Williamson Maurice: Urgent Debates — Release of Report—Telecommunications Stocktake Review 
Williamson Maurice: Urgent Debates — Release of Report—Telecommunications Stocktake Review 
[Volume:631;Page:3138] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 A number of points need to be made on this issue. The first one which struck me as quite amazing was the comment by the Prime Minister that it has been like this for a long time. I point out to the Prime Minister that when she left office in 1990 and I became a Minister technologies did not exist that now exist that enable people to smuggle documents. For example people can now take a photo of a document with a cellphone as they walk down a corridor and email it off. So even if someone was searched for the physical document as he or she left the building—even if a full body cavity search was done—with today’s technology the document could already have been sent out. For the Prime Minister to say that it has always been like this is a nonsense. 
As those new technologies evolve—as cellphones come with cameras on board as wireless Bluetooth communications can fire it off to a computer in the building next door and so on or as Wi-Fi networks can image a document through a scanner then fire it off around a network—to say that it is the way it has always been with the paper envelope and the way one opens the envelope and leaves it in the in-tray is wrong. It is just a nonsense. The Prime Minister had better get up to date with the way the new world functions and put some proper mechanisms in place. 
In this case it was a very old-technology steal of some property. It was done by a dishonest messenger. But if it can sit around in a tray if it can go into a room for shredding where the messengers keep their bags let me tell the House that it could easily have gone out and been flying on the Internet within seconds with today’s technology. It will not do any more to say: “Oh but 15 years ago that’s how it used to be so that’s how it should still be.” 
We could take a leaf out of the book of a particular person—I refer to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Oh yes. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: My colleague Dr Lockwood Smith who served in Cabinet with Winston Peters will know that he had a mechanism for keeping Cabinet papers so confidential and secret that it worked a treat. I suggest Ministers take a leaf out of Mr Peters’ book. His mechanism was never to open his own Cabinet papers and read them. That is what he did. He used to come to Cabinet with the envelopes still sealed. He used to show up regular as clockwork with them still sealed. A lot of people would say: “What did he read them while he was at Cabinet?”. No he used to sleep while he was at Cabinet. On a regular basis Jim Bolger would have to give him a shake and wake him up. But Mr Peters had confidentiality absolutely nailed. 
The one thing I used to get in trouble for with my wife on a Sunday was when she would come into the living room at some stage and go berko about those little wee plastic tails that come off the zipper of little plastic envelopes. They form into a little pig’s tail curl when they are ripped off and I was untidy enough to drop a few around the living room. She would always go crook about them and say: “Can you please be a bit tidier when you do the zipper on your little plastic envelope.” But we never had that problem with Mr Winston Peters. The little pig’s tail curl was still in place even when the Cabinet meeting was over and declared finished. I suggest that is a very good precedent for other Ministers. David Cunliffe should take a note out of Winston Peters’ book on that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What about the fake emails? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: What about the fake emails he now has that he has created? However I want to get into another area in relation to the Prime Minister. 
Jill Pettis 
: Is that the best the member can do? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No it’s not the best I can do. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Is the member suggesting the email is fake? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No I am suggesting that some of the emails may be fake. We can soon get a forensic person to look at them if Mr Peters is prepared to expose their electronic image but he will not do that. 
I want to go back to the Prime Minister because she has said some really interesting things in recent months. When there was the David Benson-Pope issue about the tennis ball and the prima facie case and when there was the David Parker incident the Prime Minister came to this House and said publicly on a number of occasions that she was appalled at what politics had become. She said that it had become a personal attack a vendetta against people especially Ministers and that the dreadful Opposition was now dragging in the gutter and taking out people because of personal animosities or for cheap political point-scoring. Oh really? Is that how politics has become? 
I want to recount a particular example that happened to me. It was fully investigated by the State Services Commission and I want to give the answer to that. As a Minister I once flew back from the United States on a Boeing 747 and as we landed at Auckland the hostess tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Excuse me Mr Williamson we have had an electronic communication to the pilot. They want you to be at the Cabinet meeting in Wellington on time because you have got papers. So we would ask you to come to the door of the plane first and we will take you off the plane first and take you downstairs to a security car that will take you across the tarmac to a domestic flight and that will get you there.” The plane was late in; we were supposed to be in at 6 o’clock in the morning and it was getting towards 8 o’clock. I said: “Well is that OK?” and they said: “Yes that’s fine.” I asked about my immigration and passport and they said I needed to leave all that and my bags with my staff and that just I should go with them. This all came out in the inquiry and it is verbatim. 
