Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Volume:635;Page:6711] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 That speech was made by a very very sad and disappointed politician and I say to Winston Peters: “Winston get over it move on forget about it; we have.” 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Yes I know what the member is going to say. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: One would think that when a member has been here for some time he might learn a few Standing Orders and in the case of Mr Brownlee clearly he cannot grasp what the import of that is but he cannot use a person’s first name; and particularly in my case seeing he is so junior to me. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr Peters. There was no need for that last comment. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Be fair Mr Assistant Speaker. Let me start again. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: OK 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I withdraw and apologise for referring to the Rt Hon Winston Peters as Winston and simply say that we forgave that guy once called Luigi for the way in which he treated the National Party in the 1990s so why can he not move on? 
The reality is that in the last 24 hours we have seen the peace activist trying to make his peace with Helen Clark. There is no doubt about that. This man has a long history of all sorts of alarmist publications. Nicky Hager is simply a man who has very low credibility. He is the man who recently told New Zealand that the SIS was delving through the activities of the Maori Party and Helen Clark thought: “Here is an opportunity.” so she sent in Justice Neazor who discovered that no such truth existed at all. This guy had in fact been duped by the source in that case. Then there was the case he brought up of the engineers in Iraq. Nicky Hager alleged that members of the New Zealand Defence Force who were there as part of the reconstruction effort were fighting alongside British soldiers under British command. That was utter rubbish. It was wrong. 
This is the man who wrote the book  
Seeds of Distrust 
 in which he attacked Helen Clark. What was the response from Labour at the time? He was not credible it was a load of nonsense and it was untrue and contained scurrilous allegations; it was written by a man with no credibility. This is the same Nicky Hager who wrote the book  
Secrets and Lies 
 in 1999 in which he spoke about the Timberlands scandal. None of it was true. Not one of the pages in that book carried a single truth. It was roundly discredited. He is a man who indulges in intrigue and in the activities of scurrilously besmirching any individual he does not like without any care whatsoever. He is a man who a couple of days ago would have been described by Helen Clark as completely disreputable but who in a day or so will suddenly be the great saviour—apparently—of Labour. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: This is the rescue party? You’re the rescue party? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I say to Clayton Cosgrove that the book will be published it will be a joke and everything that Labour has been saying for the last 12 months will blow away in the wind. 
Winston Peters stood in this House and waved around the emails. He said that this was it; this was going to cause the trouble. And as soon as he found out that there was some investigation he magically had them destroyed in his office. Helen Clark had those emails. Helen Clark knew that a book was to be published. She said so on the tiles on television just a few months ago. They have been working with Nicky Hager apparently to put together what was originally described as a “telephone book full of emails”. 
Well the reality is that this is a series of hollow nothing allegations. They will not stack up any better than Nicky Hager’s recent outburst against the Echelon system— 
Secret Power 
 a book he wrote about something the Defence Force was supposed to be doing with the Orions. That was totally discredited. I ask anyone to stand up in the House today and say of one published work by Nick Hager that it is the truth and that it does stack up. Not one publication does. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
:  
The Hollow Men 
. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I hear Dr Cullen over there yelling out that the publication will be  
The Hollow Men 
. Well it is no surprise to us that Dr Cullen has that title firmly fixed in his brain. We know that he has been in cahoots with Nicky Hager. We know that he gave Nicky Hager the title of the book because he first mentioned the theme about 18 months ago in his concluding speech at a Labour Party conference. 
When a Government is discovered to be corrupt when it has lost its moral mandate to govern and when it comes into the House and learns that the health system is a mess and the education systems lacks any accountability and it has to put up with the ignominy of a minor coalition partner grandstanding over a senior citizens’ card that means nothing then we know why it is behind Nicky Hager’s book.