van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of my ACT Party colleagues to take a call in the urgent debate about the dismissal of Stuart Nash from Cabinet.The Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is now paying the price for having low ministerial standards and weak leadership. Stuart Nash is finally being dismissed from Cabinet—but not after one strike or two strikes or three strikes; it's after four strikes. The Prime Minister has now shown that he didn't have the backbone to dismiss a Cabinet Minister when he should have and he doesn't have the backbone required for the leadership of being the Prime Minister.He should have followed ACT's advice on day one and sacked Stuart Nash on day one when we knew that he did not have the ethical standards required to be a Minister in Cabinet and he breached his own rules the rules of the Cabinet Manual—very important rules that all people in Cabinet should follow.Stuart Nash on day one attempted to interfere in a Police prosecution. It's a pretty serious matter. Not only did he call up the Police Commissioner he then went on radio and boasted about it. Then when he was confronted about whether he'd done anything wrong he didn't apologise or admit that he'd made a mistake; he doubled down. He didn't even recognise that anything he had done was wrong.Stuart Nash didn't follow the rules that he had signed up to as a Cabinet Minister. If he didn't know the rules and he couldn't follow the rules he shouldn't be able to make the rules and he should have been removed from Cabinet.Chris Hipkins then went on to say that he'd asked for assurance that Stuart Nash had done nothing else that would breach the Cabinet Manual and he got that assurance from Stuart Nash. Well clearly he did a poor job of seeking that assurance because only within a matter of days more information had come to light: that wasn't the only time Stuart Nash had breached the Cabinet Manual by commenting on an individual Police prosecution—he had done it before. It turns out he had failed to inform Chris Hipkins about an earlier incident in 2020 when Crown Law investigated Stuart Nash for inappropriate comments around the handling of a Police case and encouraged David Parker the Attorney-General to get involved about his conduct.Now Stuart Nash was either at that time telling his boss porkies or he was being cute with the truth. Now either way at that point in time he had completely embarrassed Chris Hipkins. And surely—surely—then he had to go. How is it possible that the Prime Minister could have confidence in one of his own Cabinet colleagues who not only had once but twice interfered in a Police prosecution matter and somebody who had twice breached the Cabinet Manual but then had gone and bragged about it publicly didn't learn from his mistakes and obfuscated about the truth.He didn't have the ethical standards required on strike one or strike two. Because the Cabinet Manual says that at all times Ministers are expected to act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds and is seen to uphold the highest ethical standards. Ultimately Ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister for their behaviour.So at this point it then raised a question in ACT about what more does Stuart Nash need to do to get sacked? Well it wasn't the third strike that then came out. It then turns out he was found to have contacted a senior Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment official over an immigration case rather than following the process that Cabinet Ministers should follow for an established procedure on immigration cases.That wasn't enough to remove him from Cabinet. He was bumped down to the lowest rank within Cabinet but somehow the Prime Minister still stood up in front of all New Zealanders—in front of everybody who pays these guys' jobs—and said Yes I still have the faith to have Stuart Nash in my Cabinet." So then it raised a question of well what possibly could Stuart Nash need to do more to lose the faith of Chris Hipkins and to be sacked from Cabinet? Chris Hipkins was forced to answer that question when Stuart Nash appeared to breach Cabinet rules again by sending an email that showed he breached Cabinet confidence and collective responsibility. He leaked information from his own Cabinet colleagues outside of Cabinet and spoke out against them to his own interests to people he knew in the public.Now Kiwis deserve better from our Government Ministers. We expect and deserve Ministers to have high standards. Every day up and down New Zealand taxpayers hand over their money to Government Ministers hoping that they will use that money wisely to spend it in the best interests of other New Zealanders. They vote for people to be representatives in this House for them to make the rules that everybody else must follow. They give up their trust and their faith believing that Cabinet Ministers will hold themselves to a high standard and they will hold their own colleagues to a high standard. And what we have seen in this instance is a Prime Minister who has extremely low standards. If this is what he would have allowed Stuart Nash to get away with what else does he allow his Cabinet colleagues to get away with? The standards are so low. He only removed Stuart Nash after his fourth strike—not his first strike his second strike or his third strike; his fourth one. So all of these turns of events have finally led to the sacking of Stuart Nash but they have led to the truth of Chris Hipkins—that he has low standards and he can't make the hard decisions that New Zealanders should expect of our Prime Minister. ACT is here in Parliament to put forward better ideas on how to make New Zealand a better place for everybody but we're also here to hold the Government to account. If it wasn't for David Seymour listening to Newstalk ZB and choking on his cornflakes that he had heard a Minister admit and boast that he had tried to interfere in a Police prosecution we may never be having this debate. But we are having this debate now because we have members of this House in the ACT Party listening to the Government watching the Government and making sure that we're holding them to account because New Zealanders expect a high standard of their Ministers and ACT expects that too. Now it's possible that something more may have ended up having Stuart Nash sacked. I mean he did have four strikes after all; there might be more to come—something was bound to happen. But ACT is here to hold the Government to account and we're sorry to see that this is the state of affairs that it's come to. But we expect more from our Government and we expect more from our Prime Minister. Thank you Mr Speaker."