Hipkins Chris: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: General Debate[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16083. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): You can see the desperation and hysteria setting in on the other side of the House. This is a Government whose members have become used to the ministerial BMWs and their leather seats and to the ministerial houses and they do not want to give them up—they do not want to give them up. They can see them slipping away and as they can see that the hysteria grows—the hysteria grows on the other side of the House and the desperation grows.You can see how desperate they are simply by looking at whom they are reliant upon and whom they are willing to do deals with. They will do deals with anyone if it improves their chances of holding on to the ministerial BMWs and the Treasury benches. They are willing to deal with that twice-convicted criminal John Banks. They are quite willing to take his vote. They are willing to make a Minister out of somebody who leaked Government information. What did John Key say about him less than a year ago? Less than a year ago John Key said: “I want to believe him.” He was talking about Peter Dunne. He said: “I want to believe him but the inquiry doesn’t rule him out.” He used that as the justification at the time for accepting Peter Dunne’s resignation as a Minister. There is a simple question that John Key has yet to answer: what has changed? What has changed?Peter Dunne has repeatedly been given opportunities in this House to deny that he leaked the report and he has repeatedly refused to take those opportunities. Why is that? Why is it that Peter Dunne will not stand up and say that he did not leak theKitteridge report? Why is it that John Key thinks that someone who leaked confidential Government information to a journalist is an appropriate person to have as a Minister? There is a simple answer: he is desperate. He desperately wants Peter Dunne’s vote he desperately wants to stay in Government and he will deal with anyone in the process. He is quite happy to do a deal. There will be a cup of tea deal coming with Colin Craig that homophobic misogynist who I do not think has any role in this Parliament. He wants to ban unisex toilets. That will be part of the Government’s agenda if Colin Craig gets his way in a future National Government. But John Key is quite happy to deal with him. He is quite happy to deal with anyone as long as it keeps him in Government.This is a Government and a Prime Minister that have completely lost their moral compass. There was a time when John Key did stand up and rule some lines in the sand around whom he would and would not deal with—but that is all out the window. It has all gone out the window now as long as he can stay Prime Minister. It does not matter whom he is going to deal with. As long as he can stay Prime Minister John Key will do a deal with anyone.I listened before to one of those National members over there talking about fiscal responsibility. It was Jacqui Dean the one who wants to ban water. She was talking about fiscal responsibility. I will tell you what I will not take a lecture from the National Government about fiscal responsibility. This is a Government that will leave as its legacy at the end of this term of Parliament the biggest debt in New Zealand’s history. Let me say that again: this Government has clocked up the biggest Government debt in New Zealand’s history. It is bigger than Muldoon’s. At the end of 6 years National will leave a debt for future generations of New Zealanders that will be even bigger than the debt that Rob Muldoon managed to clock up. That will be this Government’s legacy to New Zealand.I will not take lectures on fiscal responsibility from that Government because we know that the last Labour Government left New Zealand with a Crown debt that was net zero—none. The debt was gone. The last Labour Government paid it off and in a short space of time—in the 6 years that National will have been in power—it has managed to clock up the biggest debt in New Zealand’s history. National members are in no position to be lecturing anyone about fiscal responsibility.And of course we know that they have got their priorities all wrong. Take education. They want to spend more money on charter schools than they are willing to put into the State school system. That is simply wrong. They are quite happy to plough money into the ideological experiment that is charter schools as part of their desperate deal with John Banks and the ACT Party but they are not willing to put that level of funding and that level of support into our existing public school system. That is wrong and it is simply another example of how this Government is willing to do a deal.It is that desperate to stay in Government that it is willing to do a deal with anyone. There is no principle behind this Government’s decision making—no principle no moral compass. It is just simply doing whatever it takes to stay in Government. That is the John Key mantra. Whatever it takes to stay in Government John Key is willing to do it. And of course we know he is getting his advice from Cameron Slater. This is the guy who thinks it is OK to make fun of children dying—to make fun of children dying. John Key rings him up all the time because he thinks he has “great insights”. Those were John Key’s words. He thinks Cameron Slater the guy who makes fun of dead kids has got great insights that are useful for the Prime Minister. How demeaning to the office of Prime Minister for him to be ringing up someone like Cameron Slater on a regular basis to ask for advice. He should be ashamed of himself. He should be ashamed of the type of people whom he is willing to associate with.I think New Zealanders should be able to expect better from their Prime Minister than that. I think John Key should have more respect for the job and the office that he holds than that. Clearly he does not. He is simply willing to do a deal with anyone as long as he remains Prime Minister. He is willing to talk to anyone as long as he remains Prime Minister.Of course this is not a Prime Minister who has had a particularly honest or robust relationship with the truth in the past. Let us not forget about the Tranz Rail shares where John Key deliberately tried to mislead New Zealanders about the number of Tranz Rail shares he had or about him appointing his childhood friend—what’s-his-name Fletcher—as the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau andthen pretending he did not know anything about it. They get memory loss over there on that side of the House every time they are confronted with something that is a little bit inconvenient. There is the whole Kim Dotcom saga and John Key’s and John Banks’ memory lapses. Every time there is something—