Barker Rick: General Debate 
Barker Rick: General Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:21846] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 It is really laying it on with a trowel very thickly for that member Nick Smith to come to this House and speak about credibility. For the record he is the member who was summonsed to the High Court to answer charges against the High Court. It was a simple contest of belief. The member had made statements outside the High Court that the High Court said scandalised the court. The member then stood before the High Court and on oath told the story that he believed to be true. A member of the public stood before the court and told the story that that person believed to be true and the High Court believed that person. The High Court did not believe a word that the Hon Dr Nick Smith said. The High Court of New Zealand found that Dr Nick Smith was not believable—that it could not believe him. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The statement made by Mr Rick Barker is untrue and is not consistent with the High Court’s ruling which has been tabled in Parliament. It has been the subject of a personal explanation. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 35/3 and to Standing Orders 106(1) and (2). If the member believes that he has been misrepresented then he has a time and a place to say so. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I have read the High Court ruling very carefully and I saw the evidence is there. It is very clear. The court had the choice between believing Dr Nick Smith or the other witness and the court chose to believe the other witness—and without doubt one can draw only one conclusion which is that Dr Nick Smith was not believable. 
I want to put the other issue to the test: the issue of credibility. When this Government came into office public debt was about 35 percent of GDP. Public indebtedness is now 22 percent of GDP. Whereas unemployment was at record levels New Zealand now has the second-lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD. For every 10 kids who were on the dole having been put on the scrapheap by the National Government—thrown out with no hope of getting a job and with no future—Labour has reduced the number by seven to just three now. And we are going to get jobs for the rest; we are committed to do that. However the National Party has been promising tax cuts—tax cuts that amount to over $1.7 billion a year. It says that it will not only cut taxes but also spend more money. It says it will spend another $4.5 billion over 10 years on transport over and above what the Government says. National says it will spend an extra $540 million on the Waikato Expressway another $120 million on northern roads another $110 million on a toll-free harbour link in Tauranga an extra $4 billion on defence to get us up to Australia’s level of expenditure and then another $100 million on defence. It says it will spend another $722 million a year on law and order— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What about schools? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The member mentions schools. I have not got to that. National says it will spend another $300 million on the police another $20 million on compulsory DNA testing and more on teachers and schools. The list goes on and on; it is unbelievable. By election time the National Party will be promising everybody tax cuts of $30-plus a week to $50 a week. And I bet that if it is up to the honourable Dr Brash people like him will be getting $100 or $200 worth of tax cuts a week. In addition to that National says it will spend billions and billions of extra dollars. 
Well we have seen those snake oil merchants before. We have heard that from the National Party before and we think we have found the answer as to how National would do that. It would do it by State asset sales. It would have a big spend-up on public assets. Just in the last day or so National announced that it would sell Landcorp. Three huge farms in my area would be sold off to overseas investors. National would sell off Kiwibank New Zealand Post the Electricity Corporation the Accident Compensation Corporation and Television New Zealand Ltd. There would be a mass sell-off of State assets under a National Government. I say to the National members that there is no credibility in the New Zealand public’s eyes if the National Party promises to cut taxes and at the same time to spend more and more. But it will be a question of leadership. 
Let us hear why the National Party has not released its tax policy. I say to the public that it is very obvious why it has not released it. We need just to look at the foot-and-mouth disease scare. What was there about that that was really quite extraordinary? Dr Brash said about that scare: “I’m surprised they made a public statement about it at all to be frank. If it’s is only a hoax they have done a lot of damage to our reputation.” In fact what the National Party was saying is that deception is the best rule in these things—to deceive the public not to tell it the truth and to hide the truth. That is exactly what the National Party is doing with regard to its tax policy. It will not tell the truth.