Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Release of Report—Telecommunications Stocktake Review 
Cullen Michael: Urgent Debates — Release of Report—Telecommunications Stocktake Review 
[Volume:631;Page:3132] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 A number of significant facts have emerged in this debate. The first is that the debate was not led by Dr Don T Brash who was missing in action again during the supposed big king-hit on the Government. Dr Brash knows that every time he comes into this House and gives a speech he dies a little. Of course every time he goes out of the House he dies a lot. We know that only too well. The real issue today is why Mr Brownlee was put up to mount the massive king-hit on the Government. I think he answered that question. Today with that speech Don Brash ensured that Gerry Brownlee killed his chances of becoming the Leader of the Opposition. One of my colleagues asked why Dr Brash did not give that speech. The answer is that even Dr Brash is not as stupid as that. 
The only significant thing that Mr Brownlee said in that speech was that he could not help thinking. We have to give him high marks for trying but not for thinking during that speech. I was waiting for the big king-hit question of whether the tray was plastic or metal and for the request for the Government to come clean and tell members the truth about that. The truth of course is that the Government has done much better at finding its leak than National has done at finding its leaks which are going on all over place—and I am told there are more to come in the very near future. 
Mr Brownlee’s speech did show that the Opposition has nothing to say on this issue. Mr Brownlee ran out of material in the first 4 minutes of his speech and kept going round and round in circles—a bit like Rodney Hide before he lost weight. The National members thought they should apply for a debate but having applied for it and got it they did not know what to say during the debate. Mr Brownlee had nothing to say in that speech. Mr Brownlee’s one and only suggestion related to how somebody could get out of the building with a document. He said that surely there should be security to stop people from getting out of the Beehive with potentially a document on their person. In other words every time somebody other than a Minister goes in and out of the Beehive he or she should be searched. Well that would include members of almost every minor party in the House because they go through the Beehive to get to this Chamber. It would include every ministerial staffer and it would include parliamentary messengers and members of the press gallery. I know that Mr Brownlee lusts after being able to search one or two members of the press gallery himself—and why not—but the fact is that we cannot search everybody who goes in and out of that building every time they go in and out. 
Goodness me that suggestion comes from the party that complains about compliance costs! Well what a compliance cost it would be on the Government if it had to search everybody who goes in and out of the building including Mr Brownlee. The truth is that we could not find anybody who would volunteer to do a body search on Mr Brownlee—or indeed anybody who is big enough to do a body search on Mr Brownlee should we have to do that. That is the reality. That is all that National members could suggest. 
What are the facts? The facts are actually simple. One employee who was in a position of trust committed despite having gone through psychological vetting and police vetting a breach of that trust. Mr Brownlee asked what the employee’s motivation was. His motivation is not terribly relevant. Apparently he was trying to help a friend and apparently the friend was rather embarrassed by the help as no doubt any of us would be in a similar situation. The friend on the evening had drunk rather too much wine to be able to read the document. Once he did read it he knew there was a problem and promptly took the appropriate action in respect of that problem. That is it. That is the story from start to finish. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: No! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Dr Lockwood Smith says: “No!”. He thinks there must be if I can use such a phrase a deep dark secret here that people have not yet learnt about. I tell Dr Smith that no that is it in this case. That is all there is to go on. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Lockwood wants the body search. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Lockwood wants the body search? No no no that is not true. That is not fair to Dr Lockwood Smith. 
What else do we have? The issue is that the procedures that were followed are those that have been followed for many many years. The alternative presumably is that we have big green waste bins in our offices that are locked and have little holes in the top so that we can stick everything in as some people do. The problem is that we still have to take the documents out at some point and put them in the shredder. Whoever does that job is the potential point of weakness. As Mr Brownlee ought to know it is not possible to completely stop somebody from leaking. Some people have been inclined to suggest that Mr Brownlee has been the source of some of the leaks within the National Party over recent months. The fact is that those leaks seem to incriminate Dr Brash and certainly seem to incriminate Mr Key—or some of the ones that will come out a bit later will—but do not incriminate Mr Brownlee. So one can perhaps see some support for that particular thesis. 
The fact is that one person in a position of trust who had worked for the Government for 30 years with no problems at all in all of that previous employment seems to have suffered a mad rush of blood to the head and dishonestly decided to help a mate—a mate who could not even have been helped in that case because as an employee of Telecom he was actually debarred from selling his shares at that point because Telecom’s annual report was due and this incident occurred during the time period when he could not take any action. That is the entire story. That is the urgent matter of public importance on which Mr Brownlee thinks he can pull down the Government. All he did was to pull down himself. The way is now clear for Mr Key and Mr English to have it out in the fight for life within the National Party.