Mallard Trevor: General Debate 
Mallard Trevor: General Debate 
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Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I acknowledge the member who has just spoken Jonathan Young. I think he is an underrated National member. In fact I was just commenting to my colleague that four members sitting in the back row are underrated by National. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No there aren’t—there’s only three. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Three of them are underrated by their National colleagues. It is somewhat sad from my perspective to see them treated in that way. 
The topic of the debate today is clearly the problems that are occurring in Auckland. I am not referring to the remarks that have been attributed to Mr Williamson; I am referring to the chaos in Auckland on Friday afternoon and Friday night. Today in the House I referred to the assurances that were given during and following the “99 days to the cup” visit. According to the Auckland Council it was a full-day visit from Mr McCully and Mr Joyce. They went around the facilities and pronounced themselves satisfied with the preparations. I am somewhat saddened that repeated offers—offers at the end of 2008 offers when the legislation was going through the House and more recent offers—to work on a bipartisan basis to give assistance without any need for recognition to make sure this thing worked well were spurned by the Minister for the Rugby World Cup who continually said that things were in hand. Clearly they were not. 
The Minister rejected the possibility of using the Auckland Domain as the major family-friendly site with possibly alcohol around the edge or on part of the domain. As the place that is used for Carols by Candlelight it has shown an ability to take a quarter of a million people. That possibility was rejected by the Minister and he has yet to explain why that was the case. 
The Prime Minister and the Minister had asked Aucklanders—and in fact people from around New Zealand and around the world—to come down to the wharf to party central. He has yet to explain why he thought only 12000 people would come. Why did he think only 12000 people would come to party central? The Prime Minister invited them 18 months ago to come to party central. We had concerts and fireworks and we had spectacular waka paddling. He thought that only 5 percent of the number of people who go to Carols by Candlelight would go to this magnificent opening. We are assured that he was told that the number would be 150000 by Michael Barnett who is a close friend of his from Auckland. He apparently appointed him to a position over a coffee at a cafe on one occasion; it is not as though he is distant from the National Party. The Prime Minister was told to expect 150000 people and we are now told that that was an underestimate. 
I am not sure that even now the Minister knows what he is doing. I think possibly this weekend will be a bit of a test but the real test will be when New Zealand plays France on 24 September and during the quarter-finals and the semi-finals. There will be four countries there for those weekends. The number of fans will begin to lift and the test will be at that time. 
We have seen I think one of the most spectacular ministerial failures in our time. We have a Minister who was appointed for a specific purpose: to make sure that the Rugby World Cup works well. I think that generally he did pretty well with his changes and appointments to the board. I think it is a good board. It has worked together and it has a good chief executive. The board has delivered on the field and close to it. But there has been an abysmal failure in the business development side of it. That has been almost absolutely missing. What have we had? We have had a Minister who chose the colour the shade of blue for the Prime Minister to mince in but did not focus on the numbers who would be going to the wharf.