English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:11135] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Let us just review the last couple of weeks in the life of a Labour Government that believes it has the confidence of this House under apparently a Prime Minister who is on top of everything. Labour has sacked one of its rising-star Ministers after 2 weeks of damaging publicity about his dishonesty and the Government’s dithering. The head civil servant—the head of the New Zealand civil service—is now embroiled in investigating himself as well as other senior civil servants for questionable statements and articles made in respect of the sacking of the said rising-star Minister. 
Today we hear that the national airline which is 80 percent owned by the Government has been involved in carrying Australian troops to the Iraqi war—an Iraqi war that the Government is opposed to—with the knowledge of Government officials and perhaps Government Ministers. That is yet to be established. This is a foreign policy embarrassment on a scale we have not seen for years. 
They are only three things. We also have the Government facing humiliating defeat on its Electoral Finance Bill. After 18 months of aggressive talk about how the bill would change everything during which the bill has been considered in detail by Cabinet now that the bill is in the public arena no one supports it except New Zealand First and the Greens and now the Government is going to toss the Minister of Justice to the dogs and blame him. 
All of this has happened in 3 weeks and these are only the issues we know about. This has all happened in 3 weeks under Helen Clark. She is deeply involved with each one of these issues: the sacking of the Minister; the problems with the chief civil servant Mark Prebble and the others; the foreign policy to which she has pinned her name so strongly and concerning which she has been undermined by her Ministers officials and her own airline; and the Electoral Finance Bill which she pathetically tried to say on Monday was nothing to do with her. She chaired the Cabinet meeting. She issued the instructions to the Labour strategists who wrote that bill. On Monday she said that the bill obviously needed changes and after 2 days of questioning she cannot say one respect in which she believes the bill needs to change. 
I want to say to the Speaker and to the House that it is hard to believe that Helen Clark and the rotting Labour Party have the confidence of this House. Now that the Government has six different agreements it is reduced to sending a member of Parliament for New Zealand First—a competent member who will do a good job—off to be High Commissioner in the Cook Islands so that Labour can stay as the Government. That is what is happening. 
Then today the leader of New Zealand First wittingly or unwittingly is caught up in the biggest foreign policy debacle that this Parliament has seen. Foreign policy is actually almost all bipartisan these days—almost all bipartisan. The way that Helen Clark is going to deal with this is to muzzle all the criticism. She will cast a legal drift-net that will catch every single criticism even if it is from the parents’ committee of the local creche. If members of such a committee are campaigning for more funding for the next year they will have to make statutory declarations and/or register with the Government if they want to criticise Steve Maharey’s free early childhood education policy. 
Helen Clark saw that legislation. She ticked it off. She told her Minister to put it before Parliament and she is responsible. How pathetic is it that the Prime Minister who is meant to be on top of everything is now saying it is nothing to do with her? She said that Labour stands by the principle of a level playing field.