Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
[Volume:632;Page:4000] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 On 13 March at the Boulcott Street Bistro an event occurred that will go down in the political history of this country as “bistro-gate”. What happened that night at “bistro-gate” is a complete breach of Cabinet rules and a complete breach of avoiding a conflict of interest. I have some lovely quotes from Ministers but first I will paint the picture. 
Air New Zealand makes no bones about the fact that it is in big trouble financially on the trans-Tasman service. Its solution is to get involved with a code-share—let us get the word code-share—with Qantas so that an Air New Zealand flight can have a Qantas tail on it and a Qantas flight can have an Air New Zealand tail etc. But there are some real issues there especially issues involving the shareholding Minister Dr Cullen being involved in discussing that given that Ministers will need to decide whether it can go ahead. So there is a straight conflict of interest. And what happened? On the night of 13 March the chairman of Air New Zealand the chief executive of Air New Zealand and that well-known Labour Party supporter Ken Douglas who is on the board of Air New Zealand trundled off to the Boulcott Street Bistro for a dinner with Dr Michael Cullen the shareholding Minister who has to make some of the decisions; Damien O’Connor the Minister of Tourism; David Parker who was then before he resigned the Minister of Transport; and Lianne Dalziel who is in charge of the Commerce Commission. 
I ask members to put up their hands if they think that code-share was not discussed. There is one hand in the entire House. Of all the members in the House David Parker put his hand up; that is what I want the listeners to this debate to know. The rest did not put their hands up because they remember that back in 1999 National was subject to a similar smear campaign from Labour about our Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and a dinner she had had with the boss of Saatchi and Saatchi Kevin Roberts. I sat in my chair—just in front of where Nanaia Mahuta is sitting today—and I remember the day well when Labour asked whether the then Prime Minister had had dinner with Kevin Roberts. I could not understand what was wrong with that anyway; Prime Ministers have dinner with all sorts of people. But I think Jenny Shipley made a mistake. She said she had had dinner with Kevin Roberts and then she went on to say something that may perfectly well have been true—we do not know. She said politics was not discussed at that dinner. This whole Chamber sucked big air in and Don McKinnon who was sitting next to me said her reply was really foolish because no one would believe her. 
I raise that as an example because everybody in this House believes that on the night of 13 March representatives of an airline that was in real trouble—desperately looking for a solution to get itself out of trouble—met with the Ministers involved and did not discuss the code-share. I know how to do those things. What they would have done was to say they would talk about the financial problems they would talk about the capacity issues and they would talk about the frequency of service but they would not use the “c” word. They would then be like Bill Clinton who was able to say: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” That is true but we all know what actually happened. The same thing happened at the Boulcott Street Bistro. They were all careful—whoops I nearly used the “c” word. Let us go back to the situation. They asked themselves how they were going to get around the capacity issue how they were going to get around the fare structures and how they were going to get around sharing the passengers in the seats—how they were going to get around all the issues—but without using the “c” word. 
Then Dr Cullen came into this House and said they discussed the Tasman service—he openly admitted that—they discussed Air New Zealand’s financial problems and how the airline was haemorrhaging red ink because of Emirates Airline and so on but they did not discuss code-share. If there has ever been a chance for a Tui’s billboard this has to be it. Four senior Cabinet Ministers met with an airline that is haemorrhaging and had only one solution on the billboard which was code-share—I am sorry to use the “c” word; I know it is actually within the Standing Orders to use the “c” word here—and then they said they did not discuss that at the dinner. Who believes that? Only one person put a hand up. It is the best Tui’s billboard I have ever seen: “ ‘We did not discuss the code-share’ says Dr Cullen. Yeah right!”. Nobody believes that.