Finlayson Christopher: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Finlayson Christopher: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1261] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I think there must be something wrong with me because I keep feeling sorry for the Labour Party. I feel very sorry that the Deputy Prime Minister must be on the way out because the chief whip has given him such a crummy timeslot in which to speak. I feel very sorry for the Labour MPs on the back benches. In particular I feel very sorry for Maryan Street who is the best of the new MPs. She came into this House to do something for New Zealand. Instead throughout this debate Labour MPs have had to regurgitate the same third-rate uninspiring speeches. Even the Deputy Prime Minister had to. They were told that the key messages to emphasise were to talk about economic transformation celebrate national identity avoid doom and gloom and above all emphasise the leadership skills of “she who must be obeyed” the Prime Minister. 
Watching Labour MPs respond to the Prime Minister’s wooden address reminded me of the news broadcasts in the early 1980s showing the members of the Politburo mindlessly applauding their half-dead leaders like Leonid Brezhnev or Yuri Andropov. But what must have been most galling to Ms Street and other Labour MPs is that they were forced to laugh at the puerile contribution of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Let us face it Labour members loathe that person even more than his own party loathes him. 
Where is the Deputy Prime Minister going? He should sit down and take his medicine. In his “Walter Mitty” way Mr Peters probably sees himself as being like Ernest Bevin—Clement Attlee’s great Foreign Secretary. Labour members know however that he is really like Lord George-Brown—an embarrassment who will lurch from public relations disaster to public relations disaster and eventually end up in the gutter. 
Then Ms Street and her cohort had to pretend to be interested while the pontificating member for Ohariu-Belmont using his best archdeacon’s voice bored us all to tears with his usual lamentation about low standards of conduct. He conveniently overlooked the fact that the Prime Minister was able to give her address with minimal interruption whereas the Leader of the Opposition was yelled and screamed at by the Labour rabble on the other side the moment he got to his feet. They set the standard for this session and the chief Government whip should reflect on that. The member for Ohariu-Belmont has sold his soul for a Nissan Maxima self-drive car and minor ministerial office. Ohariu electors will not forget that they gave their party vote to National and their electorate vote to Mr Dunne in the expectation that he would support the National Party. In an eleventh-hour act of treachery he went back to his old Labour Party buddies and the Ohariu branch of the National Party will not let him forget it. 
In 1999 the Labour Party copied Tony Blair’s “New Labour” and mounted a campaign against sleaze. Seven years on this regime is being investigated by the police for misappropriating $400000 of public funds to advance its own political purposes. In fact to call this Government a regime is misleading. It is really a racket. New Zealand’s electoral law needs urgent review and I look forward to that review which will shortly be undertaken by the Justice and Electoral Committee. One major question will have to be how it is that Labour can misappropriate all this money for pledge cards and what sanctions there should be for this immoral behaviour. We send observers to monitor elections in Third World countries to ensure there is fairness yet the actions of this Labour Government are as disgraceful as anything done by Robert Mugabe. 
There is no point recounting the litany of double standards of this Government in the last 6 years; I have only a 10-minute speech. But there is one recent and particularly nauseating example of the Prime Minister’s double standards that I want to address. It concerns religious tolerance. Last week the Prime Minister criticised the  
Dominion Post  
for republishing Danish cartoons that ridiculed Mohammed. She expressed her concern that the publication did nothing to build understanding between communities. When it suits her the Prime Minister likes to come across as the very model of reason and tolerance. That was certainly the case last year when she went to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and it was certainly the case last week when she was communing with her socialist brothers and sisters overseas. 
In the aftermath of 9/11 the Prime Minister attended a mosque in an act of reconciliation and even wore a veil out of respect for Muslim sensibilities though that same respect was not shown to the late Pope John Paul II when she visited him. She goes to Ratana each year to pay homage to the prophet because the Ratana Church has for years supported the Labour Party. But where people from other religions have spoken out against her they have been subjected to abuse from her that is so extreme that the ayatollahs in Tehran would be proud of her efforts. The obvious example is her attack on the Exclusive Brethren whom she has described as the Taliban. The same thing can be said about her reactions to the Destiny Church and other religious groups that have criticised her. She even seems to have a problem with the Jewish faith. Last year her comments about Israel went far beyond diplomatic criticism and she was praised by Muslim radicals in the Middle East for her remarks. Her comments appear to have encouraged some depraved individuals to desecrate Jewish graves in the Makara Cemetery. 
So the Prime Minister is quite right to call for religious tolerance but she could show some herself. New Zealanders should be religiously tolerant because the right thing to do is to respect one’s neighbours’ beliefs or lack of them and not despise them simply because they hold beliefs that are contrary to one’s own. That is a principle to be applied consistently not just when it suits us. It is a principle that applies to the Ratana Church and to the way we deal with Islam the Exclusive Brethren and any other religious communities. 
Contrary to what the Prime Minister may think tolerance does not always mean silence. These are important times and we must as New Zealanders be able to discuss Islam in the modern world. It has been described as one of the world’s great religions. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has inspired great civilisations. But the sad reality of the matter is that it has also known periods when it has inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence and we have to confront that part of the Muslim world while it is going through that particular phase. New Zealanders have to be able to discuss these matters and not be bullied into silence by extremists and by thugs. 
It is also extremely important that religious tolerance should not be equated with being precious. People have the right to be irreverent and to poke fun. For example I saw nothing wrong with the film the 
 Life of Brian 
. Indeed I thought it was quite funny. But there is a line that has to be drawn. One can understand the offence taken at the Virgin in the condom display which many thought was offensive although our sensitive Prime Minister did not seem to think so—the double standard no doubt. 
Governments generally assume office with the best of intentions but the passage of time means that pragmatism becomes more important than principle. But never before has the double standard been so starkly on display as with this Government and the $400000 is a disgrace to New Zealand democracy. The other day I read the maiden speeches of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. In between the usual smart alec comments the then MP for St Kilda talked about the struggle to find justice and to realise a moral purpose in politics. How is that to be reconciled with the $400000 theft? 
The Prime Minister concluded her maiden speech by saying that her greatest wish was that at the end of her time in the House she would have contributed to making New Zealand a better place. As late as last Tuesday she said she wanted to make a difference. As she comes to the end of her premiership beholds the scruffy administration she leads and thinks about “paintergate”“corngate” “Waitaki-gate” and now “pledge card - gate” she should reflect on the old saying that all political careers end in failure—and her failure is more spectacular than most.