McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. The wheels are falling off this Government. When I look across the House I feel like I'm watching an episode of Looney Tunes as wheels one by one fly off the shambolic car bouncing down the road towards the cliff of 14 October. The car doesn't have any wheels left. Kiritapu Allan Meka Whaitiri Stuart Nash Meng Foon and now Michael Wood—at least five wheels have fallen off this year. They've even lost the spare tyre. This is a conversation that I'm sure Chris Hipkins doesn't want to be having. It's a mess of a year for Labour. His Ministers just can't seem to sort out their conflicts of interest. The Cabinet is more conflicted than James Shaw at a steakhouse. We had Stuart Nash playing Cabinet Manual bingo trying to break as many different rules as possible. He interfered in active cases with the Commissioner of Police. He tried to interfere with the judiciary. He gave donors his preferential ear and he broke Cabinet confidentiality and collective responsibility. Now ACT is usually pretty opposed to collectivism but when it comes to Cabinet even we think that it's pretty important. But we're not here to talk about Stuart Nash; we're here to talk about Michael Wood. Stuart Nash had three strikes and was barely out but Michael Wood has had 12 strikes and he's still not out. The whole thing has just beggared belief. Michael Wood for all of his faults previously never would have been accused of a lack of diligence which is why everyone has been so taken aback to see him go down in a tailspin of lazy incompetence. He held on for his dear life to his shares in Auckland Airport despite being reminded by the Cabinet Office to sell them on 12 separate occasions—12 times over two years—and by the Prime Minister's office actually by two separate Prime Ministers. Michael Wood's Auckland Airport shares lasted longer than Jacinda Ardern. Was he playing a game of chicken with the Prime Minister? Did he think If I can just hang on to these shares until she resigns then the problem will go away."? Who knows? There aren't too many people who can claim to have so tenaciously taken on the Prime Minister's office and the Cabinet Office for such a length of time. But of all the possible issues over which to go to war with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and at the altar of which to ultimately sacrifice your career a few Auckland Airport shares is actually a strange one. To be honest a part of me felt sorry for Michael Wood when the story first broke. I imagined him buying shares as a teenager going to the stockbroker with his parents and spending his savings on some Auckland Airport shares because he liked planes. Then later his aviation enthusiasm journey coming full circle as Minister of Transport and being too sentimentally attached to those shares to sell them. I mean he seemed like a diligent man. Reckless incompetence just didn't seem to work as an explanation. But after yesterday's revelation reckless incompetence is the only explanation. It turns out Michael Wood also had undisclosed shares in Chorus in Spark and in the parent company of the Bank of New Zealand. In his various roles Michael Wood has been involved in decisions directly affecting these companies. As Minister of Immigration he put telecommunications technicians on the Immigration Green List the same Green List that medical professionals spent months begging to expand to nurses and in-demand medical specialists and just this week Cabinet announced a Commerce Commission investigation into the banking sector. How ironic that the banking sector inquiry Labour's latest attempt at a distraction from its last scandal has ended up being fuel on the fire for the next one. Labour was desperate this week to distract Kiwis from the fact that they've been racially discriminating when prioritising surgical wait-lists. So they announced their pointless inquiry into the banking sector and what's that going to do? The grocery sector market study is already all wrapped up so is the fuel market study and what have they done? Fuel importer margins are the same; in fact they've gone up in diesel. Kiwis are still feeling squeezed at the pump and their groceries still cost an arm and a leg. People are coming up to me telling me that when they do their weekly top-up shop it feels like they're doing their weekly shop—that filling up their little Suzuki Swift is the price they'd expect to pay to fill up a four-wheel drive. You can do all the market studies in the world but they won't make up for Labour's utterly incompetent economic management and they won't wind back the inflation that Grant Robertson's borrow-and-spend approach to problems has created. But they went ahead and announced a banking market study and all that's managed to do is add another conflict to Michael Wood's rap sheet.To paraphrase Oscar Wilde to have one undeclared financial conflict of interest may be regarded as a misfortune to have two looks like carelessness to have three looks like incompetence and to have four looks like a head on the ministerial chopping block. ACT supports Michael Wood's decision to resign his ministerial portfolios. Given the duration significance and total inability to manage the conflicts in question we say stepping down was the right thing to do. Some people have said "It's just a few shares. What's the problem?" This issue goes to the heart of our democracy. The power held by the Government comes with an enormous degree of trust from the New Zealand public and it's of paramount importance that citizens can have trust that those wielding the decision-making power do not have financial vested interests in the outcomes of their decisions. People developing new subdivisions need to be able to trust that the independent hearings commissioner doesn't have interests in competing subdivisions. Pub owners applying for a liquor licence need to be able to trust that the licensing committee members don't have investments in a competing pub. Miners applying for permits need to be able to trust that the responsible Minister hasn't invested in a company that mines. This is the trust that Kiwis need to be able to have in a Government. Michael Wood has broken that trust and his Government has broken that trust—really that's what this debate boils down to.Citizens place their trust in a Government to uphold the rule of law to provide core services as efficiently and as effectively as possible and to create fair policy and regulations. Any perception of a conflict of interest erodes that trust and this Government is burning through trust at a startling pace. What is it with this Government and conflicts of interest? Michael Wood is symbolic of a wider problem—a rot within this Government. It seems anywhere a light is shone a conflict is found. We had Kiritapu Allan the Minister of Justice—she had received over $10000 in donations from Meng Foon and his wife. But wait wasn't Meng Foon allegedly a non-political appointee reporting to the Minister of Justice? Apparently so. But it's all in a day's work for Labour's tight-knit family. Fortunately they don't need to worry about that one any more after Foon was cast asunder for another conflict. Foon was strewn on a June afternoon or was he? He came out swinging saying he hadn't actually resigned. News of Foon's doom was communed too soon and the Prime Minister's office had leaked his resignation. Far out—what a fiasco!In response to Michael Wood's resignation Chris Hipkins has announced more rules and more bureaucracy. That's this Government in a nutshell. The problem is not with the rules; it was with Michael Wood's failure to follow them and Stuart Nash's failure to follow them. Hiring more people to say Ministers should declare their conflicts of interest is not going to solve the problem just as every other swollen bureaucracy they've established hasn't solved the problems. They just make life harder and more expensive. Chris Hipkins has lost control of his Cabinet. I'm sure he's sick of playing Cabinet clean-up and I don't blame him—but Kiwis are going to have a chance to clean up the whole Cabinet soon. On 14 October Labour won't have a choice but to listen to Kiwis who are fed up with a Government who has broken their trust. ACT is looking forward to it; I'm not so sure that Labour is. Thank you Mr Speaker."