King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:658;Page:7015] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 What a mess what a shambles and what a debacle—and that is just the comments that were made on television last night about the John Key Government’s antics sideshows and circuses. New Zealanders could be forgiven for thinking that they are seeing a chapter out of  
Alice in Wonderland 
. The Mad Hatter’s tea party comes to mind. The white rabbit John Key is rushing around on yet another overseas trip—he is up to six overseas trips now in 9 months—shaking hands with the President of the United States posing for photographs wherever he can performing as a stand-up comic on  
The Late Show with David Letterman 
 flying to a holiday in Florida as one does and then flying to Samoa all the time saying “I’m late I’m late for a very important shower.” 
John Key was in such a hurry when he was in Samoa that he had to speed through the streets at 120 kilometres per hour—maybe it is 130 kilometres per hour by now; it will probably be 140 kilometres per hour by next week—in a 40 kilometre-an-hour zone scattering children dust and animals in his wake as he rushed to take his shower before he went out to look at the damage and destruction. Do members know what he said? He said: “I didn’t look at the speedo.” It is funny that we have heard that before and that it was a terrible crime a few years ago for people to sit in the back seat and not look at speedos. 
It is more important for the Prime Minister to strut his stuff on the world stage than it is to show some leadership in New Zealand on the debacles that are going on here thanks to his Government. He is not interested in the real issues. He would prefer to have his photograph published in an overseas newspaper. The distractions and debacles that are going on here start with his own Minister of Finance. We have had weeks and weeks of the Minister of Finance being distracted by his own personal greed. That need to justify his own personal greed has overshadowed any look that he ought to have taken at the economy. He has no credibility or moral authority. He can stand up and tell the workers of this Parliament that they are not entitled to a pay increase but he can take for himself extra money for his cleaner and a salary of a quarter of a million dollars. He preaches to the people of New Zealand that zero pay increases or increases of 25c per hour are good enough for them. 
What does it do to this country when we have a Minister of Finance who is unable to concentrate on the real issues because he got caught with his snout in the trough and did not want to admit it? It will not matter what he does to try to correct that. He and the National Government can pay back all the money they like—and the amount of money the National Government has to pay back is sure mounting up—but it does not alter the fact that Mr English changed his arrangements to suit himself and his family. There is nothing we can say about such personal greed. 
Then we had the debacle over the Maori Television Service’s bid for coverage of the Rugby World Cup. There are seven Ministers involved in this shambles of their own making. First of all the bid would be from the Maori Television Service then it would be a joint bid led by Television New Zealand and a few minutes ago we were told it would now be led by the Maori Television Service. There has been skulduggery and all sorts of back-stabbing and duplicity going on. It is no wonder that Maori Party members are furious with their so-called friends in the National Government. Their friends were plotting behind their backs and having meetings as long ago as September planning a counter-bid against the Maori Television Service and the work that Pita Sharples was doing. I think we are now seeing the sort of duplicitous approach they can expect from a National Government that never supported and did not want Maori television. I say to members opposite that they should go and read Bill English’s speech and Murray McCully’s speech.