Williamson Maurice: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Williamson Maurice: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1181] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I thank my whips for giving me a slot during the drive time session in Auckland because my adoring drive time audience always love to listen to me. I have pointed out to the whips that they could give me a slot at any time up to about 10 o’clock at night and it would still be broadcast to my adoring drive time audience in Auckland because they would still be trying to find their way home. 
I want to play a little quiz with the House tonight with some questions. They go along this line: who said the following? This is a quote from  
Hansard 
: “That is inevitable as he leans back in that wonderful lazy pose we have all got so used to. He is a man of no fixed principles and of economic ignorance who entered this coalition in a sort of economic frame of mind that was roughly out of X Files 
and now has ended up as a sort of pin-up boy for the Reuters screen.” Who said that? Well I will table it later. It was Dr Michael Cullen talking about Winston Peters. That is what Dr Michael Cullen said about Winston Peters—but it gets better. 
I will do another test. This is a different person. Here is a better one. Who said this? “That is a very smart thing to be said by somebody who is involved in for example selling Government Print for $8 million when it was worth $46 million. That is all very well to be said by someone who causes me as Treasurer and my colleagues to have to confront a contingency of possibly over $400 million because he simply does not understand a thing about business. The lecturer from the University of Otago has the temerity to think that because Dougie Myers sent him off overseas to get a lesson on economics at his expense that the member is now an expert. He is an economic illiterate and a joke. He will never understand economics because like one of his predecessors Mr Caygill he has no experience of running anything except a Canterbury University tuck-shop. That is their level of experience …”. He is a total and absolute economic illiterate. Who said that? Winston Peters said that about Michael Cullen—“He will never understand economics …” and “He is an economic illiterate …”. Mr Peters actually said something else which I probably think I would be in trouble for quoting. But he said that Dr Cullen was an absolute economic illiterate without any practical experience and any literacy experience. So that is what they said. 
I have plenty of others about integrity and here is a great one—this is great. This is Winston Peters speaking on the Electoral Integrity Act—these quotes are all from  
Hansard 
 but I will table them if people want to read them: “There is not one of my colleagues who 10 years ago could have supported this bill. There is not one of my colleagues who 5 years ago like me could have supported this bill. But we sure can now and I tell members why. It is the experience—the bitter experience of betrayal; this venal stink and stench of people who offer preferment and the baubles of office to people to change their political loyalties.” How about that! That is a Winston Peters quote but then he went to Rotorua during the campaign and said that New Zealand First would not go into Government with either major party and that they did not want the baubles of office. 
Now there is one thing I agree with Winston Peters on—there are not many but there is one I agree on—that is we need a much better in-depth investigative journalist fraternity. As he quite rightly points out they let lots of things go and they miss them. I have transcripts from radio interviews and I listen to them with great interest; that is what having a bit of institutional memory does to help us. For example Mr Peters claimed over and over again that when he was a Minister back then in the National Government and so on he never took the baubles of office: “I never had a ministerial house. I never had a ministerial car.” Well I heard that the first time and I thought: “Good God that’s unbelievable.” because I got his car when he got the sack. 
I was moved into Cabinet when Winston got the sack and Bolger said that I was taking his Ford Falcon. So I checked parliamentary questions and there is a question to Paul East who was in charge of Ministerial Services asking which Ministers had what car and when. It said that on 8 February a Ford Falcon GL station wagon was allocated to Winston Peters. Goodness me he said he never took a car when he was a Minister but there is the  
Hansard  
record saying that he did. That is the venal stench of betrayal for the baubles and now there is a bit of sophistry that members will all love. He also said that he never took the fancy ministerial house. Well he is right. But here is a headline from the  
Evening Post 
: “Winston Peters coy about his plush hotel lifestyle”. Interestingly that was written by a man who back then on 8 October 1991 was the political editor of the  
Evening Post 
 a guy called Roger Foley. He went on to be Winston’s press secretary some time later. But members should listen to what the article says: “Former Maori Affairs Minister Winston Peters is being coy about whether he will continue to live in his plush Plaza International suite which was paid for by the State while he was a Minister.” So yes he did not take a house like other Ministers—and some of us lived in some pretty cruddy old houses that were broken-down and desperately needed maintenance—but we did not go to a plush suite at the Plaza International. Winston Peters is right. Where is the investigative journalist who checked all that? Did he take the car? Did he take the house? No he did not take the house; he took the hotel suite. And it goes on: “Hotel suite offers Winston deal”. The Minister said that he was able to stay on at the Plaza International at a special rate. 
