Hutchison Paul: General Debate 
Hutchison Paul: General Debate 
[Volume:629;Page:1819] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 It is extraordinary that Annette King of all people has reactivated the Benson-Pope saga today. It is extraordinary that after 9 months on this issue it is the previous Minister of Health who has re-dug up dirt relating to her own Cabinet colleague. Firstly I remind the House that it was the Hon David Benson-Pope who misled this House 9 months ago and the Labour Government is in denial over that very important fact. I also remind this House that just recently I was talking to my colleague the Hon Tau Henare and was reminded that it was those Labour members in Opposition at the time who spent 3 years hounding Tuku Morgan who went nowhere near misleading this House. 
 It was the highly respected constitutional lawyer Professor Bill Hodge who categorically stated that the nub of the Benson-Pope saga was at the heart of our democracy and the least the people of New Zealand can expect and the members of this House can expect is that members of Cabinet will not mislead this House and that if they do mislead the House they should go. As constitutional lawyer Bill Hodge pointed out Mr Benson-Pope misled this House and therefore he has to go. It is this tired old Labour Government that if it continues to limp along as it remains in denial has effectively condoned one of its members a Cabinet Minister misleading this House and it will go nowhere and it should go nowhere very soon. 
The reason I am concerned that Annette King reactivated the Benson-Pope saga is that it was Annette King who in 1998 used the very injudicious language that a waiting list of 96000 was criminal. That is what Annette King said about the waiting list in 1998—that it was criminal. Now after 6 years of a Labour Government and billions of extra dollars spent the waiting list is over 160000 people. I ask Mrs King whether that is criminal. Because by Mrs King’s standards her Government should be on the way out and the injudicious language that Mrs King used is totally inappropriate. 
It will take one hang of a lot more than 69 reviews which this tired old Labour Government has ordered up to fix the health system in New Zealand. After 6 years of building bureaucracy and total lack of productivity identified by the OECD the Treasury and by her own Minister of Finance we are simply not getting value for money under this Labour Government. 
But this Labour Government cannot even see when a review is truly needed. I point to the Hon Pete Hodgson the Labour Government’s “billion-dollar Kyoto mistake man.” He was the man who told this House: “Yes sign up ratify Kyoto and a half-billion-dollar cheque will be written out automatically.” Well now we know that Mr Hodgson the man who has been sent to fix the health system has actually been responsible for the biggest fiscal mistake in the history of New Zealand—$1 billion—yet here he is trying to fix up a health system that is in absolute disarray after 6 years and the billion dollars more that this Labour Government has spent. 
It was on 17 February this year that Minister Hodgson was asked some questions about Focus 2000 Ltd. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.