So when the plane pulled up at the door I did exactly what I was asked. I stood up the hostess said: “Come this way.” they opened the door I went through the door downstairs with the men in their little bobby socks and their shorts we raced across the tarmac I jumped on the 8 o’clock Ansett flight on time flew to Wellington and I got to Cabinet. At 11 o’clock my press secretary was outside Cabinet saying: “You had better come out you are in huge trouble. Jim Sutton has called for your resignation and Helen Clark has done the same.” It was all on. If members do not believe me they should come up to my office right now and they will see a cartoon from the paper. It is of Helen Clark with a big spray can and me walking across the tarmac and she is going to get me. 
What was the accusation? It was that I had somehow refused to be sprayed while everyone else had to be and that I had demanded to be taken off the plane early. I said to my press secretary: “Well that’s just a nonsense they don’t spray the planes any more. So that is just ridiculous.” It turned out that there had been a problem but I was unaware of it. It turned out that when the little men in their bobby socks checked the documentation for the United Airlines plane I was on they found that the bombs that sit in the air conditioning had expired and they needed to close the door call some people up with some spray cans and walk up and down the aisle and spray it. I did not know that. They did not know that at the time. 
But what did Helen Clark do? Day after day she said that the Minister of Transport should be sacked it was an outrage and his behaviour was appalling. A State Services Commission inquiry was finally called for; Jim Bolger had no option but to call for it. The State Services Commission interviewed the people at the airport and they said: “No we made the decision to call the pilot and get Mr Williamson off early. No we asked him to come off. No he did what he said. Yes he came to Wellington.” 
Jill Pettis 
: What’s all this got to do with it? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am saying this because the Prime Minister says how ugly and how dreadful politics has become when the Opposition raises matters in relation to poor Ministers like David Benson-Pope—“Captain Tennis Ball” who shoves stuff in kids’ gobs—we are being grubby; we are in the gutter. When we raise stuff about breaches of the Companies Act by David Parker she says we are being grubby and awful. When we raise stuff about Mr Cunliffe knocking $200 million off the Telecom share price we are being grubby. But oh no members opposite can— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I listened with care when the Speaker read out the letter that caused this debate. I even went to the Table to reread it to make sure I had heard it right. I have sat through one member opposite going on and on about things that have nothing to do with that letter and now we have another one. I really really invite you Mr Assistant Speaker to ask the member to say something vaguely related to the letter that caused the debate to happen. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member for his contribution. It is a rather robust debate and I have heard exchanges from both sides. But I ask the member to speak to the letter. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am happy to answer Mr Burton on that. This is about ministerial behaviour and accountability. I do not feel good about bringing up something from my past even though the State Services Commission completely exonerated me. The reason I bring it up is that as soon as we start raising anything about Ministers’ behaviour in this Government the Prime Minister is on the front foot saying: “This is the disgraceful Opposition. All they want to do is politicise these issues.” But she never hesitated. She tried to take people out. I have the newspaper clippings from that incident if Annette King does not remember it. Helen Clark said that the Minister of Transport should resign for leaving his plane early and refusing to be sprayed. She said that my behaviour was reprehensible. Actually it turned out that I had done nothing wrong and was completely cleared. 
But in this case David Cunliffe’s behaviour is reprehensible. It is appalling. His statement about trade-offs—the dividends versus capital expenditure of a private company—is absolutely beneath contempt yet he is still in his job. Helen Clark will not be calling for his resignation. I am listening—but I still cannot hear her doing it. Someone innocently gets off a plane when asked and has to resign. But when someone takes $2 billion off a company with his stupid Cabinet paper and the management of it and then decides that was not enough and takes another $200 million off the value by going out and making a reckless statement about dividends versus the capital expenditure programme I say this whole House should be listening for Helen Clark to call for his resignation. I cannot hear it. What I can hear is the fluttering of the wings as the chickens come home to roost for this Government; that is what I can hear.