English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:630;Page:2501] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 Perhaps the enthusiasm of Mr Goff today is because he has spied his opportunity in his own party—an opportunity he is well known for keeping a sharp eye out for. Have we not seen it before? A Labour Government comes apart because its Minister of Finance and Prime Minister are at odds. That is what happened back in 1987. 
What has happened this week is more important than the marginal legal activities of many members of the current executive because what has happened is that trust and confidence between Dr Michael Cullen and Helen Clark has been broken. It has been broken because she expressed in public the view that she did not know whether he would stay on. He was rather concerned about those comments and as my colleague Gerry Brownlee pointed out to the House it was a couple of days of talking until it was resolved. 
We know that Helen Clark is very keen to try to make this Government look like it is refreshed and renewed. We know that Dr Cullen has been behaving in an increasingly irrational way. He has expressed views that he is tired and irritated but he has not expressed the view—which I am sure he holds—that he is getting a bit fed up with Helen Clark taking all the credit for a good economic time that she had nothing to do with. Dr Cullen is getting tired of her taking all the credit for the stability of Government when he does all the hard work and I sympathise with him. [ 
Interruption 
] But those who have been in Cabinet—which the member who almost lost Otaki has not—will know how corrosive it is when the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister lose confidence in each other. Because the question remains unanswered—will Dr Cullen continue throughout the term? 
Clearly the Prime Minister is covering her options. That is why she moved Trevor Mallard into a finance portfolio; that is why she has fed Phil Goff the line that he has a chance of being Minister of Finance as compensation for taking foreign affairs off him— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Wouldn’t that be good. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That would be good. But of course the Prime Minister has been preoccupied with her own machinations. I cannot believe that she stood up in this House today and admitted that officials from her department have been communicating with the statutorily independent Companies Office which is involved right now in considering whether to prosecute a senior Minister in the Government. Helen Clark is desperate to have David Parker back in Cabinet. She believes it is critical to the stability of the Government. But I say that this Government and this country are paying too high a price for her obsession with stability because she is now interfering in the decision making of an independent statutory body. 
As a Minister I would never have considered instructing an official taking advice from an official or letting an official in my office if that official had communicated with the Companies Office in these circumstances. It would have been unimaginable. It is a measure of the extent to which Helen Clark has eroded the standards of propriety in Government that it is not even regarded as that significant that she has been briefed via her officials about the length of time that investigation will take. That is what she has owned up to—what is it that she has not owned up to? 
I am told that an opinion has been written by the Companies Office—I know the name of the officer who said he or she wrote it—and it was handed to the Prime Minister’s department. I believe that is why Helen Clark changed her position on the seriousness of David Parker’s actions. She changed her view from being that they were mistakes warranting his resignation to allegations from which he might be cleared and be back in Cabinet.