Peters Winston: General Debates 
Peters Winston: General Debates 
[Volume:617;Page:12861] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The injustices and underhanded double-dealing in the sale of the Paraparaumu Airport in 1995 are scandalous and something has to be done now—better than never—so that we do have one law for everybody. This is a combination of bureaucratic incompetence and calculated manipulation by merchants of greed and one more National Government - supervised land theft. 
The saga began with the compulsory acquisition of mainly Maori-owned land in 1939 under the Public Works Act to build an alternative to the Wellington airport. Since that time a litany of shonky deals and blatant abuses of power have seen local Maori and other citizens ripped off. Under a National administration in 1995 Maori were denied the opportunity to take back possession of the land which had been grabbed from them in 1939. In the 1990s the National Government decided to sell Paraparaumu Airport and through a series of shonky tender processes a group of Kapiti property speculators and developers Murray Cole Bill Doak Michael Mainey and David Haywood in cahoots with Ernst and Young grabbed it for a bargain-basement price. These business people lied to the select committee about their real intentions. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who was the Minister? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The National Party all by itself was in power—and no one else is going to take responsibility for that. 
A Maori claim over the land was ignored and the Maori who wanted their land back were literally told to go to hell. Ernst and Young which was controlling the process for the Ministry of Transport did accounting work for one of the successful tenderers advising him of tax matters on running the airport and in fact they were listed on the tender document. That is a massive and clear conflict of interest. On Ernst and Young’s recommendation the Ministry of Transport sold the land for $1.6 million—the whole airport—when another valuation said it was worth at least $3.5 million. Those business people have now been subdividing the land and selling blocks for housing and commercial developments. That is not surely an airport purpose and they are making a killing while the original owners get shafted. They have made on one subdivision alone a clear million dollars already—almost half the price has already been made on one minor subdivision. 
Who was in Government at the time? Well the people on the National benches did this and now they want to be of all things in Government again. Who was the local member? It was Roger Sowry. Who was the Minister of Transport at the time? It was a National man. 
Richard Worth 
: Roger Sowry is a good man. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh I see. Here is the party that demands there be one law for everybody and that says Maori are getting far too good a deal when here locally Maori have been totally ripped off. When those members had a chance to uphold the law—the first offer back should have been to Maori—they utterly ignored it. This is hardly a group of politicians who are entitled to be back on the Treasury benches not by themselves anyway—that would be a fearsome sight—with a leader who cannot find the parliamentary toilets or remember what he said 4 months ago on something as important as a group of American senators discussing foreign policy with him. 
New Zealand First believes that a full inquiry is justified and now. And if we are to have one law for everyone then let us have it now—a law where the issues of fairness are paramount regardless of race. I am expecting National Party members to join this call because that is what they have been ranting and raving about around the country for the last 3 or 4 months. Let us have one law for all. Let us ensure that those rightful owners are restored to their position and not have a few people close to the National Party getting away with hell. 
I want to know in this inquiry who was involved politically. I want these people on oath to tell us what the background scene was because this stinks to high heaven and the sooner we sort it out the better we will be as a cohesive country. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.