King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:10919] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services) 
: 
 It is unusual to have a visit from Murray McCully to this House. I am wondering whether there are some numbers to be counted. Is that the reason he is here today? After all he usually spends most of his time in the Cook Islands. 
Today I want to talk about double standards. I wonder whether there are many people in this House who remember that old billboard campaign Wellington used to have. An anonymous group of people would go out overnight and stick up a billboard that looked like a newspaper billboard. Some very famous ones went up in the 1970s and the 1980s and they were usually pointed at the double standards of politicians. Some I could tell members about include the very famous one where a person who spoke out on abortion in public was not against abortion in private life. Then there was the one about the person who was carrying on an extramarital affair whilst speaking about the need for family values. 
The double standards posters were fantastic. They really exposed politicians to the core. They exposed their double values and double standards. That is what it was called  
The Double Standard 
 as if it was a newspaper. We had a lot of laughs over the years looking at those posters as they went up. 
I think it is time that that anonymous group of people came out again and started putting up some more of those posters because we have had an outbreak of double standards from the National Party lately. I will go through just three of them today. I know that members opposite are eager and anxious and that they want to hear them. 
Let us take the issue of political neutrality in the public sector. Today National members are all puffed up with self-righteous indignation over Public Service neutrality. They accuse the Government of meddling and interfering and they are demanding political solutions. Well let me just remind the House of the National Party’s approach to the Public Service. I will just look at some of the things that have been said. 
Have those members forgotten that Don Brash called to get rid of James Buwalda from the Department of Labour? How politically threatening is that? 
 Have those members forgotten that John Key told Barry Matthews of the Department of Corrections that he would sack him? How politically menacing is that? Have they forgotten John Key saying that he would sack senior officials at the Department of Corrections as well? How politically neutral is that? 
Have members opposite forgotten Murray McCully attacking Te Puni Kokiri’s chief executive? Have they forgotten his despicable slur on Wellington’s top cops only a couple of years ago? 
How about their short-term memory? Have they forgotten Gerry Brownlee’s attacks on Mark Prebble Iain Rennie and Hugh Logan? At the rate they are going there will not be a public servant left standing that has not been in the National Party’s firing line. 
What is the right of reply for public servants? There is none—none at all. In thinking of  
The Double Standard 
 billboard that one could get from that situation it would have to be something like this. Members should imagine a photo of Gerry Brownlee saying: “Don’t stand in my way—Gerry Brown-eyes State Services.” 
Let me move to the second double standard—the double standard whereby National members demand that Ministers be truthful and not mislead the public Parliament or their electorate. That is fair enough; I agree with that. But where is the scrutiny by the National Party of a potential Minister? 
Let us look at the headline on the front cover of the  
Sunday News 
. Most of us could not care a hoot about the contents of what is in this newspaper and do not care a hoot about what Mr Groser did outside Parliament. But here comes the important issue: has he told the truth to his leader? Has he told the truth to New Zealanders? Has he told the truth to the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 the  
New Zealand Herald 
 or the  
Sunday News 
? 
Is Tim Groser telling the truth? Because if he is not then that man should go. That man should go because he would have been telling a porky to his leader to New Zealand and to the media. I believe that matter is worthy of investigation—not into what he did outside Parliament but into whether he told the truth to his leader. I do not believe that he did.