Hide Rodney: Urgent Debates — Ministerial Resignation—Member for TamakiMakaurau 
Hide Rodney: Urgent Debates — Ministerial Resignation—Member for TamakiMakaurau 
[Volume:621;Page:16536] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 What a difference a day makes to Helen Clark! Do members remember what occurred yesterday in the House? How many times did Helen Clark get up and say the Government was going to have due process and would not make a decision until all the facts were in? She was not going to decide anything she said until she had consulted with senior people and until the Doug White report came in. And then what happened? Helen Clark had a day from hell answering questions about John Tamihere. She put distance between herself and him and the next day she accepted his resignation. She did not have to accept his resignation. What about due process? What about getting the facts in? What about the Doug White report? Helen Clark sacrificed John Tamihere; she accepted his resignation. She said very carefully that she had had nothing to do with his putting in his resignation but we know that her people were talking to him. They told him that the deal was that if he resigned sat quietly on the back bench like a good Maori Labour MP and voted for the Foreshore and Seabed Bill he may be back as a Minister. We know one thing: John Tamihere will not be back. I do not believe that he can even stand as a candidate for the Labour Party. 
Let us see what Helen Clark has been saying. She called it honour; she called it setting standards. What do we know about Mr John Tamihere thus far? I am not worried about what he did when he was 5; I am interested in what he did when he was 35. When John Tamihere was 35 he forged two signatures and then as a lawyer witnessed them as being accurate. Why? He did it to obtain $160000 of taxpayers’ money for a trust that he was running. There is no question about it. He turned up at the Auckland District Court pleaded guilty to that and then got a section 17 discharge and full name suppression. Bob Harvey and Dr Pita Sharples were there saying what a great guy he was. Forgery and uttering did not matter. Helen Clark has told Parliament she knew about that in 1995 but it was OK to be a forger and an utterer and to be a candidate for the Labour Party and a Cabinet Minister. We can see why that is: because the Prime Minister forged a painting. I did not see her stand down while that matter was investigated either. 
Now we know something else about the standards of the Labour Party. We know that it is OK for a member to say when campaigning that he is not going to take a golden handshake—that he has been offered it but that he is not going to take it—to win support for that and then when elected to rush around and knock on the back door of the Waipareira Trust to ask for the money. That is what happened. The Waipareira Trust which receives taxpayers’ money for the poor and downtrodden—whom Labour members like David Cunliffe pretend they represent—had to sell $115000 worth of assets in order to pay John Tamihere his golden handshake. He took $195000 and then said he had no idea that there may be some tax to pay on it. What is the tax going to be? It will be socked to the Waipareira Trust too and it will probably sink the trust. We know that the amount was $195000 net and $320000 gross. The difference has to be paid plus the penalties and the interest so we are looking at over $200000 in tax. Does Labour care about that? No. 
Then we found out that John Tamihere was using the Waipareira Trust to pay for his campaign and did not put that on his electoral return. Why? If people had known that they would have been appalled and outraged so John Tamihere did not put on his electoral return the fact that the Waipareira Trust had spent $18000 on getting him elected. He hid that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: That is required by law. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: It is required by law as Mr Peters called out. Indeed I asked the Serious Fraud Office whether it would be fraud if there was a false electoral return and David Bradshaw said it would be. How did that happen? What did Helen Clark say? She said it was OK; there were new standards and it was a matter of honour—“To err is human to forgive divine.” So Mr Tamihere is human and Helen Clark is divine floating above us all and deciding on justice. We have learnt that it is OK to be a fraudster OK to forge documents OK to utter documents in order to obtain taxpayers’ money OK to tell the public one thing and do the other OK not to pay one’s tax and OK not to fill in one’s electoral return as required by the law. That is the standard this Government has set. I hope the public of New Zealand sees through Helen Clark and the falsities that she has put around. 
We have heard from John Tamihere. The Waipareira Trust did not just pay his electoral expenses; it paid for him while he campaigned for Labour. When he was questioned about that what did he say? He said that someone had to pay his mortgage and feed his kids. That is the standard of Helen Clark: taxpayers’ money went into the Waipareira Trust to help the poor and downtrodden and that money was diverted into funding John Tamihere’s campaign and paying him while he campaigned. John Tamihere knew that was wrong. How do we know that? We know that because he did not put it on his electoral return. It starts to add up. What did he come out with then? What did that great blokes’ bloke that red-blooded male that non-PC Maori MP for the Labour Party—the man who would not stand up for cultural excuses—come up with as his excuse? He said it was koha. He said the Waipareira Trust had offered him the $195000 as a cultural gift and it would have been culturally offensive for him to turn it down. And Helen Clark finds nothing the matter with that! The truth is that John Tamihere was rattling every cage at the Waipareira Trust to get his $195000. That is what we know. That man who had pleaded guilty to forging and uttering filled out his electoral return wrongly took money that he said he would not take and filled in his ministerial return as being nil. He was wandering around west Auckland with $195000 in his pocket and nothing to show for it. But Helen Clark says that that is OK. 
People have asked about the contrast between John Tamihere and Lianne Dalziel who got the bullet immediately. The Prime Minister talked about standards. Standards mean that one does what is right no matter what the consequences are. There is a big difference between Lianne Dalziel and John Tamihere: Helen Clark cannot afford a by-election in a Maori seat. As the leader of the Labour Party she lost all the Maori seats once before and she is about to lose them all again. So she has gone to John Tamihere and told him that if he behaves himself is a good Labour MP forgets about his Maori constituents and thinks about the Labour Party he will be all right. How can any party have as a candidate someone who does not pay taxes? How can any party have someone who said before the election that he or she would not do something and who then did it? How can any party have a person who has pleaded guilty in a criminal court to a criminal charge of forgery and uttering? I am afraid those are the standards of Helen Clark.