Hide Rodney: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hide Rodney: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6106. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 Do members of the Government remember the great promise of Helen Clark before and after she won power in 1999? What was the promise? [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Benson-Pope says he has forgotten. The promise was more accountable Government integrity in Government and an end to extravagance. That is what the promise was. It was a classic left-wing promise because we have seen more extravagance and more waste under this Government than I have ever seen in my lifetime. 
 I ask members to think about the great New Zealand Post - Transend experience of millions of dollars being wasted on round-the-world junkets and parties. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: Did you advise them at the Fiji conference? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Mr O’Connor asks me about Fiji. The stock standard answer of the Labour Party is to talk about Fiji because no one ever invites Damien O’Connor to speak. My goodness that member is not even asked to speak in his own electorate because they say: “What’s the point? He’s never achieved anything for us.” This Government has ridden roughshod over the West Coast but it cannot front up to any of the issues such as the big spending at Transend. 
Let me remind members of this. When did the Hon Parekura Horomia find out about the spending and the financial merry-go-round at Te Mangai Paho? When did he find out that someone in Te Mangai Paho was advocating that taxpayers’ money go into Maori Sportscasting International and was in return getting trips and payments out of Maori Sportscasting as a civil servant? I look to Damien O’Connor and ask when the big weapon of mass consumption Parekura Horomia found out about that. He does not know because he has been sent down here by Heather Simpson to shout one thing: “What about Fiji?”. “What about Parekura Horomia? What about Te Mangai Paho? What about Mr Tame Te Rangi?” I ask Mr O’Connor. He has nothing to say. What we find is— 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: What about Fiji Mr Hide? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Damien O’Connor can sit there and chip chip chip. I have never heard him make a contribution to the House on behalf of his electorate and I suggest that he actually make a speech. 
On 20 February this year Parekura Horomia had a meeting as a response to my questions in this House with the chair and the chief executive of Te Mangai Paho after which he said that he was satisfied with the assurances of the board chair and chief executive of Te Mangai Paho that the matter had been handled by Te Mangai Paho. That is what that Minister said. He said that everything was OK and everything was sweet. 
We then had a Treasury-led review thanks to the sterling work of members of the National and ACT parties namely the Hon Murray McCully and Mr Rodney Hide trying to help this Minister—Parekura Horomia of the Labour Party; a weapon of mass consumption—and this Government. They had a Treasury-led review where they designed the terms of reference—so it can look only at Mr Tame Te Rangi—and it is a shocker. Here is a report from the  
Dominion Post 
 which I suppose the Labour Party will say is wrong now too. The report is titled: “Te Puni Kokiri boss apologises” and begins: “Te Puni Kokiri boss Leith Comer has apologised to Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia for embarrassing him with incorrect answers to parliamentary questions.”  
The chief executive officer of Te Puni Kokiri knows that the answers that Parekura Horomia provided to this Parliament were lies they were false they were incomplete they were wrong and that Parekura Horomia was serving to protect the wrongdoing at Te Mangai Paho to protect Mr Tame Te Rangi Mr Trevor Moeke and Hemaana Waka. He was prepared to come into this House and give false answers. The chief executive officer of Te Puni Kokiri has stated that in the report. Those answers according to the  
Dominion Post 
 have been shown to be “incorrect or incomplete” but Mr Comer said that Mr Horomia could not be blamed for the errors. 
Let us put the best light on that. The answers are false they are incorrect and the chief executive officer of Te Puni Kokiri has said that they are wrong. Has Parekura Horomia apologised for getting them wrong? Has he come into the House and said that they were wrong? Has he moved to correct those answers? In fact Parekura Horomia is so asleep at the wheel that he does not yet know they are wrong but that is what he told the House. I have not taken a breach of privilege against Parekura Horomia if members are wondering because if he is going to tell porkies to the House it has to be deliberate for it to be a breach of privilege. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member may not use the word “porkies”. It has been ruled out of order. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: If he is going to give answers to the House that are not true it can be a breach of privilege only if it is done deliberately or wilfully. Nothing about that Minister is deliberate or wilful. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: He’s unconscious! 
RODNEY HIDE 
: He is unconscious the whole time. I want to read to members the answer he gave in the House today: “The advice given to me at that time was correct.” What did the chief executive of Te Puni Kokiri say? He said that the advice was incorrect. The chief executive officer is big enough to apologise. If the chief executive can say that the answers were wrong and apologise to the people of New Zealand and to Parekura Horomia then no one can tell me that the Minister is not big enough to come to the House make his apology as Minister eat humble pie and move to correct the false answers that have been given. Those answers are not just a little bit false. The Minister referred to a report described in Parliament as “a litany of lies”. I will move to table that report at the end of my speech. 
We have discovered that there are six contracts totalling $174000 that Parekura Horomia hid from the House. Who was it that paid out a contract of $174000 and who had not told the chief executive officer of Te Mangai Paho or of Te Puni Kokiri and who had not told the Minister of Maori Affairs so that when he came down to the House the answer was false? 
We are now at the point where the only person left in New Zealand who still wonders and is still not clear about whether the answers that were given in this House are true or false is the Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Parekura Horomia. 
I have my differences with Mr John Tamihere— 
Hon Matt Robson 
: We all have. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I know Matt Robson has too but Mr Tamihere would not come down to the House give false answers to parliamentary questions have it pointed out in a Treasury report have his own chief executive officer say that they were incorrect and apologise and still after 2 weeks not have moved to correct those answers. I ask Helen Clark and every member opposite where the accountability is. Where is the integrity in that? Is that truly how little the promise of Prime Minister Helen Clark to have integrity and accountability is met? 
I remember on maybe two occasions when Ministers in the previous National Government got answers wrong in a very small way and they moved to correct them. That does not happen with Helen Clark or her Ministers; nor with Parekura Horomia. It is a disgrace.