Twyford Phil: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Twyford Phil: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14908] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 Tonight we were subjected to Nikki Kaye breathlessly announcing that the Prime Minister had saved  
The Hobbit 
 for New Zealand. She was preening and strutting around and telling us that the National Government has` single-handedly rescued the New Zealand film industry. It is very appropriate that that is part of the debate this evening because underlying the whole debate about the Rugby World Cup and in fact the public debate about the future of  
The Hobbit 
 is the question of Brand New Zealand. This Government in the way it has handled the dispute about  
The Hobbit 
 and in the way it is ramming through Part 4 is sending a very powerful message. The message is that this Government will bend over as my colleague so eloquently put it and do anything that is required in order to satisfy itself that it will get the deal. 
Tonight we saw the Prime Minister John Key basically announce that he will race any other country to the bottom. He is sending the message to international investors that he will do whatever they want him to do. He has written a cheque to Warner Bros for the amount the Government cut out of the budget for adult and community education. What will happen when New Line Cinema comes knocking? What will happen when Disney comes knocking? What will happen when any other investor comes knocking and says: “We want a cash handout. How much will you give?”. Not only is the Prime Minister willing to do that and to sell our national self-respect down the river but also he is willing to sell our sovereign lawmaking to any foreign investor who comes knocking. 
We have had a very broad-ranging debate on this issue. Successive speakers have discussed the saving of  
The Hobbit 
 and it is relevant to the Rugby World Cup because in Part 4 we see a willingness to compromise the democratic process and to hand over in this case to the Hon Murray McCully unfettered urgency powers. It shows a disregard for our constitutional and democratic processes. 
Jacqui Dean 
: The member should read the bill. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: That member should read the bill because the only thing that was more galling than listening to Nikki Kaye explain how the Prime Minister saved  
The Hobbit 
 was hearing Jacqui Dean’s legal argument. She is the Rumpole of the National Party; the Perry Mason of the Government benches. 
I will never forget Jacqui Dean’s explanation of why these powers should be handed over to the Hon Murray McCully. Let me rehearse the argument for members in case anybody has forgotten Jacqui Dean’s explanation of why those powers should be handed over to Murray McCully. The argument goes like this: it is ultimately the elected politicians and the Ministers of the day who will be accountable to the public of New Zealand for whether the Rugby World Cup is the success that it could be. That is her argument. It is the elected members of Parliament and the Ministers who will be accountable to the public. 
If that is the argument if that is what it comes down to if that is Jacqui Dean’s justification then we might as well shut down the judiciary and the legislature. Why do we not just hand over the entire governance of our country to the Ministers of this Government? Frankly under Jacqui Dean’s reasoning it is only Murray McCully and his Cabinet colleagues who are accountable to the New Zealand public so we might as well just give them a free hand. Every other piece of democratic process every other piece of our constitutional history is an impediment to this Government’s aspirations so we might as well just get rid of it. That is pretty much what Jacqui Dean had to say. 
Let us talk about Part 4. As my colleague Trevor Mallard has laid out very eloquently Part 4 gives the Minister for the Rugby World Cup extraordinary powers to override the recommendation of the Rugby World Cup Authority which is constituted by this bill. It is the contention of members on this side of the Chamber that that is unnecessary and damaging to our democratic process. It essentially makes the Minister unaccountable in the exercise of those executive powers. 
The great irony in this whole situation is that Murray McCully is the one member in this Parliament who has demonstrated by his actions why a Minister should not be given unfettered powers to behave in an unaccountable way. We have only to go back as far as 1999 when Murray McCully set up two unaccountable groups of officials in his tourism portfolio because he did not like the advice he was getting from the Tourism Board. Then after meddling and interfering with the Tourism Board he sacked three members of the board and paid out $900000 of taxpayers’ money to keep them quiet. That was all validated in the report of the Auditor-General and ultimately Murray McCully was forced to resign his portfolio because of those shenanigans. 
If anyone has demonstrated that we should not give Ministers the kind of unfettered powers that this bill gives them it is Murray McCully. Yet the members on the Government side seem perfectly willing to hand over those kinds of powers even though as we have said for the last few hours of this debate this bill sets out a comprehensive set of processes and a properly constituted authority—it will be headed by a judge or a lawyer of 7 years’ standing with a deputy chair who is a lawyer of 7 years’ standing—with all the powers in the world to recruit and commission. It has an administrative secretariat—it is all there. 
The system is set up yet we have not heard from Government members any justification any scenario as to why they cannot trust the Rugby World Cup Authority to do the job that this bill asks it to do. Government members insist on handing over executive powers so that this Minister can act in an unaccountable way. It is wrong it is inappropriate and the House should not allow it.