Faafoi Kris: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1915. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Yesterday in the House was one of those rare occasions when we saw some raw honesty from the Prime Minister—in his breathless justification as to why we should send troops to Iraq. If the Prime Minister could ante up yesterday why could he not ante up before the election when he made quite different statements about his Government’s position on sending troops to Iraq? Before the election it was a completely different story. Before the election Mr Key was quite adamant that there would be no SAS or troop deployment to Iraq. He was telling people before the election that this was National’s solid policy. Asked again whether he would rule out deploying our special forces to Iraq even in an advisory capacity Mr Key said: “I would say yes.”Why are there two different stories from our Prime Minister? Before the election he said that there was no way we were sending our troops to Iraq not even in an advisory capacity but yesterday in the House he was breathlessly justifying sending troops to Iraq as well as sending troops in an advisory capacity. What happened? Why the lies? Why the mistruth? Why the different story before the election and why the story we got yesterday—that we are in boots and all?Also when that side of the House sends a message to this side of the House that we are not supportive of our troops I say that we will always be supportive of our troops whenever they are sent anywhere. You can play politics and throw out that accusation about us but we will always support our troops. On this side of the House we do not support the nature of what you are doing in Iraq but we will always support any of our troops and anyone in our Defence Force when they are sent out on a mission.But there is a pattern for me here. Just like Mr Key softened the New Zealand public up with sending troops to Iraq there are half-truths and mistruths with him everywhere. The Prime Minister made accusations about the Labour Party getting donations from Donghua Liu when at the very same time hewas going around to Mr Liu’s house for dinner: “Come on in John. Have a $25000 cheque.” Have a $25000 cheque. So it was hypocritical for the Prime Minister to throw barbs at our side of the House when he was going around for dinner. Mr Liu and Mr Key were sitting around the dinner table—but no Mr Key did not go around; he said that he just saw him at occasions and fundraisers. Well I am sorry Mr Key but the public does not buy your story that you saw Mr Liu at fundraisers and functions because you went around to his house for tea. I certainly would remember if I got invited around to someone’s house and then $25000 arrived in my bank account as a campaign donation. So I am sorry Mr Key but the public does not buy it. The public does not buy your web of lies and web of deceit around Iraq or around Mr Liu.And of course there is another issue here which is dear to my heart and that is the sale of State houses. There was not one mention of the mass sale of State houses before the election but post-election it is all on. There are 8000 State houses on the chopping block. What did Mr Key say about the sale of State houses before the election? He said that the truth was there are not a lot of other assets that would fit the category where they would be appealing to send to the market. But we know that at the same time his Minister Nick Smith was talking to the Housing New Zealand Board and saying that the Government expected that Housing New Zealand would own a significantly smaller number of houses in 10 years’ time.What I do not like about this is the way that this Government has dressed it up. Hundreds of homes in my electorate were made vacant—the tenants kicked out—under some kind of premise that it was for earthquake strengthening. But that is not what was going on. Those people were being kicked out of their homes for those properties to be readied for sale. That is what was happening. A lot of them are still vacant and the way they have been looked after—or have not been looked after—has caused crime in our communities and we will find out more about that. This Government has just left those properties to deteriorate. It is deserting communities and crime is happening in them. This Government has sat around and done nothing with those houses. It had an agenda of selling them off but we did not hear about that before the election. We will hear more about that later.There are many many other cases where this Government has told one story before the election and another one afterwards and the public are getting used to it.