Collins Judith: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Collins Judith: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7554. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 What we have seen in this House in the last few days has been an utter disgrace. We have seen this Labour Government relying on the vote of a man whom the Prime Minister has described as unethical yet yesterday we saw this Government continuing to rely on that vote—in fact happy to use his proxy vote. We also saw that investigations and interviews by the police of members of Parliament are now apparently parliamentary business. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Well they are in the Labour Party. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: They are in the Labour Government as my colleague Mr Williamson has said and the reason they are is that there is a huge list of people who have consistently come into the sight of the police. 
I am one of the members who has been absolutely sickened and saddened by the fiasco of Taito Phillip Field’s case and one reason I am is that every Pacific Island New Zealander was thrilled when Taito Phillip Field was made a member of Parliament. However I have just read David Lange’s autobiography over the holidays and I have read of how he was concerned about Taito Phillip Field. David Lange raised those concerns yet the Labour Party continued along its path—under Helen Clark—to put Taito Phillip Field into Mangere. The Labour Party under Helen Clark knew what was going on. Labour knew it; it has been going on for 12 years. Labour knew what was happening yet with this Government and with this Prime Minister we have a whitewashed inquiry—the Ingram inquiry—which was put into place only once we had brought this issue to public attention. Only when the public said that they would not accept it did the inquiry occur even though the public might have accepted “paintergate” “corngate” and Helen Clark saying that she could not tell whether the car was speeding at 140 kilometres per hour across the South Canterbury plains as she with Jim Sutton was too busy reading papers in the back seat. She was too busy reading and she let that driver take the fall. She let those men take the fall for her because she did not have the spine to deal with it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member now is implying a lack of courage. That is a personal reflection and outside the rules governing the House. I ask the member to withdraw that comment. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I withdraw. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In the past people have always been required to apologise for implying a lack of courage. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. That in fact is the case. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
We have a Prime Minister who is happy to take the perks of office and to strut the world stage in Norway at the ski fields but she was not happy to stand in the dock when she should have been the one there—she should have been the one on trial. Instead with Taito Phillip Field we now have a situation where that man has been treated differently by the Prime Minister and he has been treated differently from all those other Labour Cabinet Ministers. 
And why has that been so? It is because the one thing he did was to rain on the Prime Minister’s parade. He stole the camera shots and gave an interview. She has had to stay quiet for the last year; she has told him to shut up to not give interviews and simply to take every sling and arrow that has been thrown. He has in fact become the pincushion. 
Hon Annette King 
: Who is throwing them? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I tell Mrs King that there has to be some mud to throw in the first place. Mrs King knows full well that that Ingram inquiry unfortunately was set up by Helen Clark to fail. Nine days is what she gave Dr Ingram. Dr Ingram’s name has now become mud in this House and that is really quite unfair because he should have been asked to look at Mr Field’s conflict of interest as an MP not just as a Minister. It was never going to be about Mr Field as a Minister; it was always about his behaviour as an MP the relationship he had with Mr Damien O’Connor and the little deals that were going on. The fact that Mr Field put up about 200 applications in 1 year for different criteria for immigrants should have sent the alarm bells ringing. Yet when we look at the situation we see that it has been going on year after year. Why is it that Thai tilers from the North Shore came to Mr Field? Why is it that people from all over Auckland—as the Prime Minister knew and as she stated—came to Mr Field? Because they knew they could be in!