Robertson Grant: General Debate 
Robertson Grant: General Debate 
[Volume:678;Page:1389] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 The only place young people in New Zealand are being backed by that Minister for Social Development is into a corner—into a corner where they cannot get jobs. That Minister came into this House and talked about a culture of shame. This is from a Minister who could be giving advice to Judith Collins about privacy concerns because she is the person who leaked people’s details into the media. She is the person who played politics with people’s lives. And this Minister is the person who has pulled the ladder up behind her. This is the Minister who benefited from the training incentive allowance and pulled the ladder up behind her so that other people could not get the opportunities she got. I admire Ms Bennett for getting her life back in order and using the training incentive allowance to do it; she should just let other people have the same opportunities that she has had.  
I want to change tack for a moment and say that I have just returned from the funeral of Sir Paul Callaghan. I want to put on the record of this House my admiration for him and for his contribution to New Zealand as a scientist as a public person who stood up for what he believed New Zealand could be as somebody who dreamt big about New Zealand and as somebody who contributed as an entrepreneur an academic a scientist a conservationist and overall as we heard today at his funeral a wonderful human being. On behalf of the Labour Party I wish him and his family all the best. 
 We have heard a lot this week from the Government from Ministers and the first thing I want to get on the record and get clear for Gerry Brownlee once and for all is that Finnish is a language; it is not a product you put on wood. That is the most important thing Gerry Brownlee needs to learn today. It is a sad day when Gerry Brownlee’s contributions are the thing that is making the news for this Government is it not? That is the best that this Government has been able to pull out this week. No wonder Gerry Brownlee is pleased to be leading the news for his comments about Finland because otherwise it would be more and more of the conduct of this Government which frankly is a tawdry tale.  
Is that not best exemplified by Judith Collins and what has been going on with the emails sent to her office? The National Party must be a viper’s nest at the moment must it not? We have got Michelle Boag we have got Bronwyn Pullar we have got Judith Collins and we have got Nick Smith who has suffered out of all of this. What we want to know on this side of the House is what happened to the email that Michelle Boag sent to the office. I am glad to hear today that there will be a forensic examination of the emails that have come into Judith Collins’ office. What I call on her to do today is to ensure that that examination is of all the emails—the emails in the emails out—the text messages all of the staff in her office all portfolios and all phone calls that went from that office. We know there are many National Party figures involved in this with the mention of Simon Lusk’s name. That should mean a lot to I think about 17 of the MPs over there—the 17 MPs for whom Simon Lusk remains a close confidant. So we want to know about Simon Lusk’s phone calls to Judith Collins’ office.  
What we really want is an assurance in this country that ministerial conduct is of a high standard. That is what John Key told us we were going to get when his Government came into place yet time and time again we have seen low standards of conduct from this Government. I want to say just briefly before I come back to Ms Collins that Murray McCully’s behaviour in the last few weeks towards his chief executive has been disgraceful. There is no doubt that change was needed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade but Mr McCully has washed his hands of that completely and dumped on his chief executive by sending to the media a letter that criticised reform proposals—reform proposals that exist only because Murray McCully wants to cut $40 million from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade budget. What is more the chief executive cannot fight back in public. That kind of behaviour is disgraceful but that is the standard of ministerial conduct that we are now seeing.  
In the case of ACC I find it unbelievable that Judith Collins the Minister can say that only four people have seen that email and that two of them are in her office—she and one of her staff members—and that she has named the other two people as John Judge the chair of ACC and Ralph Stewart the chief executive of ACC. This is once again dropping those people and saying: “If it isn’t me it must be them.” There is another theory out there of course: that Michelle Boag leaked her own email. I do not know how things go inside the National Party but I guess that could be possible. But that is what is dominating the news headlines: Gerry Brownlee and Finland and Judith Collins and ACC. What we should be hearing from the National Party is its plan for the economy—just one plan not 120 points. But it does not have one.