Mackey Moana: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMackey Moana: General Debate[Sitting date: 16 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13940. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MOANA MACKEY (Labour): John Key must stand down his Minister John Banks. That is clear. The allegations against Mr Banks of electoral fraud are so serious that it is not appropriate that a Minister of the Crown remain in that position. The allegations against him are now going to be taken to court. John Key must act now to stand down John Banks. This is a Government being propped up passing controversial legislation against the best interests of New Zealanders by one man who is now facing charges of electoral fraud.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Rotten.MOANA MACKEY: That is rotten to the core. Prime Minister John Key must act now to restore the credibility of this House and this Parliament. When John Key became Prime Minister we heard a lot about how he was going to hold his Ministers to the highest ethical standards and if they did not meet those standards then he would stand them down. Well he has failed that test today. There should be no question as to whether John Banks remains a Minister in John Key’s Government—no question atall—given that these are allegations of electoral fraud. For a member of Parliament to be facing those allegations is devastating but as a Minister of the Crown it is not appropriate that he remains in that position. We wait still to hear what the Prime Minister John Key is going to do and what has happened—Hon Dr Nick Smith: He’s only had an hour.MOANA MACKEY: —to those highest ethical standards he once held. This is a case that has not just been in the last hour Dr Smith. This goes back many many many months—many many many months.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: He’s already been convicted once.MOANA MACKEY: As my colleague says he has already been convicted once. So we should not be put in this position with the credibility of this House being undermined. But unfortunately what we have seen from this Government has been low standards for Ministers right across the board.The previous speaker Gareth Hughes mentioned the Minister of Energy and Resources and his performance onCampbell Live the other night—his extraordinary performance. Phil Heatley would never have behaved like that onCampbell Live as the Minister of Energy and Resources. It was an extraordinary performance. I think anyone tuning into that performance would have been asking themselves “Who is this ‘Miss AnnaDarko’ and why is the Minister Simon Bridges so taken with her?”. It was the most extraordinary performance from a Minister of Energy and Resources who is meant to be neutral. Remember this is the man who now has half the decision-making power over whether these activities go ahead in the Department of Conservation estate.Does anyone seriously believe that Simon Bridges is ever going to say no to an oil company? Is he ever going to say no after that performance onCampbell Live where he completely dismissed the very genuine concern of the people ofKaikōura—the very genuine concern? This is the community that Phil Heatley when he was the Minister of Energy and Resources promised would be able to have a say through a public submission process on any deep-sea drilling. Phil Heatley promised them that. Good old Phil Heatley—a good Minister of Energy and Resources. Then we get Simon Bridges who comes along—along with Amy Adams the supposed Minister for the Environment although she is the Minister constantly acting against the environment—takes that away and makes a lie of PhilHeatley’s promise to the good people ofKaikōura that they would have a say on any deep-sea drilling that was going to go on off their coast.The reason this is so concerning is that the legislation Amy Adams has put in place governing this activity is so utterly bereft of any protection for the environment—any protection for the environment—that we have a very real risk of something going wrong. We saw what happened when something went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico. We saw what went wrong. The Minister Amy Adams got some advice from her officials when she asked what the impact of an oil spill would be on New Zealand and she came to the House and said: “Well the officials said it may well be significant.” Well we got those documents and what the officials said was that it will very likely be catastrophic. I think there is a bit of a difference between “very likely catastrophic” and “may be significant”. [Interruption] Amy Adams says that is quibbling over words but my concern is what those words represent and what those words represent is the very real impact on our coastal environment of an oil spill under legislation that is so weak that it does not provide the basic environmental protections that the international conventions we have signed up to require us to provide.This is a Government that is so desperate to grease the wheels for industry at any cost that it does not matter whether it is the rights of workers in New Zealand access tolow-cost pharmaceuticals or our environment which we rely on entirely for our economy—those are all up for sale under a National Government.