Here is a classic. I thought there was something more to this but maybe not: “Minister proves not one to panic”. That is from the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 15 May 1991. “The Minister of Maori Affairs says he stayed behind in the Plaza hotel when all the other guests went out to the street when a fire broke out. Sleepy guests were mustered outside the Plaza hotel after a smoker accidentally set a bed alight and generated a thick black smoke. One fireman said Mr Peters had just got out of the shower when the fire officer knocked on his door and asked him to leave to which the Minister replied: ‘Do I really have to?’. Mr Peters stayed on while all other guests left the hotel.” 
Now I do not know whether that has anything to do with integrity or whatever but I say to Mr Peters: “When you say that you didn’t take the car I got your car sir. I drove it after you—a brown Ford Falcon—so yes you did. And when you say you didn’t get the house—the baubles of office so to speak—no you didn’t; you got the suite at the Plaza International.” We would all love that. Would we not all love to have our own suite at the Plaza International? So I say to Mr Peters that he is dead right. 
Richard Prebble was actually on to it a bit. He was reported in  
Hansard  
on 8 May talking about Mr Peters swanning around in the Plaza International. It is quite good. It is in  
Hansard  
on 8 May 1991 and Richard Prebble was on to it. But I have to agree that Mr Peters is dead right. There is no investigative journalism in this country because if journalists had listened to all the stuff we have heard since the “betrayal” since the venal stench of “We won’t be part of a Government; we don’t want the baubles of office; we will sit on the cross benches and keep the major parties honest.” things would be reported differently. 
 That was the line we were fed. That was the line fed to the handful of people who voted for New Zealand First—it was only a handful. [ 
Interruption 
] Let me remind Mr Brian Donnelly that if it were not for a few hundred votes that got New Zealand First over the 5 percent line none of them would be here because Winston Peters lost his home base of Tauranga. Then he tried to take some frivolous lawsuit against our good man Bob Clarkson who won hands down and I hope he wins hands down in getting the money back because he is a very very good man. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: He couldn’t quite work out where his left testicle was. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I say to Mr Mallard that we will not discuss anatomy; we will not get into that sort of stuff. But I want to say that when Mr Peters gets up in the House and tears into the National Party about the things we do not do and do not stand for and how bad we are we should remember what the voters thought of New Zealand First. This once-proud party came to Parliament with 17 members in 1996; this once-proud party had five members in the Cabinet that I was in and about three others outside Cabinet including a very good member in the form of Brian Donnelly who is in the House today and who I still think is a good member. And now it is down to how many members? Is it six? 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Seven. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am sorry to short change the New Zealand First party; it is down to seven members and it came within a few hundred votes of going below the 5 percent threshold. Do members know why it got those few hundred votes and got over the line? I know a number of people who said: “I like the claim that they will not be part of either party. I like the fact that Winston has clearly said—and he is the only honest politician in Wellington; I know that because he told me—they will not prop up either side.” I know some people in my electorate who gave me their candidate vote but said they would give New Zealand First their party vote so they could keep the main parties honest. Those people are spewing blood now because they read the Rotorua speech they read the  
New Zealand Herald 
 they read the stories about the venal stench of betrayal and they cannot believe that their man is more central to that than has ever been seen in this Parliament. So I say to Mr Peters that like the emails he claims are drip-feeding information about the National Party I have so much more of this stuff in my files and I will drip-feed it at the same rate that he does.