Heatley Phil: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Heatley Phil: Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5837] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I have a couple of questions this morning in this debate for the Minister in the chair Dr Cullen and I would love him to address them. The first question is whether he has spoken to Winston Peters about the Government’s strategy to kill off this issue through retrospective legislation. I heard the Minister Winston Peters on the radio this morning and he said to the interviewer: “Everybody knows and New Zealand First knows that the Labour Party’s pledge card was electioneering. Everybody knows that.” That is what Winston Peters said. He then went on to say: “But we’re different.” 
We would expect that from Winston Peters. He gave all sorts of reasons why New Zealand First has not broken any rules why it can challenge the Auditor-General’s ruling and why apparently it is whiter than snow. But Winston Peters a Minister outside Dr Cullen’s Cabinet said that Labour knew that the election pledge card was in fact electioneering. 
Mr Peters went on with an entirely different strategy than that of this Government and of Dr Cullen. This morning he tried killing the truth off through a death of a thousand cuts and went on to dance on the head of a pin. He gave every possible red herring to the interviewer to avoid the very fact that he has no intention of paying the money back. 
Winston Peters raised issues such as New Zealand First’s use of taxpayers’ money on publications that it would use after the campaign not just before it. He said that the Auditor-General never spoke to him about his report. Winston Peters said that he was shacked up in hospital after a bite by an insect and that he knew nothing about the details of the Auditor-General’s report. He said that he had just had a knee operation and did not know the details. Winston Peters pulls every red herring he can out of the pile— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Did he mention his bunion? 
PHIL HEATLEY 
:—he did not mention his bunion—so that he can avoid the bottom line the public is asking for which is for him to pay back the money. Winston should just pay back the money! He is dancing on the head of a pin. That is New Zealand First’s strategy. 
The Minister outside Cabinet clearly has not spoken to Dr Cullen. Dr Cullen’s idea of killing off the truth is not through a thousand cuts and diversions—Labour has tried lots of diversions over the last 6 months and has failed—but through one thrust of the knife. This retrospective legislation will make legal what is illegal so Dr Cullen thinks he can walk out of this Chamber whiter than snow. But it is not working because Dr Cullen Helen Clark and the Labour Party have already been tried in the court of public opinion and found wanting. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Guilty! 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: They are guilty in the court of public opinion—absolutely found wanting. 
I have another question for Minister Cullen: how much did he know about this pledge card being developed being delivered before the election and being used during the campaign? I can guarantee that he would have had very close contact with the campaign committee. Clearly one would not have Pete Hodgson going out there on the campaign committee by himself without someone holding his hand. How much did Dr Cullen know about Heather Simpson and Helen Clark’s decision to use taxpayer funding for this electioneering expense—$450000 worth? I ask that question because Dover Samuels has to write out a cheque for $10000 and he never made the decision. Mita Ririnui has to write out a $10000 cheque and he never knew the decision. Dr Ashraf Choudhary—the member opposite who abstains—would have abstained from the decision about using the pledge card. But he still has to write out a $6000 cheque.