Tolley Anne: General Debate 
Tolley Anne: General Debate 
[Volume:649;Page:18024] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 The Deputy Prime Minister stood up at the start of this general debate today and talked about honesty. I thought that that was a pretty good way to start. We can judge people’s honesty if we look at the pattern of their behaviour over a period of time. Tonight in my speech I would like to look at a couple of people’s patterns of behaviour. 
First of all let us look at the man Owen Glenn. He has had an ongoing financial relationship with the Labour Party. It is quite clear that his pattern of behaviour has been to pay large amounts of money to the Labour Party—$200000 in 2004 $300000 in 2005 and $100000 in 2007. On the other hand Labour led by the Prime Minister Helen Clark has had an ongoing relationship with Owen Glenn of favours. So in November last year Labour made sure at the Justice and Electoral Committee to alter the Electoral Finance Act in order to protect Owen Glenn’s donations under the overseas donations regime. Sometime over the new year Labour’s president Mike Williams talked to the Prime Minister about Owen Glenn’s desire to become Monaco’s honorary consul and Labour also talked to Owen Glenn at some stage about a position as Minister of Transport in the Labour Cabinet. So we see the patterns of behaviour laid out between the two parties. The relationship between Owen Glenn and the Labour Party and the Prime Minister is one of mutual obligation: “You scratch my back and do something for me and we will do something for you.” 
If we look at the behaviour patterns of the two leading lights in the Labour Party over a similar period of time we see that the Labour Party president Mike Williams told the media categorically in January that Owen Glenn had “not made any donations to Labour since 2005”. That unequivocal statement was made to the media but the media did a bit of digging and found the truth. They found that Owen Glenn had in fact given money to the Labour Party; he had made an interest-free loan of $100000. Let us remember that the $100000 was for helping to pay back to the taxpayer almost $800000 that the Labour Party had illegally used as part of its 2005 election campaign. Mike Williams is the very same man who before the election promised the Chief Electoral Officer that Labour would include that expenditure in its campaign funding but who after the election changed his mind and did not pay it. So we see the clear pattern of behaviour of the president of the Labour Party Mike Williams of saying one thing openly in public but of it actually not being quite true. It is a pattern of dishonesty. 
Then we come to the Prime Minister Helen Clark. She said she did not correct Mike Williams’ dishonest statement to the public regarding Owen Glenn’s donation because she was overseas. That is a bit like the time she did not notice that the car she was in was travelling at 160 kilometres an hour through the countryside because she was reading and it is a bit like the time she did not notice she was signing someone else’s picture because she was too busy. By the end of February this year the Prime Minister Helen Clark was forced to admit that she did know about Owen Glenn’s $100000 donation when she was considering the New Year Honours and that she had spoken with Mike Williams about Owen Glenn’s desire to be Monaco’s honorary consul. So those two leaders’ actions have shown they have little regard for honesty and little regard for the truth. Their actions show that they are not open and honest with the public of New Zealand. 
Owen Glenn is the honest person in this relationship with Helen Clark and Mike Williams. He has always told the truth about his donations and the favours he was promised. He has to be believed because the pattern of his behaviour has been one of complete honesty all this time. How can we not believe that that honest man when he met Helen Clark—whose party he had funded with $500000 or more—at the opening of the University of Auckland business school building to which he had also donated several million dollars talked to her about the $100000?