Smith Lockwood: General Debate 
Smith Lockwood: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:11793] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 It must be pretty caustic in the Labour caucus these days. What Mike Moore had to say in the last few days about a reshuffle was: “It’s needed.” Those were his words. It is interesting to read what Mike Moore said. I guess that he knows what goes on inside Labour. He did not say that Helen Clark is planning a major reshuffle. His words were that Labour was planning a major reshuffle. We have to ask ourselves whether that is coded language for the fact that there is more on in Labour at the moment than just whether Helen Clark will reshuffle her favourites in Cabinet or whether in fact the knives are out. With Phil Goff leading off the debate today we have to ask ourselves whether the knives are finally coming out in preparation for a bigger reshuffle. If Mike Moore had meant that Helen Clark was planning a reshuffle he would have said it. 
If there is to be a real spill in Labour we are told that the big pretenders for Helen Clark’s role are Steve Maharey and Phil Goff. Well we know that Steve Maharey applied for a job at Massey University and did not get it. Mind you I could have told colleagues that he would not get it. Massey is not that dumb. After having spent 7 years of my life at Massey University and getting to know a few of the people around that place I know there is no way Steve Maharey would get that job. There is now a new term around this place. It is known as the “Maharey touch”. In our young days we all heard about the Midas touch which was that anything one touched turned to gold. The “Maharey touch” is the antithesis of that. Steve Maharey has screwed up every role that he has had in this Parliament since becoming a Minister. 
 Look at what Steve Maharey did when he was Minister in charge of tertiary education. He set up that massive Tertiary Education Commission with 400 people employed. They do the same job—only a lot worse—that I used to do with just 15 officials. He has hundreds—to do the job worse! Now what do we have in the wider education sector? We have promises of 20 hours’ free education and a 1:15 teacher to pupil ratio. He is screwing up the lot. That is Steve Maharey—Waikato is welcome to him! What this means is that he is not the one. Clearly Steve Maharey is trying to get out of the place. 
He is not the one; Phil Goff is the one. He is the one whom Helen Clark has got to watch and we have known that for a long time. Of course there are some things this Parliament should know about Phil Goff because Phil Goff was a Minister when Labour was last heading out of office. When Labour looked at the fact that it was going to lose the election in 1990 Phil Goff was Minister of Education. This is very topical right now with the Electoral Finance Bill before the Parliament and I remind the House what the Hon Phil Goff—aspirant to the leadership of the Labour Party right now—did in the lead-up to the 1990 election when he was Minister of Education in the days before we had a Fiscal Responsibility Act. What Phil Goff did was direct his officials at the Ministry of Education to spend money illegally—to spend money for which there was no appropriation from this Parliament to spend. That is the equivalent of spending money illegally. 
The officials at the Ministry of Education were so concerned about being directed by their Minister to spend money for which there was no parliamentary appropriation that they went and saw Treasury and the Audit Office to make sure the ministry covered its back in spending money. The ministry was directed by the Hon Phil Goff to spend a whole lot of money on schools—millions of dollars—to try to buy votes. That was what the Hon Phil Goff did leading up to the 1990 election when he was Minister of Education. What the Hon Phil Goff then did was direct the Ministry of Education to spend $20 million on capital works in polytechnics for which there was no appropriation. How do I know this? I know because I took over as the Minister of Education from the Hon Phil Goff—aspirant to the leadership of the Labour Party. The very first thing was that the Ministry of Education’s financial controller—a guy called John Gill—came to see me to tell me how Phil Goff had been directing the ministry to spend unappropriated money.