Smith Nick: General Debates 
Smith Nick: General Debates 
[Volume:619;Page:14618] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I now know why Helen Clark sacked that Minister as Minister for Biosecurity sacked that Minister as Minister of Broadcasting and now has sidelined that Minister from her responsibilities for the Resource Management Act. She is such a joke. 
But I want to talk about what really has New Zealanders laughing and that is the amazing speech made by John Tamihere in which he said it is now OK to be a red-blooded heterosexual male and the amazing speech made by Trevor Mallard who said that all New Zealanders are indigenous. That just shows how desperate this Government has become; it shows that it is on the rocks. Government members have done their polling. They know they are in trouble. They know they are going down the gurgler so Mr Mallard and Mr Tamihere are trying to save a sinking ship. Their problem is that New Zealanders can smell a con a mile away. Helen Clark and her cronies decried the speech that Don Brash gave at Orewa and now 6 months later Trevor Mallard is giving the same speech although without the finesse and certainly without the style. Sending Trevor Mallard to patch up race relations is a bit like sending Dick Cheney to a peace conference on Iraq. The whole Mallard speech was a desperate sham. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member should use the member’s full name. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: He said that all New Zealanders are indigenous. I have a question for Mr Mallard: is he going to change the Health Act the Local Government Act and the Resource Management Act? Of course not. Those members are just kidding. They are speaking with forked tongues. Trevor Mallard is out there telling one story to Pakeha New Zealanders while Parekura Horomia and Dover Samuels are telling a very different story to Maori. Just what is the Government’s approach? Nobody is to know. All we know is that it has a set of PC policies on the one hand and on the other hand it is trying to scoop up the anti-PC vote with the speeches from the likes of Mr Tamihere and Mr Mallard. 
Then we had John Tamihere’s speech. It speaks volumes about how PC this Government has become when a Minister of the Crown has to stand up and say it is OK to be heterosexual—after he has had the permission of the Prime Minister. John Tamihere told us that all this PC stuff has gone too far but my question is where was John Tamihere when all the PC legislation was passed. I do not remember his getting to his feet and arguing that any of that was wrong which he would have done if he were a real man. His statements about the Family Court were even more extraordinary. He said that the Family Court is anti-men that it is opposed to males. Is it not interesting that if an Opposition member criticises the Family Court that member gets frogmarched over to the High Court and charged with contempt but if one is a Government Minister criticising the Family Court it is OK? 
The problem with ”Johnny-come-lately” over these issues is that he cannot have it both ways. He cannot be a Minister in the most PC Government that New Zealand has ever had then pretend that he wants to join the forces of opposition and cry foul. Mr Mallard cannot be a senior Minister imposing all sorts of new and special legal rights for Maori as indigenous people then hop around the country and say: “We are all indigenous.” Those two speeches show how divided and had-it this Government is. Trevor Mallard is saying one thing and Parekura Horomia and Dover Samuels are saying something else. It is a Government that is not prepared to defend its record. Trevor Mallard is not prepared to defend the Government’s record on race relations. John Tamihere is not prepared to defend the politically correct record of this Government. We see that when it comes to the crunch they do not have the courage to stand up for the legislation this Government has been trying to pass. 
What they are trying to do is steal the clothes of the Opposition because they know that the values we stand for are those of New Zealanders. Those members have abandoned principle; they have abandoned defending what their Government has ever done so desperate are they to cling to power. The voters see this fraud. They know that what John Tamihere and Trevor Mallard have to say has no substance and that is why this Government will go.