Robertson Grant: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8026. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 It is important when we start to look at the “pokies for convention centre” debacle to ask the question of why transparency and accountability are important because that is what this is about. At the heart of a good democracy is the notion that the exercise of the people’s will will be done in their interests—not in the interests of a small cabal not in the interests of a particular business and not in the interests of an individual but in the interests of all the people of New Zealand. 
New Zealanders want simple things out of their Government. They want to be treated fairly and they want to make sure that it is accountable that it is transparent and that they know what their elected representatives are doing. Fundamentally in this case the New Zealand notion of a fair go has been broken. One submitter in this process was treated more favourably than the others—a fundamental breach of New Zealanders’ values of a fair go. A fair go was not present in this process. People were treated differently. Skycity was treated materially differently. It was not done in a transparent or even-handed manner. They are not my words; they are the words of the Deputy Auditor-General. This was not a fair process. This was not a transparent process. This was not an even-handed process and that cuts against the values of New Zealanders. This Government should be ashamed about that. 
The Prime Minister says he has been 100 percent vindicated. He has not. He has been 100 percent implicated in this case because anyone who reads this report will see that officials did not act in some vacuum. They do not go off on a whim on these things. They follow the lead of their Ministers. They followed the lead of the Prime Minister and they followed the lead of Steven Joyce the Minister for Economic Development. That was what was happening here. Officials have been hung out to dry by this Government in this case and the reality is that this was driven from the top. This was driven from the Prime Minister. This phrase will become known for many years to come: “the Skycity angle”. That is the phrase that John Key handwrote on a briefing that he got from the Ministry of Tourism: “close off the Skycity angle”. From that moment onwards officials went down a path where Skycity got preferential treatment where other bidders were shut out of parts of the process and transparency went out the window. 
The Prime Minister tipped the playing field here. The Prime Minister said to wait for Skycity’s bid. The Prime Minister is the person who introduced the idea of the “more pokies for a convention centre” deal. He is donkey deep in this but he denies it. He said in June 2012: “my office has had no correspondence no discussions no involvement” in this matter. Stop the lying Prime Minister—stop it. Tell the truth to New Zealanders and tell them what actually happened here— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Our Standing Orders are very clear. The deputy leader of the Labour Party cannot make those accusations of the Rt Hon John Key. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Absolutely right. Would the member please withdraw that comment. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I withdraw that comment. The Prime Minister has to start telling the truth to New Zealanders. The Prime Minister has to start telling the truth to New Zealanders about the involvement of his office. Here is what he also said: “… Skycity will probably get a few more pokie machines … at the margins.”—a few more at the margins. Thirty percent more—30 percent more—pokie machines is what is happening there and it is New Zealanders who will suffer. It is the terrible addition of problem gambling that will be made worse by this and the Prime Minister does not care. He has got the deal. He is the one who tipped the playing field in favour of Skycity and away from the other bidders. He is the one who led a non-transparent process. The 4 November dinner the phrase “the Skycity angle” and where the Prime Minister intervened are what New Zealanders will come to remember this sorry saga for. 
I have no doubt that what we need now is for this process to be halted and started again so that New Zealanders can rebuild their confidence in the operations of government and we can be proud again of our transparency on the world stage. We will lose from this as a country because New Zealanders pride themselves on a democracy where everybody gets a fair go. Under this Government there is no fair go any longer. It is its cronies and it is its mates. It is time for the Prime Minister to front up tell the truth about this stop this deal and give everybody a fair go.