Upston Louise: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial ResignationText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeUpston Louise: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial Resignation[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17507. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): It is on a sad day today that I rise to speak in this debate. It is sad for a couple of reasons the first being of course that Maurice Williamson—who has to date given 27 years of service to the constituents in Pakuranga—has made a mistake. He has very clearly made a mistake he very quickly saw the error of his ways and he has paid the price for it—a very high price. I am proud as a member of his caucus and one of his parliamentary colleagues that he took swift action in acknowledging that.But what actually makes me more sad is what then happens in this House when a parliamentary colleague makes a mistake says so cops it on the chin and resigns from being a Minister. But then what do we descend into in this House? Led by the Opposition parties we then descend into the gutter. I actually want to reflect on comments that I will attribute to my colleague Chris Tremain. He basically said that if as a team you are unable to score points from your own success what do you resort to? You resort to all sorts of tactics where you play the person not the ball. That is why it is a sad day for me in the House today because I do not think that it is ever a good day for the New Zealand public to see this kind of display which is playing the person instead of playing the ball.I am quite surprised actually that it was led by the Greens. From a political perspective obviously they got in before Labour did. Labour was too busy sort of trying to work out its reshuffle and its realignment of players on its team with Shane Jones moving on to a better team. Then of course Trevor moves up to a better position but goes back literally within hours.I think the most appalling comment that came through today was the absolutely revolting and despicable comment from the speaker from the Green Party suggesting that anyone in this Parliament—anyone in this Parliament—would not do their utmost to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. That comment I think is an absolute disgrace. That more than anything has saddened me today. I think it is upsetting because instead this place descends into very personal attacks.I could stand here and I could list other Ministers in other Governments who have made mistakes wittingly or unwittingly and what has happened to them. But actually the New Zealand public are not interested in that. What they are interested in is the fact that we had a Minister who made a mistake he copped it on the chin and he has gone as a Minister. We have a Prime Minister who has very high standards for his Ministers. I think Nick Smith said that in 36 hours it was dealt with. But actually coming back to this whole point of the fact that Opposition members are not able to score points—they cannot score points in the real game and the real game is actually focusing on the things that matter to hard-working New Zealanders such as the things we are doing with the Budget next week the things that we are doing in terms of improving access to health care for hard-working New Zealanders and for raising achievement in our schools.But the most significant area in this debate today is in keeping our communities safer because the very Minister whom they are gloating about today is the Minister who got $26 million worth of P off the streets of New Zealand. I think the sort of thing that New Zealanders judge their Government on is the results. This side of the House this Government is delivering results.I will not take much more time but I do want to finish on the results that also matter to hard-working New Zealanders and they are in the area of the work that this side of the House has done on protecting very vulnerable victims. It is this side of the House that put police safety orders in place which immediately protect women and children who are under threat from domestic violence. So it is absolutely abhorrent to me to hear the sorts of comments that came from the Greens this afternoon in this House. I am enormously proud of the results that this side of the House has achieved in terms of lowering crime rates—the lowest rates in 30 years—and in particular the work we have done on protecting victims such as victims’ notification victims’ protection the victims’ offenders levy and we have put money into preventing sexual violence. We have done more than any Government previously has done in the space of domestic violence.It is a sad day in this House but sad for the reasons that we descend into the gutter with the Opposition speakers on a day like today instead of acknowledging the results and focusing on the results that this Government has achieved and will continue to achieve.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.