Hipkins Chris: General Debate 
Hipkins Chris: General Debate 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 Why is Pansy Wong not taking a call in this debate and fronting up to this House to explain her misuse— 
Hon Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have been listening very carefully to this debate. Other speakers have been much more careful when referring to an absence or otherwise of a particular member— 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I did not refer to her absence. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Excuse me this is a point of order. The member referred to her absence from this House. Other members have not made that mistake in their contributions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member’s point of order is quite correct in that it is out of order to refer to the absence of any member from this House. The point has been raised and I have listened to members skirting around it. Members need to be careful not to talk about the absence of a member from this House. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just for clarification I ask whether you are ruling that it is unacceptable to challenge another member for not taking a call. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No it is not out of order to say that a member has not taken a call but members should not say a member is absent from the House. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think if you reflect on what I said I asked why Pansy Wong had not taken a call in this debate. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have not ruled that out. I have just alerted members that they must be careful not to refer to members’ absence from the House. Members can question why a member has not spoken in a debate. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Why is Pansy Wong not taking a call in this debate? Why does she not come here and say why she misused her parliamentary travel allowance? She has not taken a call in this debate and the public of New Zealand are entitled to know why she is not fronting up and explaining what she has been up to and why John Key is telling her to duck the questions not front up to the media and not answer the media’s questions. The amount of money we are talking about is not insubstantial. I went back and looked at Pansy Wong’s international travel expenses in the time that she has been a Minister. I looked at her 11 overseas trips in the 24-odd months that she was a Minister—that is a trip nearly every 2 months on average—and she spent over $180000 taxpayer dollars on her international travel. 
The public of New Zealand are entitled to hear her explanation for why that is so. They are entitled to hear whether she was doing business on her husband’s behalf in China and asking the taxpayer to pay the bill for that yet not fronting up to the public of New Zealand to say why she thinks that is acceptable. That is not good enough. It is not good enough for the Prime Minister to tell her not to front up. 
But that is the pattern from this Government. Its Ministers take whatever they can until they get caught. It is National’s “self-help help yourself” philosophy to governing. While they are picking on beneficiaries and telling them to go out and get a job they are busy helping themselves to every possible taxpayer allowance they can get hold of and when they get caught what do they do? They duck for cover. What does John Key do? He advises them to duck for cover to not answer any questions to not say anything and particularly to not make him look bad. That was John Key’s advice to Pansy Wong. It was: “Stay out of the way; don’t make me look bad.” But that is exactly what Pansy Wong is doing. She is making John Key look bad because every one of those 11 overseas trips that Pansy Wong took was signed off by John Key. Every single trip that Pansy Wong took as a Minister has John Key’s signature on it. He said it was all right: $180000 of taxpayer money was spent by Pansy Wong on her overseas travel and every dollar of it was signed off by John Key. 
What is he telling Pansy Wong now? He is saying: “Whatever you do don’t say anything. Don’t tell the public of New Zealand what you did while you were travelling on their dollar.” I say to Pansy Wong and John Key that that is not good enough. When it is the taxpayer dollar they are travelling on and spending they have an obligation and a duty to front up and explain what they have been up to. It is not acceptable for Pansy Wong to travel overseas on the taxpayer’s dollar to further her husband’s private business interests. It is simply unacceptable and it is unacceptable for the Prime Minister to tell her not to front up and explain what she has been up to. But it is the pattern of this Government and its Ministers to help themselves to everything they possibly can—right from the very beginning. In fact before he was a Minister Bill English was doing everything he could to extract the maximum dollar out of the taxpayer for his house in Karori. Phil Heatley did everything he could do to extract the dollar out of the taxpayer to pay for wine at National Party functions and to take his family away on holiday. The “self-help help yourself” philosophy is alive and well in the National Government. 
What about Richard Worth? Why did John Key lose confidence in Richard Worth? He never said did he? Mr Key was the man who would set a new standard for ministerial performance and new benchmarks but I ask what happened with Richard Worth. He did not meet the standard but John Key never said why. He was never willing to front up and say why and that is what we are seeing in the Pansy Wong saga—the Government: not willing to front up; John Key: not willing to front up; and Pansy Wong: not willing to front up. It is not good enough.