Goodhew Jo: General Debate 
Goodhew Jo: General Debate 
[Volume:629;Page:1384] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to speak in this general debate. I am a troubled newbie politician—troubled by the lack of integrity and the dishonesty I see on the benches opposite me among the members of the Clark-Peters Government. Examples abound. Firstly the pièce de résistance—the assertion that the pledge card was a legitimate use of taxpayer funding through the Prime Minister’s leader’s fund. I do not think so! The timing was just too cute by far—arriving in my mailbox smack in the middle of the election campaign with no pretence at all a glossy brochure and a pledge card with a stunning babe photograph on it. How could that not win votes? The rules on taxpayer-funded advertising can be summarised very succinctly: publicising policies is okay; soliciting votes or— 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I apologise to my colleague but the previous senior Government whip will know that it is contrary to the Standing Orders to move to another seat in order to gain a better advantage for interjections. I suggest that if she wishes to interject she return to her seat at the back of the Chamber. Alternatively she could stay in her seat and keep quiet. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: That is exactly what the Speaker’s ruling says but I think most people are out of their own seats in the general debate today and have been interjecting from where they are sitting at present because most people like to come forward. We seem to let it go but we will certainly send people to their proper seats if that is what the member wants. 
JO GOODHEW 
: The pledge card is all about soliciting votes. If it were not Labour would not keep rolling it out election after election. Labour made a calculated decision to campaign on the public purse. There is no confusion. There was no mistake. It was a deliberate and conscious decision—dishonesty and lack of integrity. Labour members thought they had got away with it—but no! The matter has been referred to the police just like the Prime Minister’s many other excursions that are very close to being unacceptable. National has led the charge in calling for an overhaul of taxpayer-funded advertising rules. Only now that Labour has been caught red-handed is the Prime Minister shuffling her feet. It is simply not good enough. Taxpayers deserve far better and they will get it from National. But wait—there is more lack of integrity! Members may call it duck-shoving if they like. The previous Aoraki MP and the Prime Minister sped through South Canterbury then hung the police and civilian drivers out to dry. My constituents sent a clear message to the Hon. Jim Sutton and Labour over their thoughts on that one. 
It is very appropriate that I am talking here today about duplicitous behaviour. On 29 August 2005 the  
Timaru Herald 
 carried a story of a miraculous change in the priority of local Transit State Highway 1 and State Highway 8 project funding. The previous Minister of Transport Pete Hodgson was quoted as saying: “I would hope that the money for the full feasibility plan for the roundabout can be made available in this financial year and funding for its construction in the next financial year. Construction of the roundabout would be planned for the winter of 2007 …”. The headline was “Green light for roundabout: SH1 trouble spot gets top priority”. But wait—what do we see in the report today? That project is so far away that it does not even warrant a date. There is no chance whatsoever that Trevor Mallard will be able to talk the department into putting it in the next draft of this document. The earlier comment was duplicitous. Labour thought that it might win Labour the election but it did not work in my electorate. Pete Hodgson and Jim Sutton can now be seen for what they are. They attempted to bribe the people of Aoraki and they failed but miserably. 
The other project that got quite a bit of newspaper coverage during the election was another attempted bribe—Timaru’s courthouse. Again we find that that is on the backburner now that the election is past. I implore the Government not to punish the people of Aoraki for their distrust of the Prime Minister and Jim Sutton. I implore the Government not to treat the people of Aoraki badly just because of the election result because that distrust was bred of “paintergate” “Doone-gate” “corngate” “motorcade-gate” and “pledge card - gate”. I fear that their trust will now take a further battering when they find out about Labour’s duplicity in relation to the election pledge card. 
I represent rural provincial New Zealand and the people of Aoraki. I strive also to represent being trustworthy. That seems to me to be something that all of those examples are not. Again I remind members that we have had “paintergate” “Doone-gate” “corngate” and “motorcade-gate”—all examples of Government members not being trustworthy. So I invite them to try to mend bridges to try to apologise. For a start they should pay the money back. They should say to the people of New Zealand: “OK it was not OK to ask you to pay for a bribe for your votes.” That is a very simple exercise. So they should start by paying the money back. We did find that Ministers put their hands in their pockets to pay the fines for the motorcade’s police officers. What was that if not an about-face and a “We’re feeling guilty; how can we mend this bridge?” But the people of Aoraki saw through it and they did not feel that that made those people trustworthy in their eyes.