Benson-Pope David: General Debates 
Benson-Pope David: General Debates 
[Volume:609;Page:6350] 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 What a time it is to be out of the country. Two weeks ago Mr English was in Australia taking advice from John Howard on how to throw people off the boat. With the caucus that he has we know why he would find that sort of advice useful. Where is he now? He is in the United States. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand that a member cannot refer to a member who is not in the Chamber. He is overseas on business. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes. The member can now carry on with his speech. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you give the House some guidance? Is it appropriate for the chief Government whip to be making such statements about the Prime Minister of another country throwing people off a boat? Is that appropriate in this House? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that is not a point of order. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will leave the Chamber if he is going to raise that sort of point of order. It is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order Mr Mark and it had better be one. 
Ron Mark 
: It damn well is! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please make it. 
Ron Mark 
: My point of order is that I am getting tired of being treated by you as some sort of whipping boy when I ask a straight question and get an answer like that. I would expect a little respect from you as you would from me. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will now leave the Chamber. 
Ron Mark withdrew from the Chamber. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is no point of order. The member can raise a point of order but it has to be a point of order. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order. I took deep offence at the statement made by the Government chief whip that the Leader of the Opposition is overseas learning “how to throw people off the boat”. We all know the connotation of the John Howard debate about the Timor strait and the allegation of people being thrown off the boat. I am sure that is what the chief whip was implying. I know that the whip of New Zealand First also took the same offence. I believe that it was a valid point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I do not. It is a point of debate. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am pressing the point to you that I took offence at the comments of the chief Government whip. I ask that he withdraw and apologise for those offensive statements. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The comment was not addressed to Mr Shirley. Mr Tisch raised a point of order and he is quite entitled to. I said that was to be the end of that reference to a member being overseas. Comments about other heads of State and what have you are for the judgment of members. It is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not want to be the one to disagree with you but I think there is a very real question here when a Leader of the Opposition announces that he is on an official trip overseas on taxpayers’ funds and reference is not allowed to be made to that. There is a difference between saying that someone is absent from the House and a reference to someone who is funded by the taxpayer quite directly and has made media statements to indicate that that is the case. I think reference to that is appropriate. It is not referring to the absence of a member from the House; it is referring to the presence of the member overseas on what is meant to be official Opposition business. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My concern is not so much about that comment and those outside of the Standing Orders in referring to the absence of a member—particularly in a debate like this one. However if a member were to say that the leader of any party was overseas learning how to commit for example corrupt acts that would be regarded as grave and disorderly. Throwing people off a boat is equally a criminal offence in the way that the senior Government whip has portrayed it. That illegality is not just a matter of debate; it is slightly more serious than that and that is what two colleagues in this House took grave offence to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I agree with the member on that comment. If objection has been taken to that particular comment I want the member to withdraw and apologise for it. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is the exact point I made to you and you said it was not a point of order. You have just now accepted the exact point from Mr Winston Peters. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let me just say that I have had time to reflect on it and I might occasionally be wrong. This is one of those occasions. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I trust that no time will be deducted from Mr Tisch’s speech? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Mr Tisch is not speaking. Mr Benson-Pope is. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Who does the Leader of the Opposition choose to take with him on that official visit to the United States but Simon Power Lockwood Smith and Wayne Mapp? It would be hard to understand why he would take two of those people but one could easily understand why Simon Power has to be with them. At least that is one knife that he can keep an eye on but the other two? We do not know much about weapons of mass destruction but with Messrs Smith and Mapp giving him advice we know where the unguided missiles are. What an embarrassment! 
However when we look at the National Party front bench—and the back-benches come to that—I guess we see that is as good as it gets. Increasingly the National Party is looking more and more like a rhinoceros. Why a rhinoceros I hear members ask? One might think that the rhinoceros comparison applied more to the ACT party. That is certainly the view of the  
Truth 
 newspaper which refers to Mr Hide by that name. However Mr Hide—that soft underbelly of bigotry—is not really the rhinoceros that the National Party is. As will be well known to most zoo watchers the greatest characteristic of a rhinoceros is its tiny brain. That is why it is such an appropriate image for the National Party. I would like to paint a small verbal picture of the activities of that amazing beast the rhinoceros. I have to give credit to the Swiss author Peter Bichsel—also a well-known social-democratic voter—who created this image. The rhinoceros as everyone knows stands very still for a very long ponderous time. Anyone who has been to the zoo has seen the rhinoceros behave like that. In its enclosure it suddenly just bursts forth and runs in circles then runs and runs and suddenly stops. It started running because it thought of something but being a rhinoceros—like the National Party—it just starts running an ever-so-little bit too soon. After running it forgets what it thought of and has to stop think of it again and stand still—dead in the water still in the enclosure—for a very long time. That is exactly how the National Party has been behaving politically in this country and in this House. 
I cannot think of a better example than its behaviour over Tranz Rail. I say: “Poor Mr Sowry the National Party’s spokesman on Tranz Rail. What a hospital pass that one is!” There he is sitting in the middle of those Government-owned tracks seeing it bearing down on him not knowing where to go and what to do. Like everyone else in this country Mr Sowry remembers only too well the detail of that great Tranz Rail privatisation. What did those previous National Government members do? They retired $1.2 billion worth of debt and injected $360 million into that company New Zealand Rail to get it ready for sale. So there was $1.2 billion and $360 million and in part 3 what did they do? They sold it for $328 million. Was that a good deal? Is it any wonder that that rhinoceros party sitting in the middle of the tracks is just a tad worried when it realises that 90 percent of the population of this country want to grasp the opportunity to get those tracks back into public ownership? And poor old Mr Sowry and his poor benighted party are sitting there with a blunderbuss coming down the tracks straight towards them. 
I say to that party’s members that if they do not improve their polling in the TV3 poll tonight it will be an unmitigated catastrophe for that party and Mr English—wherever he is—might as well stay there.