Goff Phil: Urgent Debates — Hon John Banks—Ministerial ResignationText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Urgent Debates — Hon John Banks—Ministerial Resignation[Sitting date: 17 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14027. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): This Government is now clearly developing a reputation for not only being a shonky Government one that is tarnished by poor ethics and poor behaviour but also as a shaky Government.Hon Steven Joyce: Long way to go to recognise the Labour Government mate.Hon PHIL GOFF: Those two things are connected of course Mr Joyce. The only reason that you have not sacked members of your ministry—you would like it to be your ministry; Mr Key’s ministry—is that you know you have to rely on discredited members of Parliament to maintain your tenuous control on power.I want to say this. You know the Government is in trouble when National has the call and nobody rises to their feet. You know a National Government is in trouble when the acting Leader in the House of this Government Bill English gets to his feet and cannot do 5 minutes let alone 10 minutes in defence of the indefensible. We saw that over John Banks. This is a Government that has been there only 5 years and it has lost seven Ministers—seven Ministers. Let us go through the list shall we.Richard Worth—sacked when it was clearly revealed he was sending inappropriate texts to another woman. That was Richard Worth. Then there was Pansy Wong—sacked for the inappropriate use of the travel allowance. Richard Worth Pansy Wong and Phil Heatley. Phil Heatley was sacked because he was inappropriately using allowances for wine and for travel for his family. That was Phil Heatley. Then we had Nick Smith. He was inappropriately making submissions on behalf of his friend BronwynPullar. That is quite inappropriate for a Minister to do when that person is in conflict with his ministry. And he resigned. He has resigned once and I will give you this undertaking: we will see him resign again because he has been inappropriate in the way that he has effectively stopped his department the Department of Conservation from putting forward submissions on an important public issue that it should be heard on. It is not the role of a Minister to silence his department because he has a different point of view. That department was entitled to put forward submissions and I believe that the comments made about the reason why it did not make that submission are clearly misleading. Then we had Kate Wilkinson. Well she is in a different category to be fair to Kate. Sheresigned because her department was failing in its responsibilities and it is still failing in its responsibilities.But the worst cases are the two members who have been absolutely discredited in the court of public opinion who are—or were—Ministers outside Cabinet: Peter Dunne and John Banks. Peter Dunne let us face it leaked a report theKitteridge report on the Government Communications Security Bureau to a journalist. The evidence is there. That is why he would not submit the emails. The Government pretended that it was somebody else. The poor old civil servants had to line up and give their testimony on oath but not Peter Dunne. He was never required to do that. There is not one member of the National Party with their head down at the moment who does not know that Peter Dunne leaked that report. He should not have just resigned from the ministry he should not be in this House. He has no credibility. Why does National keep him there? It keeps him there because it relies on his vote for it to maintain its grasp on power. No matter how tarnished no matter how tawdry this Government keeps Ministers in place and will not sack them for behaving unethically because simply it wants to maintain its grip on power. [Interruption] “Exactly” Anne Tolley says. Anne Tolley has just agreed with my point that they keep tawdry discredited Ministers in place to maintain their grip on the reins of Government.Then you have got John Banks. Well you know one of the things that a Minister should do is have a good memory and remember what he has done. Mr Banks does not remember Kim Dotcom—an easy man to forget I guess! He does not remember his mansion—only a small shack; I suppose he might have overlooked it. He did not remember the ride to the mansion in the helicopter—well he takes helicopter rides all the time! He did not remember asking for donations and he did not remember receiving them. John Banks as the police report states filed a declaration that was false.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Hon PHIL GOFF: That is not in debate Mr Speaker; that is the police report.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I just remind members as I did before that we have to be very careful with an allegation like that. That is what is before the court—whether John Banks seemingly and knowingly filed a false return. That is what we cannot refer to in this House because it could be prejudicial to the court case. I will ask the member just to be very mindful of that. I mentioned that earlier. There is a Standing Order specifically on that point.Hon PHIL GOFF: That is why I did not use the word “knowingly”. That would have been quite inappropriate because it is before the court. But there is no doubt no debate and no question that the declaration was a false one—no doubt about that at all. That is established.Hon Steven Joyce: Like 2005 and the credit card eh?Hon PHIL GOFF: Mr Joyce might remember that when he swore his oath of office he was expected to behave as theCabinet Manual says: “Ministers are expected to act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds and is seen to uphold the highest ethical standards.” Six Ministers Mr Joyce did not uphold those standards.Did the Prime Minister do what he promised when he took office? “I expect” he said pompously and self-righteously “high standards from my Ministers. If they do not meet the standards I set then obviously I’ll take the action if necessary.” “Read the full quote.” the Prime Minister would say. Well it was not in the quote unfortunately. But what he was saying was: “I will take the action when I have no other choice.” when everybody else in this country has reached the conclusion that a Minister has behaved wrongly unethically and sometimes illegally. Only at the end of the day when he was forced to do it did the Prime Minister sack those six Ministers each of whom behavedunethically. This Government has reached the end of its time in office. Already out there in the electorate people are saying “It’s time for a change.”Hon Steven Joyce: Ha ha! In your desperate dreams.Hon PHIL GOFF: Keep giggling Mr Joyce. Giggle to keep your courage up but you know that to be the truth. You know that is what the polls say you know that is what your polls are saying and you know that is what people are saying out on the street. This Government has reached the end of its tenure. It is tarnished. It is tawdry.What I object to most about the Prime Minister’s failure to do what he promised—to uphold ethical standards—is that this country actually has a good reputation. In Transparency International it is the least corrupt country in the world. But you know Mr Joyce that to maintain that reputation standards have got to be set at the top. If Ministers do not maintain those standards then that will filter down through the rest of our society and we will see a diminishing of the standards that we have long been proud of and have upheld. This Government is not upholding those standards.John Key did not even read the police report. Can Mr Joyce if he is taking the next call say why the Prime Minister never read the police report? He said: “I’m taking Mr Banks at his word.” Well that is leadership is it not! It is leadership to say: “Here are the charges against the man. Here is the pile of evidence. But no I won’t read the police report because it’ll confirm it and I’ll take him at his word.” Why did he not just honestly say as Anne Tolley admitted to the House that he is keeping people in ministerial posts because he needs their votes to stay in power? That is what it is about. It is not about taking people at their word and it is not about not being obliged to read the police report. He should have upheld those ethical standards. John Key is the man who is on trial in this House because John Key has not done what he promised the country 5 years ago that he would do—uphold high standards.We have seen low standards. We have never seen lower standards than we are seeing at the moment even in the way Mr Banks got into power. He is in this House for one reason—the National Party gifted him the seat of Epsom because it wanted to rort the political system to get extra people in the House. That is why it put Don Brash in—Don Brash a former leader of the National Party and John Banks a former Cabinet Minister. The National Party put those people into the seat of Epsom to rort the political system. The public will judge National on that as well.Let us have a quick look at the ACT Party. I have never agreed with the ACT Party but once upon a time I could at least respect it because it had a principled point of view. It does not have a principled point of view now. It is being manipulated as a tool of the National Party to keep a National Government in power a Government that the people have had a gutsful of and now want to get rid of. The ACT Party the party of Donna Awatere and David Garrett—they have certainly—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Time has expired.