Mallard Trevor: Reinstatement of BusinessText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Reinstatement of Business[Sitting date: 09 December 2008. Volume:651;Page:71. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I am very rarely speechless on occasions like this—very very rarely speechless. But the idea that a Government when serious questions have been asked—some of them are very serious questions—has not made a single attempt to reply and has then moved the closure motion is a continuation of the ineptness that we have seen right from the beginning especially from the Leader of the House. We have seen today the opportunity to pass this motion in probably 30 seconds and I think the Opposition could have got some criticism for not properly scrutinising it in the way that is occurring now but we certainly want to do that over the next 2 or 3 hours as we work our way through it.Some bills in this motion are particularly important and I am very surprised that the Government is continuing them in their current form. Without wanting to bring you into the debate Mr Speaker I would have thought that the Government would be better briefed in the immigration area—around the Immigration Bill and its intentions with regard to that—and that it would be able to give us a clear steer on its views. That is something National was previously able to do with a very able spokesperson in the immigration area but the new Minister is clearly clearly not up to speed and prepared to comment at this stage.As for the Electoral Finance Amendment Bill I thought the Government had signalled an intention to introduce legislation in this area. I think the Prime Minister somewhere in his speech or maybe the Speech from the Throne—both of them were rambling badly written affairs but on one of those two occasions—indicated theintention of the Government to bring in electoral finance repeal legislation. So why are we being asked here by Mr Brownlee to put on the Order Paper something that he knows is not going to progress that he does not want to progress and on which there would not have been any opposition from this side of the House if it had been left out of the list? If it had been left out no one on this side of the House would have been too concerned about that.I am interested in the position of the member for Taupō. Does the new member for Taupō support the Conservation (Protection of Trout as a Non-commercial Species) Amendment Bill? Yes or no—we will take a yes or no answer. The member would not lose her virginity by saying yes or no; she would still be a maiden. No the member for Taupō has no view on the trout issue and the Taupō newspapers will be very interested in that. The Taupō newspapers will be very interested in the fact that that member who is somewhat of a fraud given the photos she put on her billboards has no view on that issue at all.There are some other issues—for example the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. I understand there is a new member in that area as well and we would like to be told that member’s opinion. We would like to know the member’s opinion as to—[Interruption]—No no it is Franklin I say to Mr Brownlee not Frankton. There is a difference between the two places: one is in Auckland and one is in Hamilton. Mr Brownlee may be a Christchurch member but there is no reason for him to be ignorant in that area.There are two bills relating to marine reserves—very very contentious legislation. My friend the previous Minister of Conservation found that marine reserves were not the easiest thing to progress; they required a lot of consultation and a lot of discussion. But are these the bills that the Government wants to be put on the Order Paper to progress? Mr Brownlee says they are but my understanding is that quite a few of his fellow Ministers do not think they should be there at all and that they certainly think the time of the House should not be spent on debating this motion which is something that could have been sorted out before the House went into urgency.The Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill addresses the question of whistleblowers. Again it is important legislation and will be controversial with a lot of debate. But is that the stuff that is core to the Government’s business and vital in terms of its 100-day agenda or even something that needs to be on its agenda at all?Craig Foss: There’s a lot of whistleblowing going on now.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: There is a lot of whistleblowing. We had the whistle being blown on the Minister of Education who asked what a vice-chancellor was. For goodness’ sake—a Minister of Education who asked what a vice-chancellor did! It is just unbelievable that the Governor-General would give a warrant to a person who is so ignorant in that area. I would have thought that was a case where the Governor-General could send the advice back for another opinion. I am sure former Ministers of Education—there are at least three of us in this corner and four of us if we count the tertiary education area—would never have contemplated having to ask a question like that which is very relevant of course to the bill that was formerly in the name of Mr Donnelly and that no one appears to want other than Mr Brownlee who under urgency that is heading into days and nights wants us to debate whether the Education (Establishment of Universities of Technology) Amendment Bill should be something that we focus on.There are some other important bills. I am sure my friend Mr Cosgrove will be very interested in the view of the National Party on the Building Amendment Bill (No 2). The members of that party made a lot of noise about it when they were in Opposition. Itwould be good to hear Rodney Hide say whether he thinks it is a proper vehicle for his reforms in that regulatory area.Hon Dr Michael Cullen: The problem is they’re all dwangs and no studs.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think the comment Dr Cullen has made which will get into the record is something I could not possibly say but I am sure that he will. Do we have an opinion from Rodney Hide or Tariana Turia on these matters? They are Ministers they should be on top of these issues and they are clearly not. Clearly those people were consulted. I am absolutely certain that if there had been proper consultation on this issue with the Māori Party this list would be considerably different. And that is just another example of the Māori Party being stepped on walked over—Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Mana-enhancing.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well it is hardly mana-enhancing not to be consulted in this area—not mana-enhancing at all. But then a lot of things that this Government is proposing to do with the support of the Māori Party are designed to hurt Māori—to hurt people at the bottom of the heap. Those members were just so keen to get into Government and so keen to get the big cars to drive them back and forth between Wellington and Wanganui that they did not care what they were signing up to. The generous approach would be to say they did not know what they were signing up to. The less generous approach would be to say they knew what they were signing up to but did not care.