Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:17553] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 Let us not worry about Winston Peters and what happened to the cheque that Bob Jones gave him or where it went. Let us ask this question. Let us ask why the National Party on purpose set up the Waitemata Trust and why on purpose it set up the Ruahine Trust not to receive one cheque and have it disbursed but to receive dozens and dozens of cheques over the years and launder them. Let us ask why the National Party set up two big laundering factories to receive all of the egregious blessings from its corporate mates—dollars for policy as far as we know because they were kept secret. Tell us what happened in the past with that party and tell us indeed why even last December those trusts got swept. The reason they had to be swept is that this House decided that the rules were too loose that the accountability was not good enough and that the workarounds were too easy. 
So the Labour Party the New Zealand First Party and other parties voted for legislation to increase accountability to reduce the workarounds and to make the whole process of financing for elections more transparent. And who voted against it? National members voted against it. They voted against it right through with feeling and with vehemence. They were vigorous and tireless in their opposition to the legislation because they did not want the workarounds taken away from them. National members have the temerity to stand up and spend the first 5 minutes of this general debate attacking one party over one cheque when they have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of dollars over many elections shamelessly—without shame! 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just so we can get back on to the topic— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: This is a general debate. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It is a general debate—the member is right. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is a point of order Mr Brownlee. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does that member go? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am listening to the point of order Mr Brownlee. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Firstly I point out that Mr Hodgson knows about all this because it was published in the document listing registered parties’ donations and declared by us. Secondly I seek leave to table the Electoral Commission’s 2007 register of party donations which makes it clear that many Labour members donated to their party last year. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Mr Brownlee that is not a point of order. The member knows that it is common courtesy to seek leave to table those things at the end of a member’s speech. The member is very experienced and he knows that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: With all due respect you can refer to any convention that you like but the fact is that members can take a point of order and seek leave any time they like. I am seeking leave right now to table the Electoral Commission’s 2007 register of party donations which shows everything that Mr Hodgson is talking about all of the significant Labour member donations to the party and nothing from New Zealand First. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Notice how National members seek to break up the speech. Notice how they do not like it when someone reminds them that they have set up trusts or had them set up specifically to launder cash—specifically for that purpose. When legislation was passed in this House to try to stop that—and that legislation succeeded thanks to the support of New Zealand First—these people voted against it. There is a word for that. It begins with “h” and it is unparliamentary. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: It is unparliamentary. 
I want to know from the National Party where its policy is. Where is its policy? When will it stop creeping around the skirting boards hiding under the radar and trying to dodge the cameras? When will it stop failing to reveal its plans about any of its policy? How much longer can it continue to take the advice of Crosby/Textor that it should try to keep a small target and that it should say nothing and stay below the radar? How much longer? That is what I want to know because the National Party has less than 4 months to go yet National members sneak around saying they will tell us about their policy later. Well I say that sooner or later— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but I cannot hear. Chaos may be the parent of creation but not in this place—we will have order. It is my duty to run the House according to the Standing Orders and the Speakers’ rulings that have been crafted over 150 years of parliamentary democracy in this country. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: That is slippery behaviour. Those members think they can run down the clock; they say that it does not matter. I say to the National Party that before long the agenda will be the National Party’s secret agenda. Those members need to out themselves or the opposition parties—the parties that oppose them in this House—will do the outing for them. Of course on occasion they are outed unwittingly. Some guy who did not mean to outed the National Party on accident compensation policy recently—someone in Australia did it. The National Party responded with a policy that was 83 words long. Most radio commercials are longer than that. But even in that brief utterance we learnt of the agenda of the National Party. Can members guess what it was? It was that dear old 1990s policy “Let’s get it privatised. If it moves we’ll privatise it.” National members did not think they wanted to tell anyone about it before the election until the guy over in Australia let the cat out of the bag. 
The only policies that are released by the National Party are ones that are already part of this Government. John Key has been getting up and saying chapter and verse: “I hate this policy.” then getting up a year later—or in some cases a month later—and saying: “We’ll do it.” He has done it time and again. It is a Crosby/Textor technique to make sure that the National members find something that the people like and make sure that they support it even if they did not like it the first time when they were declaring what they really felt. Crosby/Textor says that if U-turns are needed they should get on with their U-turning. Boy have they been doing so! In May of this year John Key said that buying back the railways was a dumb idea. In the same month of this year the same man said National would have no option but to hang on to the asset. In November 2005 John Key said of student loans that they were “an unaffordable … and irresponsible cost to the country”. By January 2008 he said: “National will … keep interest-free student loans for tertiary students”—can members believe that? It goes on and on forever. National members are too slippery for their own good.