Blumsky Mark: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Blumsky Mark: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5878] 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairperson for the opportunity to speak because I know that many of my colleagues are very keen to contribute to the debate. I will speak specifically to the amendment put forward by my colleague Chris Finlayson. The amendment in the main talks about the need for payment to be made before validation. I stand to speak specifically to this because that is what the public want us to do. This is what the public want to see happen. 
The public do not have faith that the current bill as it stands will deliver on their expectations and in particular New Zealand First is creating an illusion maybe of the fact that it is looking to escape from the need to pay the money back. I think therefore the only confidence we can give the public is to make sure Chris Finlayson’s amendment is supported. 
The tragedy of all of this though at the end of the day is the fact that we are standing here putting amendments forward because we have not given the public the opportunity to make a contribution. There is real anger and frustration in the New Zealand community at the fact that this process is going through the House at speed. I had the opportunity last night with leave to visit a fund-raising promotion for a hospice. There were a couple of hundred people there and the talk in the main was very much focused on the fact that this was happening in the House. A lot of people were concerned a lot of people did not understand a lot of people do not have the trust or the faith that we are getting it right and a lot of people were commenting on the fact that they are not being given the opportunity to have their say through this process. 
I regularly take Winston out for a walk in the morning. I put him on his leash and take him for a walk through the streets of Wellington. I came back in this morning just after 7 and lo and behold on the TV one of the Ministers of this Government was standing up and saying with great gravity and in a serious tone that this bill is righting 17 years of supposed wrong. A Minister of the Crown was talking about how this bill is righting 17 years of what is supposedly wrong. Heck me days wowee! Is it so urgent that 17 years after the wrong supposedly started we have to right it tomorrow—in fact that we have to do it today? We cannot wait one more day one more week one more month for this process to occur to allow the public of New Zealand to have an involvement in what is a very serious issue. 
One would think from listening to the Cabinet Minister on the TV this morning that the world was falling apart and that this legislation was the most urgently needed legislation in the world because for 17 years things have been wrong. Has the world fallen apart? No. The only thing falling apart is the Labour Party polling and it is falling apart and falling down at a great rate of knots because the public of New Zealand understand exactly what is happening in this Chamber today. The only reason we are in urgency is that the Labour Party wants to put a stop on its slide now. Labour senses quite rightly that the public are incredibly concerned and worried about what they have seen from the Government in this House over the last few months. Labour members have said to themselves: “How can we stop this slide?”. There is no better way than to pick it up and put it before the House as quickly as possible in the hope that by next week the public will have forgotten. 
The public will not forget what Labour has done here today. The fact that there is no public submission through this process and that there has been no opportunity for the public to have their say is just an indictment on the sort of Government we have. It is sending a very strong signal to the public of New Zealand that the Government does not want to hear what the public is saying. The reason the Government does not want to hear it is that it does not like what the public is saying.