then what did we get? Every MP was blamed for that sort of behaviour until that was proved wrong—right down to: “Perhaps one might have done it in the past” and then finally: “Well I have done it five times before and got away with it.” For someone who holds such a lead the Prime Minister is racking up a considerable amount of embarrassment for this country. There was the issue over the Alliance poll background. I do not want to go into that because I do not have a lot of time. I will go straight on to Ms Clark misleading the House over the Historic Places Trust. Other speakers might want to elaborate on that issue in a few minutes; I do not. There is the Clark apology for defaming the surgeon with my name Mr Joe Brownlee—a great fellow. She took him to bits refusing for a long time to acknowledge that what she had said was defamatory and was finally caught having to say that she was sorry. 
Then there is the genetic engineering inquiry into “corngate”—and what an amazing revelation the House received today. The Prime Minister who said “I will set new standards of accountability and appropriate behaviour from Government members” came into the House and said that her member Mr Cunliffe had behaved with a great deal of integrity by finally resigning from the select committee—where there might be a conflict of interest—6 months after the inquiry had begun. That is 6 months after he had been very active in preventing the public of this country from knowing the truth about that incident and 6 months since he had begun protecting the Prime Minister’s tail and trying not to allow any focus on the original letter. Do members remember the original letter the Prime Minister wrote? It was the letter that was apparently a mistake and for which she had to apologise—although officials got the blame. 
It seems to us that this Prime Minister is prepared to genuinely apologise only when it is for other people’s mistakes. That is why she gave an apology to the Chinese community for the poll tax. There was no problem there because it was nothing to do with her. It is also why she gave an apology to the Samoan community for the flu epidemic of the 1920s—that was nothing to do with her; she was not even born then. Then there was the apology to the gay community—and it is best if nothing is said about that. 
Let us move on to the issue of the day which is the Clark apology to the United States. It is an absolute embarrassment for a Prime Minister to start expressing opinions about what the internal politics of another nation might have looked like had there been a different result. That was a disgrace.