Key John: General Debate 
Key John: General Debate 
[Volume:650;Page:18698] 
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Up and down the country New Zealanders are telling me they want a fresh start. You see they are absolutely sick to death of this dying and decaying Government and they are sick of a Government that is sick of them. They are sick of a Government that is preoccupied with scandals—a Government that just bounces from one crisis to another. And they know one thing and it comes through loud and clear: it is time for a change. That is what is going to happen. 
Up until yesterday the hardest question to answer when it came to the Winston Peters donation scandal was this one: why did Helen Clark not act when in February 2008 Owen Glenn told her that he had donated $100000 to Winston Peters? Why did she not act? The Prime Minister at least publicly wants to trade on the illusion that she holds her Ministers to account that she has a standard for them that they are held to some sort of ethics. Why did she not apply those to Winston Peters back in February? You see the Prime Minister could not reconcile the version of events between Winston Peters and Owen Glenn. Yesterday the answer jetted into town. Yesterday Owen Glenn said he told Helen Clark in February 2008 that he had donated to Winston Peters. Well you know what? Helen Clark already knew that because Mike Williams would have told her in one of the four phone calls he makes to her every single day. 
You see when Mike Williams was told in 2005 he actually OK’d the donation; Owen Glenn asked for the permission of the Labour Party. What are the odds that Mike Williams never told Helen Clark in 2 years? I do not think so. This is the interesting bit. When Helen Clark rang Winston Peters in South Africa in February 2008 she did not ring him and say: “Winston did you take $100000 from Owen Glenn?” She rang up and said: “Have you left a paper trail? They’ll get us caught.” And what he said to her was: “Don’t panic everything is all right.” You see Winston Peters misled Helen Clark all right not about getting the $100000 but about the hard evidence that he left behind. And if he gets sacked—and who knows whether he will—it will not be because he took $100000 from Owen Glenn because that was sanctioned by the Labour Party. He will not be getting sacked for any reason other than this: it is called stupidity. He allowed Helen Clark and himself to be exposed for what they were up to their eyeballs in a scandal that will bring this Government down. 
That is why New Zealanders are sick of the Government. What happened was that 6 months ago Helen Clark sat silent. She relied on the soothing assurances of Winston Peters that they would not get caught and yesterday they did. Yesterday the truth jetted into town. You see what worried Helen Clark yesterday was not what Owen Glenn would say about Winston Peters; it was what Owen Glenn would say about the Labour Party. That is the bit they do not like. What Owen Glenn said is what New Zealanders should know. He unveiled for New Zealand the real Helen Clark—the one who said that the means justify the end—“It doesn’t matter how much you keep them in the dark. It doesn’t matter how much you lower your standard. It doesn’t matter what you have to do to stay there: just stay there. That’s all you have to do.” 
We have seen the real Helen Clark complicit with a scandal that is involving not just New Zealand First but the Labour Party. That is why they feel sick—because they know that is what it is and that is what it takes. Owen Glenn said something pretty interesting yesterday—well he actually said a lot of things that were pretty interesting I have to say. He said they are not his type of people. Well I agree with him.