Key John: General Debate 
Key John: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15497] 
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. A few months ago the Labour Party produced this very glossy brochure  
We’re Making a Difference for Everyone 
. Taxpayers paid for this document. How do we know that? Because it has the parliamentary crest on it which shows that taxpayers paid for it. The pamphlet is clearly meant to solicit votes. How do we know that? There are two reasons. First nowhere in the document does it tell people how they can go and get any of the services it mentions. It just states what Labour thinks it is doing. The other way we know that it is meant to solicit votes is that the Electoral Commission has told us that. Why is the document in breach of the Electoral Finance Act? Because it does not have the appropriate authorisation on it. Why does it not have that? Because Labour does not want taxpayers to know that it is back at it again fleecing taxpayers of their dollars in order to pay for its electoral advertising. 
Here is the good news. Taxpayers paid for this document. Taxpayers received this document in 2008. Actually I stand corrected; a taxpayer received this document in 2008. A taxpayer gave this document to a member of the National Party. Only one of the booklets was produced in 2008. How spooky is it that the only copy across all of New Zealand was distributed to the National Party! 
Hon Bill English 
: It was destiny. 
JOHN KEY 
: It was destiny as my deputy leader said. The odds of getting this brochure were the same as the odds of winning Lotto Powerball on Saturday night. Actually it cost about as much as Lotto Powerball paid out on Saturday night. 
The document states that Labour is making a difference. Well Labour is making a difference itself in terms of how it can screw the scrum. Labour is not making a huge difference in this document in terms of literacy and numeracy in New Zealand. You see on page 10 of the document it cannot even spell “exemption” correctly. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent and Labour cannot even spell “exemption” correctly. Labour thinks it is exempt. It does not understand the word “exemption”. Actually it thinks it does understand the word “exemption”. On page 9 what do we have? Labour cannot even get the numbers right. 
So what is Labour making a difference in? That is a very interesting question. The answer is in screwing the scrum in favour of Labour. It has a pretty cunning plan. It has $1.5 or so million in its leader’s budget. It never spends it because all the expenditure takes place in Ministerial Services. It is nothing short of a slush fund for Labour to try to buy its re-election. Labour is making a complete and utter mockery of the process. But should any of us be surprised at that? [ 
Interruption 
] He is a good-looking fella that guy in the poster. I will tell members why we should not be surprised: leopards do not change their spots. This might be a pamphlet I have here but 3 years ago it was a pledge card. One would have thought that the Labour members would learn a lesson after stealing $800000 from the taxpayer but they are back at it again. They have not learnt their lesson. 
This is what is interesting. Last year we came down to this House day after day and listened to Annette King lecture this House saying the elections of New Zealand and electoral finance should be transparent with fairness and disclosure. She said there should be transparency fairness and disclosure. When she tottered back up to her office on the 9th floor of the Beehive Labour members were up there plotting this document. We were downstairs here debating with the Labour Government and Labour members were upstairs there plotting to release this document. 
One would think that New Zealanders would understand what is going on. I think they do. New Zealanders are a fair-minded bunch of people. They expect elections to be run on a fair and transparent basis. But when the Government realises that New Zealanders see it has blatantly changed the law in favour of itself and has gone out and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a way that is in breach of the law for the sole purpose of its own re-election maybe it will understand why New Zealanders are pretty angry with it.