Cosgrove Clayton: General Debate 
Cosgrove Clayton: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15062] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 As I am wont to do from time to time I have looked around the old  
Collins English Dictionary 
. My colleague Mr Cunliffe has a penchant for quoting definitions so I took up the challenge. I wanted to find out the definition of the word that is used by media about an individual: “slippery”. I am allowed to quote from the  
Collins English Dictionary 
. I do not think there is a Standing Order that prevents me from doing that. The definition of “slippery” is “liable to slip from the grasp a position … not to be relied upon; …  
a slippery character 
. … liable to change; unstable.  
the slippery slope 
 … a course of action that may lead to disaster or failure;”—and my personal favourite—“cunning and untrustworthy.” That is the  
Collins English Dictionary 
 definition of the word. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would refer you to Speaker’s ruling 41/3 and in particular to the point about implication. I think we all know what the honourable member is trying to imply. I suggest that we will be in for months of disorder in this Chamber if this tone of debate continues. Mr Assistant Speaker I invite you to look at that Speaker’s ruling and to consider carefully whether Labour members speaking in the debate today are indeed making an implication about a member. We know the member to whom they are referring. I invite your ruling but I say that if this continues then things will get very hot in this Chamber for months to come. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I have not referred to anybody by name; I simply read out a definition. If I am wrong then I will heed your ruling Mr Assistant Speaker but I would be grateful if you could point out where in the Standing Orders it states that one cannot refer to something out of an innocent and benign document such as the  
Collins English Dictionary 
. If we are about to rule out anybody referring to a dictionary definition of a word simply because that member over there—pedantic though he is—does not like it then I think we are in serious trouble. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: The key point here is the point of implication. Although the honourable member says that he is not referring to a member by name but just to a dictionary quotation if we look at Speaker’s ruling 41/3 we see that the key point in that ruling is that there is an implication. There is a clear implication being drawn by the continued reference to terms in dictionaries about a specific word. Members opposite are trying to draw an implication about the leader of the National Party and I warn you Mr Assistant Speaker that things will get pretty hot if they continue to do so. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. I have looked at Speaker’s ruling 41/3 and it does not state anything about implication; it is referring to something else. But I caution the member on my right who is speaking because it is an imputation. Members cannot get around the rules against unparliamentary language by a circumlocution and that is what the member is trying to do. I ask the member to be very careful because it leads to disorder. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I also want to give another quote. I hope we will not rule out the Bible because going back—as Mr Swain reminded me—to our joint Catholic roots I am reminded of the Book of Proverbs 26:11. I hope that we are not going to rule out the holy book but National members might have a crack at doing that. The proverb states: “As a dog returneth to his vomit so a fool returneth to his folly.” Today we have concentrated on and seen the proverbial return to his foolishness time after time. We have seen National members opposite who have flip-flopped back-flipped um and ah’d tripped belched and done a few other things I suspect to try to prevent themselves from answering any particular question. 
Let us look at the record on KiwiSaver. We did not rule out the good book; that is great. The National Party and Mr Key—whom the media have referred to by various guises and various names but I will not use them out of politeness towards the member opposite’s sensitivity—voted against KiwiSaver 40 times. They said: “It is a terribly designed system.” Then Mr Key said that National would keep KiwiSaver if it was in Government. 
Then not 24 hours ago the other conga eel of the National Party Mr English said that National may tinker with the people’s pension scheme—that is KiwiSaver—but National is so smart so smug and so arrogant that its plan is to not tell people now so they can scrutinise what it will do. Oh no he put a bit of petroleum jelly round that one. He said in a smug and arrogant way that National will tell the people what it plans to do with the people’s KiwiSaver scheme if it becomes Government at 5 minutes before midnight before election day. What is the plan? 
I have to tell those geniuses over there that the communities are not silly or stupid. If National members think they can slip their policy under the carpet 5 minutes before election day and that people will not scrutinise it and know what their plan is then the members on that side of the House are very ignorant and silly people. 
Then we have the other one which is Mr Key’s comments about wanting to raise Government debt. But of course Mr English on the other hand—using a conga eel routine again—slides out of that one. Mr Key has called for a raising of Government debt to 25 percent of GDP even though it is 20 percent today and it was 35 percent under the previous National Government. He called for it in a Scoop interview on 16 June 2006 but then Mr English came out in the  
Press 
 on 8 March 2008 and said that raising Crown debt to 25 percent of GDP “has never been one of our policies”. Yet not last week I think Newstalk ZB caught him with the proverbials round the ankles in political terms. He said: “We have always said that we have a credible programme of tax cuts which we phase in to match macroeconomic conditions ah we have always said we aren’t that worried about um whether the Crown needs to borrow a bit of money.” 
I ask members to tell me whether a bit of crude oil has not been applied to some of these arguments. The old stunned mullet over there is now very quiet. It is the old routine about the turkey with its head cut off. Those members should try to tell me whether a bit of the crude oil has not been applied. But you see the people and the communities are not silly. They know about the weasel words; they know that Mr Key and Mr English talk out of both sides of the mouth. What the people want is for them to up the ante. “Old Smug” is over there grinning away like a Cheshire cat. I challenge the old cigar smoker over there to get on his hind legs and tell us what they will do and to allow people the privilege of challenging and scrutinising their policy.