Key John: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Key John: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:645;Page:14815] 
1. 
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her response when asked whether her Government got many of its ideas from the New Zealand Public Service “No. It is a very blunt answer but it is true. We generate the ideas.”; if not why not? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
John Key 
: If the Government does not get its ideas from the Public Service why has the biggest-growing sector of the New Zealand economy since 2000 been Government administration? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Of course someone has to work up and develop the brilliant ideas of the Labour Government like KiwiSaver Working for Families the emissions trading scheme the Energy Strategy 20 hours’ free early childhood education and many others I could name. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Has the Prime Minister received any reports on extravagance in the New Zealand Public Service? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As a matter of fact I have. I did see reports about videos having been made for the Department of Work and Income in which the then chief executive Christine Rankin appeared on one occasion as the mother-in-law at a mock wedding and on another dressed in a full length fur-trimmed silvery coat climbing on to a wharf. The mind boggles. That was in 1999. The employees who saw the video were warned by Mrs Rankin not to talk to the media. She is of course now a very prominent member of the National Party. 
John Key 
: Does the Prime Minister think—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The question will be heard in silence. Anyone who interrupts will be asked to leave the Chamber. 
John Key 
: Does the Prime Minister think that all of the reports and strategies being produced by the Public Service are of good value important and necessary? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: They surely are an awful lot better than having no ideas no policy no strategy and not even being able to understand a simple statement made yesterday about an upfront $700 million investment in innovation in the primary sectors which is totally supported by those sectors and opposed by Her Majesty’s Opposition leader. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I ask the Prime Minister as to whether on the question of the acquisition of ideas she intends to avail herself of a supplier of ideas as set out in this complaint made to the chief executive officer of APN which is the owner of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 which states: “However the potential effect is to portray all New Zealand newspapers owned by APN as subservient to political interference. The risk is that the readers will perceive the Herald … as open to National Party influence.”; will she avail herself of that outlet of ideas—namely APN which runs so much of this country’s print media as everybody knows and as I have told people for a long time? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It would be very difficult to borrow ideas from the National Party because there are not any. I hope that on this side of the House we never go down the low road that those members went down in their bullying of a junior journalist and an editor of a regional paper. 
Tim Barnett 
: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports of extravagant conference expenditure by Government departments? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As a matter of fact I did. A quarter of a million dollars was spent by the Department of Work and Income on a conference for staff at a resort hotel in Taupo in 1999. Of that $168000 was spent on chartering planes and the Audit Office found the travel arrangements for the course had a “secretive flavour” which was “inappropriate”. The chief executive who organised those arrangements was none other than Mrs Christine Rankin who is now a prominent member of the National Party and if someone can enlighten us as to where she is on its list we will be all ears. 
John Key 
: Does the Prime Minister think that the report produced today by the Families Commission which is to spend around $500000 on telling people that they should value parents is of good value necessary and worthwhile when Dr Prasad stated: “Such messages might be self-evident but they are still worth repeating.”; and would the Prime Minister like to tell New Zealand families who are struggling to make ends meet that it is far more important that things like that report are produced than that they have an opportunity to make their mortgage payments? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition is the only member in the House who does not think that good parenting is important. Better parenting might save us all a lot of money on the criminal justice system down the track. 
John Key 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that in the quarterly employment survey the number of core bureaucrats has risen from 26200 to 36000 which is an average of about 3300 per parliamentary term under Labour and will she tell the House whether that number will increase; can she confirm that under a National Government where there will not be an increase in core bureaucrats the savings will be over half a billion dollars and what does she think New Zealanders would prefer: more money to be spent on front-line services and tax cuts or more money to be spent on core bureaucrats? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Of course I cannot confirm any of the member’s figures. I can say that of the total growth in Public Service numbers 15 percent occurred in policy departments and 85 percent was in the front-line departments and agencies. I can say furthermore that the slippery figures I have read about in a certain speech today do not own up to the fact that the Ministry of Education for example grew because the whole of the Special Education Service was brought into it and that the Ministry of Health grew because National’s wasteful health bureaucracy the Health Funding Authority was done away with. Further and finally I can confirm that yes the numbers in Statistics New Zealand were greater in 2006 than in 2000 because it was a census year. 
John Key 
: If the Prime Minister values the Public Service so much why did she blame Treasury for not letting her Cabinet and caucus know there was room for tax cuts when her own Minister of Finance got exactly that advice in an incoming briefing described it as ideological burp and did not want a bar of it; is it not a situation where under a Labour Government if one works for the core bureaucracy “You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My recollection is that Treasury said tax cuts could be afforded if we were prepared to cut expenditure in other places. That is the National Party’s policy not ours. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: On the question of the acquisition of ideas does the Government intend to adopt the latest stance of the National Party on KiwiSaver—namely to abolish it despite this country’s serious personal debt problem a move that every journalist is saying National has just announced today? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It is inappropriate that Mr Peters raises spurious and frankly wildly inaccurate assertions in a question and it is particularly inappropriate to do so in this question where there is no resemblance between his question and the primary question asked by Mr Key or the questions subsequently answered by the Prime Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: The second line of the primary question reads: “got many of its ideas from”. That puts into question where the Government acquired its ideas—[ 
Interruption 
] I know it would not have acquired them from Mr Carter. He is bereft of any ideas. In fact he is a standing joke where he comes from. But my point refers to the line “got many of its ideas from”. That is where the issue was put into question and it is no use being embarrassed by the consequences. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The primary question was very broad and therefore it is likely to attract supplementary questions that are broad. I ask the Prime Minister to address the question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Madam Speaker I take you to Standing Order 371(1)(b) and ask you for your ruling on that in relation to Mr Peters’ question which makes inference offers imputation and is to say the very least an ironical expression. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That would probably rule out most of the supplementary questions. I ask Mr Peters to perhaps—as some of us may have forgotten what his original question was—rephrase his question in a manner that is consistent with the Standing Orders. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Madam Speaker I would be delighted to do so. On the issue of where—and I quote the primary question—“her Government got many of its ideas from” does the Government intend to abolish the KiwiSaver scheme a move that today every journalist is telling me is the National Party’s latest pronouncement? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: With the uptake of KiwiSaver fast approaching half a million New Zealanders the Labour-led Government will be backing KiwiSaver all the way not trying to scuttle it undermine it and eliminate it as the National Party would do. 
John Key 
: Is it still her Government’s No. 1 priority that the fastest-growing part of the economy should be Government administration; if so how does she reconcile that with the facts that New Zealand families today are paying very high prices at the petrol pump have not had a tax cut for 8 or 9 years are struggling to make ends meet and are struggling to get by in life—do they not deserve a bit of a break after 9 years? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: In case the Leader of the Opposition has not noticed this I tell him 70 percent of Kiwi families have had substantial tax relief under Working for Families. The Government’s highest priority is to grow the economy and to give a charge to the huge food and pastoral sector which generates more than half our export earnings. The Leader of the Opposition now says he totally opposes the fund we announced yesterday and he would disband it. 
Rodney Hide 
: In respect of the uptake of ideas does the Prime Minister believe that a Government should accept good ideas wherever they come from if they are good and that is why this Government supported ACT’s anti - red tape bill the Regulatory Responsibility Bill at least as far as its referral to the Commerce Committee? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: For once I agree with the member. If there are good ideas we should not be embarrassed about taking them up. Good ideas are not something the Government says it has a monopoly on. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a letter from the  
New Zealand Herald 
’s journalists chapel to APN’s chief executive officer Martin Simons complaining about political interference by the ownership in the  
New Zealand Herald 
’s 
reporting. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.