Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Volume:634;Page:5427] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. This is the week that New Zealanders learnt that what they had known for a long time was in fact true—that Helen Clark considers her Government to be above the law. She believes that whatever her Government does does not need to be scrutinised by the law in this country. Further she believes that if her Government does something then it most certainly cannot be unlawful. 
This all goes back to the very longstanding statement made by the Prime Minister some years ago when she said that by definition she could not leak. Do members remember that? It was right at the very beginning of her term as Prime Minister when she said she was above the law. Today she has confirmed it again in the House by saying Labour will not repay the $446000 it stole out of the taxpayers’ purse to pay for its election pledge card. 
Let us get some of the history of this in order. There had been concern after the 2002 election about the way in which some parliamentary funding was used. Throughout 2003 the Parliamentary Service Commission met—Dr Cullen was part of it a number of National members were part of it and the late Mr Donald from the Green Party was part of it. There was a recommitment to the rules of how expenditure should be used. In addition it was made abundantly clear that if parliamentary funds were misused then responsibility for those funds and the paying back of those funds lay with the party leader and the members of that party. So we are not talking about the Labour Party having to go out and get the $446000; we are talking about the Labour members of Parliament having to get that $446000. 
I want people to tell us how many members on the Opposition side of the House have overspent budgets accidentally in the past and have been required to write a cheque to pay the difference. There are quite a number and I will stick my hand up—I am one of them. In 10 years I have only ever done it once. I overspent my parliamentary budget and I paid it back with a personal cheque. That is what the Labour Party members should be doing. But instead they have the Prime Minister out there saying: “The rules are the rules and the rules are what I make them and the rules say—because I made them so—we didn’t do it.” Well that is not going to wash with the 81 percent of New Zealanders who say they should pay the money back. 
I ask Labour members why they are taking this position. Why do they not just pay the money back? It is because they are so convinced that they are the only group that could govern this country. It does not matter that we are going nowhere; it does not matter that we are slipping behind the rest of the world; it does not matter that all of their measures are a mess; they are going to do what it takes to stay there. 
Mr Maharey will recall that a once-great Labour leader said that New Zealanders had a right to good health and good health services. Have they got those now under a Labour Government? No they have not. He said they had a right to a good education and good education services. Have they got those? He said they had a right to good housing and access to clean housing. Have they got those with those waiting lists? He said they had the right to be secure in their own country. Which people feel secure in this country when they read the newspapers at the end of the weekend and see some incompetent like Mr Anderton is encouraging the drug industry in this country? He said they have a right to feel secure as a nation. We do not need to ask the question there because the answer is abundantly obvious. Those were five rights propounded across this country by the great Norman Kirk and this Labour Government has squandered that legacy. It has no right to stay there. 
I point further to the extraordinary position that we have of Mr Hodgson on Monday saying on the radio that Labour would not pay the money back. He then headed into his ministerial office emailed the district health boards around the country that had overspent on treating people with health needs and told them that they had to pay it back. I say to Mr Hodgson that is a double standard and there are some answers he should give this House.