Barker Rick: General Debate 
Barker Rick: General Debate 
[Volume:629;Page:1378] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 We saw an extraordinary spectacle in question time today. A member who has been in this House just over 3 years as a new Minister creamed a former Minister who has had 20 years of experience. He had better jokes better lines and better everything. But the real point of my contribution today is to go back to Don Brash and his argument about credibility responsibility and integrity. I want to pick up on the theme outlined by Phil Goff. I refer to the relationship between the National Party and the Exclusive Brethren. It is absolutely true that Don Brash who is supposed to be a smart person—he has run the Reserve Bank and he has an IQ of 100-plus—could not remember for 2 days whether he had a meeting with the Exclusive Brethren. Then suddenly incontrovertible proof was put in front of him that he had. 
What the public fail to understand or cannot get the hang of is why the Exclusive Brethren would suddenly become politically active. Well I have to say that in actual fact it is very clear. The public and people generally do not know that the Exclusive Brethren have a school Westmount on 12 sites. They have 12 schools and approximately 1000 pupils for which they run those private schools. They have complained consistently to the National Party about the level of the State’s contribution to private education. The National Party promised the Exclusive Brethren that it would double the State’s contribution. Let us work this out. There is $40 million going into this area of activity and the Exclusive Brethren schools with approximately 1000 pupils would receive $1.5 million in income each year from the Government. So if in fact the Government doubles its money the Government’s contribution will rise from $1.5 million to $3 million a year. 
On television we had the spectacle of the Exclusive Brethren meeting with John Key. He would have said to them: “The finance stacks up like this boys. You put $1 million into the National Party campaign. We will make sure that you double your money and you will get a $4.5 million return over 3 years.” That is a 450 percent return on investment over 3 years. It is quite clear and it is very simple. It is all public. We all know how much the Exclusive Brethren get. They get $1.5 million; the National Party promised to double it and give them $3 million a year. Now the Exclusive Brethren say that they spent only half a million dollars. Like Don Brash they have no credibility because they denied that they were putting out these pamphlets. They denied it and denied it until there was incontrovertible proof and then they fronted up and said that they had spent half a million dollars. Well if they lied before why would members believe them now? There is no reason to believe them. 
The second element of this is that of the $1 million the Exclusive Brethren paid for a National Party campaign to write and deliver their pamphlets—there is no question about it—not one cent is on the National Party’s returns for electoral expenses. The only thing that the National Party’s return for expenses can be described as is a cheat sheet because that is what it is. There is over $1 million worth of expenditure. This smells of corruption in my view because unlike other political contributions there is a direct and pecuniary interest to a group. The Exclusive Brethren have an exclusive school. No one who is outside of the Exclusive Brethren can sign up for it and it is subsidised by the State. If the State is going to double the subsidy to that school then the money will be doubled. So the Exclusive Brethren by spending $1 million to get the National Party elected had the prospect of getting a $4.5 million return. That is a 450 percent return. 
The tragedy for the Exclusive Brethren is that having taken the advice of the likes of Don Brash and John Key and made that investment they have failed. The National Party now has turned up in this House with the largest caucus it has ever had and it is still in Opposition. I say to the public and to the National Party that National will remain in Opposition as long as it continues to try to cheat its way to victory. The public turned off the National Party dramatically when they saw Don Brash say on TV that he did not have a meeting with the Exclusive Brethren. A day later he said that he did not have a meeting with the Exclusive Brethren and only on the third day—he did not have the third crow of the cock by the way—he said that he did. This is a man who tries to say that he is smart. Well he ain’t that dumb.