Mallard Trevor: Urgent Debates — Budget Advertising Programme—Report of Auditor-General 
Mallard Trevor: Urgent Debates — Budget Advertising Programme—Report of Auditor-General 
[Volume:619;Page:15345] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Is it not ironic that the second person—and I will give him some credit because he is the first live person to give a speech for the National Party today— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am disappointed that I have to raise this matter with you but clearly the Minister is halfway through making a reflection on the leader of the National Party who spoke earlier in the debate. I want you to ask yourself whether you should ask the Minister to desist from that line. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is a matter for debate. I cannot know what the member will say. If that should occur then it is something that the Speaker will look at. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I agree with Mr Speaker. It is a matter for debate as to whether the previous speaker from the National Party was alive. It was a pathetic— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: You can’t call someone dead! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it is really important that the member stays and listens to me because let us remember he was the person who caused the Cabinet rules to be written. He was the person who was caught with his hand in the taxpayers’ jar taking big wads of advertising cash out and putting it into his mates’ pockets. Who did that? Then we think about the Tourism Board. Do members remember that scandal? Who was responsible for that? It was Murray McCully who has the cheek to come here to the House—although as I said he did give a better speech than the Leader of the Opposition. At some stage the Opposition will give up having puppets in the job and have the puppeteer there instead. 
I want to get back to the essence of the debate. I do want to refer again to Mr McCully and to an area that he had responsibility for which was housing policy. I want to refer to the accommodation supplement. I ask members whether they can remember the percentage of people in work who were eligible for the supplement that got it after the advertising programme on the scale that the National Party gave it. Do people remember? Was it 80 percent? No it was not. Was it 50 percent? No it was not. Was it 25 percent? It was 19 percent. More than four out of five people who were eligible for an accommodation supplement and who were in work did not get it. They were poor people who did not respond very well to a flier in the letterbox with all due respect to our friend from United Future. 
I want to make it clear that this money is designed to make an enormous difference to the poorer people in New Zealand. Often they have jobs although some of them are beneficiaries. It is designed to lift their incomes and for many of them especially those with children to lift them out of the poverty trap they have been in. I can tell members that the best way to create awareness around that is not by writing to those people. 
Brian Connell 
: What a boring speech. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is not a matter of writing them a letter. I hear the intellect from— 
Brian Connell 
: Is this member alive? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Asperger’s syndrome? Is that the member’s problem? The member from Rakaia is interjecting. People in his electorate are disgusted with their representation. They are disgusted with people who say that poor people should not be allowed to have a bit of extra cash for their kids and that they should not find out about it. Those people from Rakaia who know they have a new member of Parliament—most of them think the member is still Jenny Shipley—are very very disappointed in Brian Connell. At least when Shane Ardern drove a tractor up the front steps of Parliament people from his electorate knew there was a new member of Parliament. It took 5 years but they knew he was here. In the case of Brian Connell no one from Rakaia has worked that out yet. 
 I will make a serious comment and I do this with some care because it is not my practice generally to criticise Officers of Parliament. But I think that parts of the Auditor-General’s letter are frankly shoddy. I think his suggestion that there should have been a breach of Budget secrecy and that the nature and size of the target audience should have been described to persons outside the Government is wrong. In my view to breach Budget secrecy on something of this scale before a Budget is announced would be wrong. I know that was the practice of the previous Government but this Government has higher standards than that. [ 
Interruption 
] There is Nick Smith the member who says he did not come to Parliament to shag spiders. He has obviously had a bit of a problem since he has been here. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The phrase that the member has chosen to use—he does not like interjections about his speech—is not appropriate language to use in Parliament and I would ask you to consider that. I think that the term “shag” is not appropriate language to use in Parliament and I think you should give careful consideration to that sort of contribution from that grubby member. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker those words are a direct quote from Nick Smith. I offer to table the  
North and South 
 article in which Nick Smith says words to the effect that he did not come to Parliament to shag spiders. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You will recall that at the start of this parliamentary session a similar ruling was called for in respect of a word that was ruled unparliamentary—it was a word in that case as opposed to a phrase in this case. At the time a member of the National Party put the case to the Speaker that because the word was a quote from a document the member could not be held accountable for the coarseness or otherwise of that language. My recollection is that at the time that word was ruled out of order despite the fact that it was a direct quote. I would ask you to apply the same standard with regard to the matter raised by my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say to the member that quoted material should be as free of unparliamentary language as the member’s own words as is referred to in Standing Order 115. I ask the member to come to the point. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The point I am making is that this Government is spending $21 billion— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: On trying to win the election. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We will win the election anyway. The member is giving the leader advice. We will clearly win. Even though as the member says he has a certain relationship with the Leader of the Opposition— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What is he implying there? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am not using the exact word for the activity that the member indulged in because I am not allowed to use it. Even though he has a particular relationship with the Leader of the Opposition—I think the member would have been safer had I been allowed to quote him but I was not allowed to do so. 
This Government is spending $21 billion on poorer people. About 1 percent of that will be spent on explaining to them how they can get their money. What can be wrong with that? 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.