Little Andrew: General Debate 
Little Andrew: General Debate 
[Volume:678;Page:1400] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 What a grubby little Government this is turning out to be. This is a Government not just riven with conflict of interest but now absolutely possessed with self-interest and with self-preservation and it is generating a rotten stink that is being smelt right across the country. Here it comes. It is a Government bound up in its dodgy little games in a shabby little party. The people who are paying the price are the people who need the help the most.  
What a tawdry story as my learned colleague Grant Robertson said. What a tawdry story that ACC is turning into. It is a convoluted web of deceit promises counter-promises and under-the-table utterances. It is a tale of concocted stories and of backside-covering and we are nowhere near the truth. There is a lot more to come out.  
We are entitled to know. We want to know because we need to know what happened. The people want to know. Please just tell us what happened. There are far too many questions. Two weeks on from when the story of a massive privacy breach at ACC broke far too many questions still remain. What did Bronwyn Pullar ask for that led to her receiving the private details of 6700 ACC claimants? What do you ask for that you get that by mistake? How did the board member John McLiskie get involved? What was he told? Who told him? What did they tell him? What did he know? And most important what are his links with the National Party? Everybody else tied up in this grubby little story so far seems to be well ensconced in the National Party’s ranks—senior and junior. What did John McLiskie do when he found out what had happened? Whom did he speak to? Whom did he shoulder-tap? Which political contact did he tell in order to try to get something done about it?  
How did Bronwyn Pullar get to meet two senior ACC managers? We have been asking this for 2 weeks. Can we please have an answer? That is all we ask for. Is it just more National Party sleaze or is there an innocent explanation? Give it to us please; we are waiting with bated breath. What happened over the nearly 3 months between the December meeting involving Bronwyn Pullar Michelle Boag—a former National Party president—and the two senior ACC managers and when the story went public in March? What did happen over those 3 months? We still do not know.  
How did Michelle Boag’s message to Judith Collins get out? Who disclosed it? We have had denial after denial and then today after question time we had a statement by Ms Collins to the media saying that she confirmed that her message was printed out in her office but that she will not answer any more questions about it. The finger points to the Minister for ACC. What does she know and what did she do? How did Nick Smith come to have a copy of his letter from 9 months previously 4 months after he left the office of Minister for ACC? What is going on here? What is Simon Lusk’s involvement? And what is Cameron Slater’s involvement?  
The links are too close; the relationships are too dodgy. We are entitled to know and that is why a public inquiry is called for. I have no sympathy for the National Party and its apparatchiks and acolytes; they are donkey deep in something that is tarnishing the reputation of a great institution in New Zealand—the institution of ACC which this Sunday celebrates its 38th birthday. ACC is too important. This stinks to high heaven and we need answers.  
What about the interests of the 2.2 million wage and salary earners who are levied every week to pay for ACC the hundreds of thousands of good businesses—big and small—that pay their levies to fund ACC and the registration fees and diesel levies of 3.2 million vehicle owners who fund ACC? They are the people we need to think about and care about not the backsides of some National Party apparatchiks who do not know what they are doing and who want to sweep it all under the carpet. That is how dodgy this Government has become. It is shabby it is nasty and it stinks to high heaven.  
Good people—ACC claimants—are waiting for good decisions on their claims and they cannot get those decisions because the whole organisation has been tipped upside down to manage the fallout from some broken National Party relationships. It is a disgrace. The great thing is this—Franz Kafka could not have written this part of it—