Mallard Trevor: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Mallard Trevor: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12695] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I want to ask the Minister in the chair the Hon David Carter a question. What is the Government’s best estimate of the additional cost flowing from the lack of credibility of the current Minister of Finance to the Government of borrowing? I want to know what the premium is on our debt repayments from having a Minister of Finance who has no credibility in New Zealand’s financial markets or internationally. I ask where in these estimates is the half a million dollars that is to be repaid by the Minister of Finance which is the money that he his family or his trust has received as a result of declaring that he lives in Dipton. I have been looking for it. I ask whether that money is sitting in these accounts I ask whether it is a credit against these expenditures and more important I ask what the cost to New Zealand is of having a Minister of Finance with the lack of credibility that the current Minister of Finance has. 
I can go back a while. I was in this House with Sir Robert Muldoon—not while he was the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister but in the period immediately afterwards—and I cannot remember a time in all of those years when there has been a Minister of Finance who was regarded as being suspect by the financial community someone who did not seem quite kosher and someone whom we could not believe all the time. Frankly I ask who can blame those in the financial community when they know that they have a Minister of Finance who has declared that he lives in Dipton when in fact everyone knows that he lives in Messines Road and that he has benefited hugely to the tune of at least half a million dollars over the decade that that has occurred. 
If we were in some other country there would be investigations. There would be commissions. The person concerned would not be in the job unless we were in a corrupt country. If we were in a corrupt country then the Prime Minister would accept that sort of behaviour but generally in New Zealand we have had much much higher standards of transparency than that. When the OECD has looked at us and at our methods of ensuring that there is proper behaviour on the part of Ministers it has had us right up there and we have been proud of that. We can work our way back. 
You know I disagreed greatly at different ends of the spectrum with Sir Robert Muldoon and Ruth Richardson but one thing that one would never accuse either of them of doing was making false declarations in order to personally benefit. There is a possibility I think that if we go back to Keith Holyoake’s time some of the actions of that Government were slightly questionable especially to do with the western access road round Taupo and the personal benefit that the then Prime Minister gained from the opening up of Kinloch. But I think it is fair to say that since that time certainly in the last 50 years of New Zealand politics or pretty close there has never been a question of our interest rates being at a premium as a result of questions related to the credibility and personal reputation of the Minister of Finance in the way that we have it today. 
I think it is particularly interesting that not a single member opposite is prepared to defend Bill English in this matter. Clear reflections on his character are happening here and not one member opposite— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I want to make it clear that there is no response from members on this side of the Chamber because we simply consider Mr Mallard to be a complete— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: In the half-minute that I have left to me I will challenge members opposite to stand up and say in their next speech that they are comfortable with the approach that has been taken by the Minister of Finance with regard to the non-repayment of the half a million dollars that he has received. I want those members to stand up and tell this Committee that they think that is the sort of behaviour they want from their Minister of Finance.