Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Ministerial Resignation—Member for TamakiMakaurau 
Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Ministerial Resignation—Member for TamakiMakaurau 
[Volume:621;Page:16541] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 At least there was a bit of life in that speech unlike the one that started off the debate from the Leader of the Opposition. Mr English was a bit like Joe Cocker—at least Joe Cocker alive—whereas the Leader of the Opposition was like Frank Sinatra dead as far as I could make out in terms of that performance. It was like he was crooning away from the grave as far as one could see. The real essence of what we have just been told is the really fascinating view of life that Tories always have: if one is working on behalf of the poor one should be poor; if one is working on behalf of the rich one should be rich. That of course is the motto Mr Rodney Hide lives by as he takes his outside payments—as he is still taking—in order to be a member of Parliament. 
This is a sad day. It is sad day for Mr Tamihere. He has been an able and energetic Minister who has represented a new wave of urban Maori in this House. He has represented their interests—and their interests are not those of wanting to be dependent upon the State as the member has just tried to argue but of wishing to advance themselves. Mr Tamihere has represented those people throughout his career both before he came to Parliament and while he has been in Parliament. Today he has engaged in an honourable action by standing down and no longer being a Minister. When did a member of the National Party ever do that? 
Darren Hughes 
: Never! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. It was once but then the member stopped being a member of the National Party sometime after that. That was when Mr Peters left the National Party over his treatment as Minister of Maori Affairs. But what else did we see? Did we ever see Mr Murray McCully who was a kind of walking video of accusations and muck during his ministerial career suggest that he should stand aside—a man who was found in fact to have acted unwisely in terms of his relationships with the Tourism Board? No not at all. There was Denis Marshall who never resigned over the fact that people died because of incompetence within the Department of Conservation—[ 
Interruption 
] And what about the man who is now interjecting—as I knew he would not be able to stop himself from doing—who was found guilty of contempt of court and proud of it because the judge found he did not believe what Dr Smith told the courts. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That’s not true. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That is true. That is exactly what the judge said in the judgment—that he did not find the statements made by the member credible. And what happened? He got advanced to the front bench despite the fact that his 10 minutes as deputy leader of the party caused such extreme stress depression and exhaustion on his part that he had to take 3 weeks’ paid break on full parliamentary salary. Being No. 2 to Don Brash in a bad year was too much for him to cope with. Then he came back and now he sits on the front bench. He is the only one in this House who has been found guilty of contempt of court as far as I can remember. It is the most serious offence I can remember a front-bench member in this House ever being found guilty of— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Proud of it. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
—and he is proud of it. He is proud that he tried to bully somebody by misleading that person about the nature of what Parliament was and he thought it was clever to do that. He thought he was very clever and he still sits there grinning inanely away at this House. Well we would not open up the books for Dr Smith because all the books that Dr Smith has are pop-up ones. Little cardboard things come up from their middles if anyone tries to open them. That is about his level of understanding of life. 
What about Mr Rodney Hide that great exposer of things that go wrong in life? He is the man who went off to Fiji to tell people how to evade their taxes the man who has been receiving payments from an outside businessman—I suspect from an expatriate New Zealand businessman—and he has been receiving those payments since he was an MP. 
Rodney Hide 
: How much? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Well I say to Mr Hide that we would like to know how much. He might like to tell us. But it is funny that he will not tell anybody whom he has been getting the money from and how much it is. Why will he not tell us? Why will every member of the ACT party oppose the Members of Parliament (Pecuniary Interests) Bill? Why is every member of the ACT party saying that if that bill is passed they will not disclose their personal interests to the House? Why will they not do that? They sit there and try to look all smarmy. 
The interesting thing about this debate is that it has shifted away from the grounds of 3 weeks ago. At that time all the accusations were around tax various payments and whatever but I have noticed that the more sensible members have pretty much avoided all those charges now because they know that they will not fly—that they will be found to be false. So what they are back to now is the fact that Mr Tamihere accepted an ex gratia payment—something of course totally unknown to any of those members! I am sure that Mr Key got no such ex gratia payment when he left his position as a senior financial person for a major international financial organisation. I am sure he never got any sort of payment of that variety. But of course if he did that is OK. Why? Because he is a rich man and he was working for an organisation on behalf of rich people. So it is perfectly all right to get a payment in those circumstances. Mr Tamihere’s sin is that he took an ex gratia payment for doing well by the poor and from a National Party perspective that is doubly unforgivable. He did good things for poor people and got rewarded financially for them. We can understand why the National Party and the ACT party regard that as such a heinous crime. Well I look forward to the investigations. I look forward to Mr Douglas White who is a highly distinguished QC—even Mr Stephen Franks had to admit that to his highly non-distinguished non-QC in legal terms— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why isn’t there a commission of inquiry? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Why does the member want to have millions of dollars spent and to spend on an inquiry more money than the amount of money the accusation was about? That is what the member is basically proposing. That is a classic National Party approach to the Government’s finances I have to say. Let us have thousands of lawyers at ten paces firing away in depositions and all the rest of it—all about what we are talking about in this particular respect! No we are not going to have that. The Douglas White inquiry is around those issues that have been raised and I am confident that Mr Tamihere has adequate explanations for all those charges that have been made. I say bluntly that I am certain that people will find he is not guilty in terms of non-payment of tax. I am quite certain about that and I look forward to the inquiry being undertaken in that respect. Then we will have the inquiry undertaken by the Serious Fraud Office at Mr Tamihere’s request. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yeah right. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Oh yeah right. That is what happened last Friday. Mr Tamihere has no reason to hide anything about the Waipareira Trust but a few other people might get a bit worried around that over the coming few months as the investigation is undertaken by the Serious Fraud Office and we look forward to that. 
I state bluntly what I said to the media today: I hope that my friend John Tamihere is cleared by the inquiries and I hope that when he is cleared the way will be clear for him to return to Cabinet at some point in the future. Mr Hide will sit there on the Opposition benches getting grumpier and older as the years go by and getting paid by his overseas mates—expatriate New Zealand businessmen—year by year. Dr Smith will continue to bleat away as he vaguely remembers he was once a Minister of the Crown but could not hack it as deputy leader of the National Party in Opposition. They will carry on there for year after year and Mr Tamihere will do some good for the people he came here to represent. I look forward to that— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Oh yeah. Take their money. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Well Dr Smith is taking a lot of money at the present time from the taxpayer and I do not see any value to the taxpayer coming out of the money he is being paid at the present time. At least the other parties manage to put up people who speak with some degree of conviction. Dr Smith could have spoken with a very high degree of conviction—we all know that. At least the other parties do that but what did Dr Brash do? I am still trying to work out whether he was sleepwalking or whether he had anything to say that was new. I say that Mr Tamihere is worth ten Dr Smiths any day of the week. I look forward to those inquiries and I recognise that he— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why has he resigned? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: He has resigned because that is the honourable thing to do while these accusations carry on and so that he can defend himself. The question “Why has he resigned?” is a Tory question because no Tory ever resigned from anything. The pants have to be completely down around the ankles the shirt pulled up around the shoulders and the camera working away before any Tory would resign for anything in politics. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.