Burton Mark: General Debates 
Burton Mark: General Debates 
[Volume:611;Page:8356] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 There we have it the member whose party is so committed to defence that in 1996 it did not have a policy. Ten days after his colleague took umbrage at my saying it did not have a defence policy he sought leave to table it. Ten days later he tabled a paragraph—one miserable little paragraph—from a coalition agreement. There was no policy not a bean. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is interrupting a speech. It should be a genuine point of order. 
Ron Mark 
: Well I will raise it after his speech then thank you. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: After 10 days he produced one miserable paragraph. Now the member tells us his policy is to sum it up to do nothing cancel everything and condemn our men and women to have clapped-out equipment. It was clapped-out when that member was in Government. He would have us abandon our men and women completely. I say to the member that they deserve better than that hopeless useless— 
Ron Mark 
: Are you buying the Humvee? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: We will tell members what we are buying when we have made a decision. The decision is not made and the member should grow up. This is a great example of the sort of misleading nonsense that comes across the Chamber. We heard it from Mr English earlier on and what a desperate man he is. He has got his own colleagues chasing him. We saw the member for Manawatu try to take his chance after that appalling performance from the Leader of the Opposition. 
What is it about? It is about trying to create a beat-up around documents and trying to capitalise on the confusion that is now being created. The facts are absolutely different from anything we have heard from Opposition members. We have heard about documents that were not released at the time. Half the documents in question were released to Mr Price; a request was made under the Official Information Act in November-December. In fact half those documents relating to Nicky Hager’s book were published back in 2002. Other documents that they say were not released were actually duplicates of material that was released in July 2002. 
I want to go to a very specific thing that happened in here this afternoon. I take members’ tabling of documents somewhat seriously. The Leader of the Opposition in tabling a document this afternoon an email from Mr Wintringham the State Services Commissioner—someone who should not be dragged into debate but he was dragged into it this afternoon—gave the clear impression to the House that he was quoting the tone and the text of the State Services Commissioner’s email to chief executives. He gave the clear impression to members of this House in seeking to table it that the commissioner was concerned about the conduct and the appropriateness of a press conference that took place with senior public servants following the release of Mr Hager’s book. 
That clearly simply is not accurate; nor is it truthful. If members turn to the actual paragraph they will find that what Mr Wintringham said to a public servant who had raised with him what was appropriate: “Explaining the work of Government departments is a normal role for senior Government officials. You are right that this needs to be handled with particular care in a pre-election period and you’ll have seen that the State Services Commissioner provided the ‘umbrella’ for yesterday’s media conference. This was precisely to ensure that the briefing was limited to the provision of full and accurate but non-political information from the Public Service to the media and any other enquirers … . The briefing did not include the participation of any politicians nor did it defend or criticise any particular party policies. In addition …”. 
That is about as far as possible from the impression the Leader of the Opposition gave this House this afternoon. That is the depth to which the National Party has to sink. That is the sort of behaviour we expect from Nick Smith the rug rat. That is the sort of behaviour we expect from that member who makes up scams then falls flat on his face on the very rug he has been talking about. We all remember the Meridian Energy rug incident where he made gross accusations dragged all the media along and indeed we found out that all the accusations of extravagance and wrongdoing were wrong. He was absolutely wrong. He had made it up. He had no evidence and when the facts were produced he was found to be as wrong as Bill English’s appalling performance in this House this afternoon was.