Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
[Volume:625;Page:20683] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am delighted to take part in this debate. I want to canvass a bit of the history of what has been going on with the Government. I heard my colleague Simon Power raising the matter of the number of Ministers who have got themselves into trouble over time and been dealt with and I started to scribble down a list of the various “gates” that have occurred under this Government. I have come to the conclusion that there are now more “gates” in the Government than on Molesworth Station. 
We started off with “paintergate” when the Prime Minister signed paintings that she had not actually painted. We then had “Bunkle-gate” “Hobbs-gate” and “Dyson-gate” followed by “Dalziel-gate” “Dover-gate” and “Tamihere-gate—although others refer to that as  
Investigate 
. We have had “Doone-gate” “111-gate”—which is a disaster—and “NCEA-gate”. Oh God! That has so many “gates” that it is not funny. We have had “speeding-gate” of which the Prime Minister says she did not know her car was going at 150 kilometres an hour. I ask members to get in a car get someone to drive it at 150 kilometres and hour and tell me they do not know they were going fast. Give us a break! 
Now we have “Benson-Pope-gate”. We have “Families-gate” with the chief executive of the Families Commission gone. We had Mr Yelash who sued the Prime Minister successfully paid for by us as taxpayers. I guess we would call that “Dally-gate”. Then there is “Peck-gate”. There are more “gates” in this Government than at Molesworth Station. 
I want to pick up on something the Prime Minister raised today. She raised a grubby little thing today and I will not let her get away with it. She raised Denis Marshall’s failure to resign over Cave Creek. I want to ask the Government whether it still stands by that sort of behaviour. A Government does two things. It sets policy and it administers the actual operational side of government. I have heard Ministers in this Labour Government day after day—George Hawkins is a classic example—saying that they cannot be held to account for operational matters. I think that that is probably right to some extent. If someone had fitted the wrong brake shoes to a truck and the truck crashed off the road it would be a bit hard to say to the Minister of Transport sitting in his office in Wellington: “Did you not know that an engineer in a workshop somewhere had fitted the wrong brake shoes? You should resign.” I think that that would be a bit harsh. 
On the Cave Creek matter I do not believe that a single member of this House believes that the Minister of Conservation sitting here in charge of policy and funding could ever have known that the builder short-changed the plan that said to use bolts and decided to whip those bolts away. It was not a funding issue or an operational issue. The builder just used nails. How was the Minister in Wellington to know that? But the Labour Party yelled and screamed and the current Prime Minister then the Leader of the Opposition Helen Clark demanded Denis Marshall’s resignation because he was the Minister. She raised the matter again today. 
But let us now turn to the performance of one of her Ministers Trevor Mallard. Let us forget the operational side. I can understand that there are operational matters in education that go wrong and leave the Minister scratching his head at night and asking: “What the bloody hell’s going on here?” and having to deal with it. But he has to take some responsibility for policy. Who implemented the whole of the schools education policy with the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA)? Do not blame just David Benson-Pope. He was too busy away playing tennis. Blame Trevor Mallard. By the time Benson-Pope became the Minister in charge of schools the 2004 school year was over. So all of the implementation was Trevor Mallard’s. 
What has gone wrong? Was it Karen Van Rooyen’s operational implementation? No. Was it Professor Fraser the Chairman of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority? No; it was the policy they were handed. They were handed an absolute dog and told to implement it. 
I want to tell this House and Trevor Mallard something about Trevor Mallard’s failure to listen. I took Trevor Mallard to Macleans College in early 2001 and 38 principals took him through chapter and verse about why NCEA would not work. They gave him chapter and verse about that. They were fantastic principals. They were not just from the decile 10 schools—they can get away from that sort of muck. People from Manurewa High School Dargaville High School and Western Heights High School were there. And yes of course the principal of Macleans College was there. Trevor Mallard never listened to a word they said and now he says that he does not know why it has all turned to custard.