Peters Winston: Taxation (Annual Rates of income Tax 2005-06) Bill Taxation (Urgent Measures) Bill Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Peters Winston: Taxation (Annual Rates of income Tax 2005-06) Bill Taxation (Urgent Measures) Bill Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:628;Page:801] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs) 
: 
 What a strange speech from the last of two members of the ACT party. Of course he was the member who deserted his whole party nationwide to rush back to Epsom to grossly overspend way above what the Electoral Act allows. The only reason the Labour Party is not taking that on is because Mr Hide will do more damage to National than anybody else can. So that in a strategic sense is the reason a legal case has not been brought against that man who knows full well what he did and what the law allows and disallows him to do. 
The real issue is that in 1996 this man told the whole world having grossly overspent in Epsom that he would win Epsom. Then he had polls in 1999 saying he was way ahead in Epsom—but he was not of course. He is a fiction creator. He is a merchant of misery in its worst sense. He has the effrontery to come in here as some sort of hero because he took the ACT party to two members and his deputy leader Muriel Newman who did work hard and did try to give a fair representation was cast by the wayside. That is the character of that man. He feels great. On election night he felt so rapt and ecstatic because he had survived in a party that was in the Doomsday Book that night and somehow got one more seat. He was happy with that. He is delighted to be here despite the disaster of his campaign. 
In contrast let me make this very clear. We had a bad campaign. I am the first to admit it. I am the first one to take responsibility for it because some days on one’s best outing one’s best shot is not good enough. But then again my track record is to survive here longer than any other member. To have this four-flusher fly-by-nighter talking about a loser is pretty rich is it not? I am just grateful that I have seven colleagues in this Parliament and we are the country’s third-biggest party. 
I must say this—and we are talking about taxation—that is a party of course that had $15 for every dollar New Zealand First had to spend in the campaign. They have had tens of millions from business interests all wasted because they have never been able to show one outcome for all that investment. Here is my point to everyone in this House. Can they think of one thing that the ACT party has done in politics these last 9 years? 
Katherine Rich 
: IRD. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh excuse me. There was only one outcome from the Inland Revenue Department inquiry and that was the man from Great Barrier Island who got there because I laid a complaint of perjury with the police. He got no one any refuge at all. Even his mate Henderson got done in the inquiry did he not? That is Rodney Hide’s record. I ask members to name one thing—and they can ring all around New Zealand and ask any library any political scientist or any ACT supporter—that Rodney Hide and the ACT party have done for New Zealanders or anybody in the last 9 years. I will give members 5 minutes while I complete my speech. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: They lost Wellington Central. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh that is right they lost Wellington Central. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Look who to! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well I have to say they were up against stiff competition. But then again when the civil servants saw the ACT party policy for Wellington Central it was goodnight Richard. I know that Mr Hide had that in his mind because as long as Richard Prebble stayed here he was going to look very bad by contrast. Prebble had experience and presence of mind. He had been here a long time and had a record unlike this fly-by-nighter who suffers from the psychological condition of recognition hunger. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry but the member is going to have to come back to the bill. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I am getting to the bill because the crux of this matter is as it was in the campaign whether it was better for students to get an interest write-off. I suppose one could say by way of the Government’s treatment of this that if its intention is to try to keep students in New Zealand then that is a logical rational reason for going down that path. We disagree and we have said so. Our policy was a universal student allowance and always has been. 
But look at the contrast. The National Party came out with a massive promise for student loans—not big enough of course. Then if that was not bad enough it topped it up with $3.5 billion of borrowings for the tax cuts it promised. I might well ask the Business Roundtable the Chamber of Commerce and all those august so-called commentators in economics as to where they were in the campaign when they did not raise a sound or a syllable a mutter or a murmur at this gross irresponsibility on the National Party’s part backed up of course by the most irresponsible party in Parliament the ACT party led by Rodney Hide. 
I am going to ask this. One is a hard-working ACT supporter out there giving one’s heart and soul to a cause because one happens to be one of the few mindless true believers but nevertheless that is a worthy belief if one is in a democracy— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Like Muriel. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: —yes like Muriel—working 18 hours a day 7 days a week just for the chance to come back here and represent her views. And then one finds that the party leadership has changed in a four-way contest—in a party of eight—and who have they got: Little Mussolini. He is the new leader. That is who they have got. How disappointing! And members can be certain that after the next election he will be gone. I will bet members any money they like that he will be gone after 2008. One thing that the far right do not like is a lack of performance and results. The second thing the far right do not like is having their message put out the way that he does it. The third thing the far right do not like is seeing something like student loans going up against tax cuts when they know one is affordable and one is not. 
The tax cuts that the National Party offered were going to see this country borrowing $3.6 billion to finance them. I asked some people in the business world why on earth they were sitting back and not saying a word. They said to me that they hate the Labour Party so much they did not care what he says. What sort of rationale is that for so-called business leaders to desert every sacrifice of the last 21 years and all the reforms and all the changes? 
Rodney Hide 
: That’s what Tauranga did when it dumped this member. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: There he goes. Rodney Hide is not prepared to wait for the court case. Like everything else in this House no matter what the subject is he knows everything about it. He is the world’s expert on anything and everything. Has he ever in his life made threepence on any investment he ever invested in? No he has not. Has he ever run a business? No he has not. Has he ever done a thing about what he speaks in terms of ideology and in terms of practice? No. In fact he has not done a damn thing in his life. He does not fit the image of a parliamentarian of the far right because what the far right like—and I have seen them around the rest of the world; I have seen them in New York I have seen them in the United States—are men of style of elegance and of panache. They represent an image of what they are talking about. He is the very antithesis. This is just like the proletariat taking over the far right. In his case it looks outrageous and it will not work. 
New Zealand First’s point is we have an option with regard to student loans. We do believe that that was a better and more sound course of action to take. We believe of course in the universality— 
Rodney Hide 
: But the people of Tauranga didn’t back it. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is like—I cannot say it is like a stuck record—a stuck iPod or one that has 37000 copies of the same song. That is what Rodney Hide is like in fact—37000 disks on an iPod all the same. He says it loud. It is the idea that bombast and noise are a substitute for esoteric argument and debate. It is not of course and that is the reason why he is sitting over there in Opposition again. While his colleagues around him are going grey in their hair he loses his. 
I have had quite a few inquiries from National MPs who have written to me asking when they can get the golden age card. I have told them that given their chances of promotion in the political environment of this country that is a very good question and I will try to move it forward as fast as I can. I will add as many discounts and Fly Buys points as I am able because not all of them have Rodney Hide’s arrangements whereby he flew to Fiji to take part in a seminar run by a fraudster who is now in jail in the United States and then came home and would not answer any questions. Do members remember that? He tried to make out he did not take any pay. He was lying on the beach giving an imitation of a walrus for the whole week and getting paid and he would not answer the questions. That is a fact and it probably explains why he finds so unattractive something done in the interests of the balance of students of this country. The repetition of a mindless debate as Doug Woolerton rightly set out he finds— 
Rodney Hide 
: Point of order Madam Speaker. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I have not finished. Sit down! That is a good lad! 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member’s time has expired.