Carter David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Carter David: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1166] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 One would have hoped—certainly my colleagues and I would have hoped—that we might have got the former Minister of Commerce on his feet to talk about the real issues that face this country and the real challenges that face the economy. Instead of that we had a 10-minute diatribe with the same theme we have had from every Labour member of Parliament who has taken part in this debate so far. 
A real stench is developing around this Government—a horrible horrible smell—as it lurches from one scandal to another. We had evidence of it briefly on television last night at 6 o’clock. There was a story from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade about a niece of Winston Peters who had obviously bypassed all protocols within the ministry and gone straight to the media to make some rather extravagant claims about spending on a diplomatic home in Taiwan. The issue is not whether the expenditure was unapproved; the issue is whether the niece of Winston Peters has any right to discuss Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade matters in that way. And where was the Minister of Foreign Affairs on that issue? He was shown on TV last night running from the TV cameras. Winston Peters who is not known for running from TV cameras very often is now developing the same tactic as every other member of the Government. 
But that scandal pales into insignificance compared with the one that has been debated day after day more recently. That is the revelation of Helen Clark taking $440000 of taxpayers’ money to print her pledge card which bears a photograph that looks a little like her. It is certainly a card that has her signature—a card she said she accepted full responsibility for. That matter has now been referred to the police. 
The amazing thing about the Prime Minister of this country is how many times she has been referred to the police. How many? Is it once or twice? No it is three times. In 2002 we had the “paintergate” scandal when the Prime Minister Helen Clark forged a painting. The police investigated and stated categorically that there was a prima facie case for her to answer but for some reason which the police and only the police should be able to explain but which they have never been able to explain they decided not to prosecute. That was just the first time that Helen Clark had been in trouble with the police and the next time was “speedgate”. Last year on the main south road in Canterbury her car travelled at speeds of up to 170 kilometres an hour. Six people were charged five of them being police officers. All of them were carrying out the orders of the Prime Minister Helen Clark but she was not called to account. Now we have the third time. She is before the police again with serious questions being asked about the expenditure of public taxpayer money. 
Those sorts of debates are unacceptable to this country. The very least the Prime Minister should do is stand up in Parliament acknowledge she got it wrong acknowledge she breached the Electoral Act—if not in law certainly in spirit—and pay that money back. She has her mates. She keeps talking about the National Party’s association with the Exclusive Brethren but never about her association with the trade union movement of this country—the movement that takes massive amounts of union fees from New Zealanders compulsorily thanks to a law put through this House helped by Ross Wilson of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. That money has the ability to find its way back into Labour Party coffers and I am sure it does. Helen Clark should use some of that money to pay back the taxpayer money she has expropriated. 
It is enough to make me recall Jim Anderton saying only yesterday: “Give me a break!”. Talking about Jim Anderton I say that the people of New Zealand have given that person a tremendous break. What a bizarre choice to give that man the portfolio of Minister of Agriculture but the farmers of New Zealand have said that they will give him a chance. They will see whether he has any empathy with the issues that face the farming community. 
Jim Anderton’s first big test was on the access of New Zealand apples into Australia. I would have expected that he would be enthusiastic about progressing that case for New Zealand apple growers so I asked him some parliamentary questions on how many emails letters and phone contacts he had had with Peter McGauran the Minister for Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry in Australia. I expected that bundles of correspondence would have flown back and forth. We found out that there was one letter of correspondence between the Australian Minister and the New Zealand Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton. When I further investigated that one letter I was amazed to find out that it was not from Jim Anderton expressing any concern for New Zealand apple growers; it was a letter from Peter McGauran to Jim Anderton congratulating him on his appointment. That is the only correspondence between the two Ministers. In other words Jim Anderton had made no contact and no effort at all to represent the concerns of New Zealand apple growers. That message has not been lost on New Zealand farmers. 
We face some major issues. Before the last election Helen Clark had her favoured idea of opening up private land to public access. The voters of New Zealand displayed their complete dislike of that legislation. The National Party took every provincial and rural seat in the last election and it was over that issue. But that issue still bubbles away. A consultation panel meets—I think it has met about four or five times—but Helen Clark has not given up on her determination to take away the property rights of private landowners in this country and open their land up to the public. At the same time the Department of Conservation continues to grab more and more of New Zealand and one of the first actions it takes is to close the conservation estate to access by New Zealanders. So that is another issue. 
The next issue that Jim Anderton has been completely silent on is the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) levy increase announced just before Christmas. Self-employed New Zealand farmers now pay 140 percent more in premiums for on-farm accidents. That sort of level of increase is just unacceptable to the New Zealand farming sector. We had a meeting last night with Meat and Wool New Zealand and members of that industry told us that two of the reasons for the dramatic fall in the lamb schedule were Government charges in the form of the ACC levy and changes to the Employment Relations Act. So those concerns need to be addressed by Jim Anderton. 
I want to touch on the issue of rural crime because we note that Damien O’Connor has now invented a new policy of “catch and release”. The Government is going to get tough on criminals: it will catch them put them in jail and then give them a key and tell them that how long they stay there is a voluntary matter. That is unacceptable to most New Zealanders. Phil Goff Damien O’Connor and other members of the Labour Party need to be honest and come clean about their policy on crime in this country. 
The final issue that needs resolving and resolving urgently is that of the Kyoto Protocol. Helen Clark ratified the protocol without any notion at all about how that would actually reduce emissions in this country. The Government came up with another tax—the carbon tax—and then dropped it after realising how stupid it was. It was about as stupid as the “fart tax”. The Government now has no solutions at all to something that at this stage will cost New Zealand taxpayers at least $600 million in the first commitment period. 
So I say that those are the challenges that Labour and in particular the Minister of Agriculture ought to be taking the time to accept and to do something about.