Robertson Grant: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 25 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3899. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Kiwis have got a good idea of what a fair go means—an attachment to the idea that no matter where you come from no matter what your background you will get the chance and the opportunity to get ahead and achieve your potential. But with this Government it is clearly not what you know; it is who you know. If we look at the front bench of the National Government it is definitely not what they know—we can see that from over here—but it is who they know. This is a Government governing in the interests of the few—the wealthy few. 
Let us just take asset sales as one example. It is a huge transfer of wealth from the vast bulk of the population of New Zealand to those who can afford to pay—to those who have got the $1000. It is a transfer from the panel beater in Waitakere—“Waitakere man” if you like or “Waitakere woman”—who has a stake in those assets today. That is being taken away by this National Government and handed to the share traders of Parnell. But more than that the loyalty scheme that is now in place means that the panel beater pays twice because they are funding the costs of transferring the shares to the New Zealanders who can afford them. This process will widen the gap between the rich and the poor which is something that this Government has no compunction about doing. 
We all know that the beneficiaries of the asset sale programme are the banks and the consultants who are raking in millions of dollars to sell off what New Zealanders have built up over generations. They are the same consultants and contractors who are milking the public sector purse for all it is worth because this Government thinks that the best way to say whether the public sector is working is to work out what the headcount is. Well the Government departments are responding. They are reducing the headcount all right and the money is going straight to consultants and contractors. It is spiralling out of control. 
The National Government seems to have got its messages confused. When New Zealanders say they like the idea of looking out for their mates they do not mean the National Government lining the pockets of its friends at the expense of hard-working men and women across New Zealand. Then in a zero Budget somehow or other the Government finds $40 million for private training establishments. Funding cuts in education bigger class sizes no allowances for postgraduate students but $40 million for private education. 
National says it wants to crack down on welfare. Well how about starting with a crackdown on corporate welfare? This Government is governing in the interests of the few and not the many. The stench of cronyism that pervades this Government is as strong as the smell of the brakes on Hekia Parata’s tyres as she reversed on class sizes. 
Conflict of interest and cronyism is a long roll-call in this Government. Stephen McElrea the Prime Minister’s electorate chair who is on the board of New Zealand On Air was interfering in decisions about programming straight before an election. There was a loan to MediaWorks from Steven Joyce the man who knows a lot about that company—$43 million in that company just happens to allow DJ Key to spin his discs just before the election. Then we have got the appointment of Katherine Rich to the Health Promotion Agency. Katherine Rich is a highly capable person but she has another job. She runs the Food and Grocery Council. 
But it is more than that. There are two other members of the Health Promotion Agency Lee Mathias and Jamie Simpson who are respectively the electorate chairs of Sam Lotu-Iiga and Gerry Brownlee. You may well ask what qualification Gerry Brownlee’s electorate chair has to be on the Health Promotion Agency. Well I can tell you what it is. He is an insurance broker. That is the qualification that he has got. It is jobs for the boys. We can go on. There is the ACC and Bronwyn Pullar saga and the Skycity and pokies for legislation deal. This Government is full of cronyistic deals and conflicts of interest. 
A key player in the ACC saga was Nick Smith who now finds himself right in the middle of the latest bout of cronyism and conflicts of interest—the funding of the Mackenzie Sustainable Futures Trust. Let me say for the record that I want to acknowledge the great work of the many community groups that have been involved in the collaborative process down there. My concerns are not about them. My concerns are about a trust launched at the National Party Bluegreens conference chaired by a National MP and directly funded by a National Minister and about what that funding says about the transparency and accountability of this Government. 
The Prime Minister wants to sweep this under the carpet. For him the ends justify the means no matter what. But our reputation as a country with a transparent Public Service must be jealously guarded.