English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:632;Page:4213] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 So this is how Labour celebrates its 90th anniversary: its Prime Minister goes out in public defending a millionaire MP who was caught trading political favours for free labour from immigrants. That is how Labour has celebrated its 90th anniversary. Is there anything in the tradition of the so-called workers’ party that reflects well on this incident? Absolutely not! I say to members of this House that they should imagine the bile and the outrage there would be if a National MP—my colleague Mr Key for instance—had been caught with illegal immigrant labourers painting his house on the basis that he got them a work permit in New Zealand. 
What do the supporters of the Labour Party think—supporters who have always valued the skill of tradesmanship; the tradition of passing those skills on—when the Labour Minister of Immigration gives a work permit to someone who has been an overstayer for 7 years and has had his application for refugee status turned down? That Minister Damien O’Connor should explain why he gave that permit because on the face of it he did it to please his friend Taito Phillip Field. We could imagine the bile if a National Party MP had been caught doing the same thing. Is Helen Clark not interested in whether those workers were working legally? Did their employer pay their PAYE? And as my colleague Maurice Williamson asked this morning did they pay their GST if they were contractors? Were they paid the minimum wage? I ask Helen Clark whether they were properly subject to the occupational safety and health regulations. Did any of the things that Labour says it has campaigned on for 90 years happen in respect of those vulnerable low-paid workers? 
We do not know the answer to those questions because Helen Clark does not want to ask them on Labour’s 90th birthday. Helen Clark has been parading the country as Labour’s second-most successful Prime Minister ever celebrating the 90th birthday of her party by taking a political action that runs against every single principle the Labour Party used to stand for—and I say “used to” because now it does not. 
 The worst of it is that there is no shame about this. There is no embarrassment. I can remember sitting in the Government ranks when National Ministers made mistakes. 
Hon Member 
: Name them. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I will name two of them who paid the price: Denis Marshall and Murray McCully. I can recall at the very least the sense that something wrong had happened. There is none of that from members of the Labour Party yet this is totally contrary to every principle they have ever stood for. Their Prime Minister says that it is yesterday’s issue and it is time to move on. There is not even a shred of embarrassment that a Minister of the Crown—almost certainly illegally—exploited people and used free labour. The Queen’s Counsel did not set out to investigate those matters but if the workers were working for nothing and paying no tax that is criminal. People go to court if they do not pay their workers and if they do not pay their workers’ PAYE they get done by the Inland Revenue Department. These are criminal activities not errors of judgment and every one of them is against the principles of the Labour Party. That is what is so sad. I tell Mr Gosche that that is how Labour Party members celebrated their 90th birthday.