McCully Murray: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
McCully Murray: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1173] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 I have listened to this debate with some amusement as various members of the Labour Party have done what they were instructed to do by the Government whips and attempted to run some interference by pretending that the Labour Party’s serious overspending on the eve of the election last year was somehow part of a game of tit for tat—a game where everybody has been playing fast and loose with the rules. I thought I would take this opportunity today to make clear just what the issue is because it is not about whether there has been a game of tit for tat—a practice on all sides of breaching the rules. The question is really about whether the Prime Minister of our country having been fully advised of the consequences of her actions wantonly and deliberately broke the electoral law of New Zealand—the law that is responsible for ensuring the proper conduct of elections in this country—on the eve of a general election. 
I am the first to accept that there has been some looseness over the years in the practice of using Parliamentary Service funding for promotion. In my time in this place I have seen some practices that I certainly disapprove of but I will say that I have never seen a tighter line on adherence to the rules than we see today under the current leader of the National Party Dr Brash. However that is not what this is about. This is not about the Parliamentary Service Commission rules; it is about the Electoral Act of New Zealand a cornerstone of New Zealand’s constitution. The Electoral Act is one of the pieces of legislation that guarantees that when New Zealanders go out to the ballot box they are able to elect a Government in a way that will deserve the respect of all New Zealanders. To play fast and loose with that part of our constitutional fabric is a despicable thing for any politician to do but it is a particularly despicable thing for the Prime Minister of our country to do. There are many many unanswered questions and those questions will be nailed down and answered in the weeks ahead. The longer the Prime Minister tries to drag the process out the longer and more hurtful the agony will be because this Opposition will not let that Prime Minister off the hook on this matter. 
I want to give to the House today a little history on this matter because in some ways I was the instigator of the process that caused the Auditor-General’s report. It goes back to the Labour Party’s decision to spend over $20 million of hard-earned taxpayers’ money to promote the Labour Party’s interest in the so-called Working for Families Budget arrangement. I could see from the brief inspection of what was proposed that there was no way that it would pass the smell test. I took it to the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General decided not only that it did not pass the smell test but that he would do a little more about it as well. The first thing he did was to put the officials and the Ministers through the mincer and they carved off over $5 million of what was proposed to be spent. I guess one could say that the Opposition parties in Parliament earned their pay that day. Six to seven million dollars was carved off what the Labour Party was going to spend. 
But then the Auditor-General could see that he was headed for much much bigger trouble unless he took some further steps so he instituted a wider inquiry into the spending of parliamentary funds particularly focused around the leaders’ budgets—the area from which Helen Clark has been funding her bus stop billboards with slogans such as “You’re better off with Labour” which is the sort of expenditure of taxpayers’ money on party political advertising that I think most New Zealanders would deplore. The Auditor-General sought submissions from all political parties brought together the information and produced a report. He could see that we were headed for real trouble unless we could try to get the two major political parties to agree on some reforms that would protect the integrity of the process. 
So he wrote to the Prime Minister and Dr Brash and told them that they needed to show some leadership. He invited them to meet with him so he could share the report with them and hopefully get their cooperation on a process of reform. Dr Brash said that was fine and he accepted his obligations as the Leader of the Opposition to try to ensure that the show was tidied up. Helen Clark said no. She said she would not meet the Auditor-General of New Zealand to discuss a report that was designed to tidy up the expenditure of taxpayers’ money on party political advertising. Can members believe it? There is one person in this country—one person above all others—whom the Auditor-General was entitled to look to and expect support from in his cause of tidying up the expenditure of taxpayers’ money. That person was the Prime Minister and that person let him down. That person would not even meet the Auditor-General. The Prime Minister let herself down she let this Parliament down and she let all New Zealanders down. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: You can’t say that. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Well Mr Cunliffe has read from his research notes on this matter but I want him to reflect on this. He should go and talk to his constituents in West Auckland if he ever visits them and ask them how they feel about their hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars being spent putting pictures of Helen Clark—after they have been suitably modified of course—on bus stops around New Zealand and on credit cards that can be distributed to members of the New Zealand public at great cost. 
The Auditor-General having been rebuffed by the Prime Minister was mystified. He had to cancel his meeting with Dr Brash and put the report around the other political parties to see what they would make of it. It was an extraordinary set of circumstances. So we thought that there must be some reason why the Prime Minister was feeling so guilty about all of that but we did not know what it was. Now we do; now we know that as the Auditor-General was knocking on her door she was planning in detail the spending of half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money on something that was far more dodgy than the things the Auditor-General had already identified to talk to her about. She was already planning to spend half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money on the Labour Party’s credit card promotions for the election campaign. That is why she would not meet the Auditor-General. 
The question that then arises is whether she proceeded to spend that money knowing not only that the Auditor-General disapproved and that the Auditor-General knew that stuff was outside the proper arrangements but also that it was going to tip the Labour Party over the top of the limits prescribed in the Electoral Act. That is the question we do not yet know the answer to but I suspect we can make an assumption. Mr David Henry the Chief Electoral Officer had a complaint about this stuff drawn to his attention. We know that there was a flurry of officials’ meetings within the Prime Minister’s office. We know that some people knew that the Labour Party in spending that half a million dollars would go over its lawful limit. The question this House is entitled to a straight answer to from the Prime Minister is: did she play a part in sanctioning the spending of that half a million dollars which we now know to have been unlawful in terms of the Electoral Act—unlawful because it posed a threat to the arrangements by which we guarantee democratic and fair elections in this country? I tell the Prime Minister that she must come to the House and give us a straight answer. 
I want to know who else was in on this. We know Heather Simpson was in on it; she was in it up to her little eyeballs. We know that Trevor Mallard was in it up to his eyeballs. I want to know who else in the Labour Party Cabinet was in this up to his or her eyeballs. I want to know who else in the Labour Party was involved. I will be asking the Speaker in due course because anybody close to the Speaker’s office who was involved in knowledge of the Labour Party’s election campaign clearly has a conflict in ruling on the matters that are before the Privileges Committee process as it arrives and before the Parliamentary Service Commission. So it is declaration time for all of those involved. 
I ask the Prime Minister to come to the House front up and take her medicine. She should own up to Parliament whether she knowingly as Prime Minister of this country not only rebuffed the officer who was responsible for ensuring there was integrity about the expenditure of taxpayers’ money and not only spent money that was a rip-off of money from the taxpayers of New Zealand granted through the Parliamentary Service Commission but also was a full flagrant breach of the Electoral Act—the arrangements by which we guarantee the integrity of our elections in this country. The Prime Minister owes New Zealanders a straight answer and this National Opposition will make sure they get it.