Mackey Moana: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4166. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I note that my colleague David Clark in order to further his political career has just come and sat next to me before I make my speech. I congratulate him on his two members’ bills he has had drawn from the ballot. I am not at all bitter at the fact that in 9 years I have not managed to get any of my members’ bills drawn from the ballot but I congratulate him because they are very good bills. 
That was a very disappointing speech from the Minister who just took his seat the Hon Pita Sharples. The reason the people in the community of Tamaki are upset is not just because of the displacement that happens when you have a major housing rearrangement like the Tamaki Transformation Programme; it is because the Government promised them it would keep the same number of State houses in that community and then it broke that promise. That community is upset because the Government lied to them. That is why they are protesting; not because of the reasons he outlined but because— 
Simon O’Connor 
: When was that member last there? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I turned up to the public meetings on the Tamaki Transformation Programme that the member did not turn up to those in Tamaki that the National Government did not show up to because Minister Phil Heatley refused. He did not even tell the Tamaki community that the Government had changed the commitment. The commitment was that the proportion of State houses would drop but that the number would stay the same. That was the commitment. It was broken over a long time and Minister Phil Heatley did not even show up in that community to tell them that that commitment had changed and that now the number of State houses would drop. Suddenly the document that had promised that disappeared from the Housing New Zealand Corporation website when Labour put in an oral question on the matter. That is why the people of Tamaki are angry. 
This is the kind of behaviour that we are seeing more and more of from this National Government as the wheels come off in its second term as we have seen with Mr Banks. I want to make it quite clear that the police report back found insufficient evidence to support a prosecution but it noted that Mr Banks did personally solicit and receive donations from Skycity and Kim Dotcom. 
It might be nice to be able to live in the National Party world where you just forget $80000 worth of donations where it just happens every single day that you get an envelope with $15000 in it. Maybe in the National Party’s world that is normal and you could be forgiven for forgetting that but I think most New Zealanders accept that it is impossible to forget soliciting up to $80000 worth of donations to forget asking for those donations to be split into $25000 lots to evade electoral law and to forget that you took a helicopter ride to a mansion of an internet billionaire and attended his birthday party. Maybe that is easy to forget if you are a National Party MP but most people in New Zealand know full well that Mr Banks knows what he did and that he got away with it. It might be OK for John Key to say: “Well I still have confidence in him because he evaded the law and didn’t get prosecuted.” but most New Zealanders would hold Ministers to a much higher ethical standard— 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: He wasn’t a Minister. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh Anne Tolley says that he was not a Minister when he did it so that makes it OK. So it makes it OK that he broke electoral law as he admitted and as the police have pointed out. It is OK as long as you did it before you were a Minister and you got away with it then when you were caught out you prevaricated about whether or not it had happened and when the evidence was finally presented you admitted that you had been lying about it—that is OK as long as you get away with it— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I withdraw and apologise Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I sincerely hope the Speaker has not been admitting that. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh no certainly not Mr Speaker I would never ever—Mr Banks. 
Apparently for the Prime Minister John Key that is absolutely fine. The John Banks affair has been a little bit of a distraction from another debacle that is happening at the moment which is the Government’s response to the Waitangi Tribunal issue on Maori claims to water rights. This is an incredibly important debate for our country. This has massive implications. For the Government to just say: “Well we’re going to pretty much ignore it and carry on with our asset sales programme.”—it so incredibly defies belief that it does not understand the importance of this report and the deep implications it has for all New Zealanders and in particular for the taxpayers of New Zealand. They are going to have to foot the bill if in the future the Government is found to have been wanting in its protection of the rights of those people who are going to come in and buy the shares. If they can say that the Government was warned about this and it did not take it seriously and it pushed ahead with its programme and now they are going to come in and legally challenge the Government then who is it that picks up the bill? It is the taxpayers of New Zealand. 
I know that the Government has no plan other than asset sales. I know that that is it so if it does not push ahead with that and if it does not—[ 
Interruption 
] I am sorry and mining off the East Coast as Anne Tolley is pointing out in the Raukumara Basin 3000 to 4000 metres deep with inadequate protection in terms of legislation. That is a great plan Anne Tolley and I will be pleased to report to the  
Gisborne Herald 
 how supportive you are of it.