Mark Ron: General Debate 
Mark Ron: General Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:22064] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 This afternoon has been typical of what we are going to see God forbid for the next 7 or 8 weeks—however long it takes to get to the date when New Zealanders can exercise their rights. We will see the same old parties National and Labour attacking each other over their track records. And what track records they are! New Zealand First on the other hand will make it clear to voters not to forget the past. When voters make their choice it will be in their own interests to look at the track records of those two parties. 
We have listened to the speeches of National members going on about the treaty and about Maori issues—Gerry Brownlee delivered his speech and shot through—yet they have clearly forgotten that it was the National Party that gave Sir Douglas Graham his knighthood for all the work he did on settling treaty issues and for incorporating into every piece of legislation the mythical “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”. There is the reality. 
New Zealand First has attacked those issues consistently for 5 years but who put the issues in? National put them in. Law and order—we will get to that but National is attacking Labour up-hill and down-dale as it should over the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. But who brought that agreement to this House? National brought it to this House. National brought it into being. 
Who is attacking everyone all over the country about civil unions? National is leading the charge and United Future is also in there. But we should not worry about United Future. Everything that its members say on the election trail will be dismissed by one simple statement: the United Future party made it all possible by giving supply and confidence to this Government and never ever once holding it to account by pulling the vote or even threatening to do so. United Future is dead in the water in this election on that sort of issue. 
But who promoted civil unions? I remember National’s much-vaunted leader Jenny Shipley going to the Hero Parade in Auckland and telling the whole of New Zealand how it should be tolerant and inclusive. Then on the other hand she stood up and criticised and challenged this Government for enacting the legislation that National itself was quietly promoting at the time. We cannot have it both ways. 
National is going to attack the Government on Agent Orange. I am a returned serviceman and so is Bill Gudgeon of New Zealand First and many New Zealand First members. We know where the Agent Orange issue started and where it was stopped dead. It was the Shipley inquiry the Reeves report from a National Government and the McLeod report from a National Government that gave us the appalling situation we are dealing with now. 
And Labour? It asks us to trust it to consider its integrity. We have not forgotten “paintergate” I say to Ms Clark nor has the rest of the country. When one autographs a painting and says one did it as the artist gets caught out and then stands by and says: “I didn’t know that my staff had bought the painting and burnt it.” the rest of the country does not believe it. 
She sat in the back of a car on a cannonball run from Waimate to Christchurch and then sat in this House and ignored the fact that the newspaper stated that five people were currently facing criminal charges. She did nothing to get them off the hook by saying: “It’s my fault. I’m the Prime Minister. I didn’t stop them.” 
Instead she sat in this House and said: “I had my head down working and I didn’t know what was going on or what speed we were doing.” We in New Zealand First know that that car was travelling so fast behind the lead car that it was repainted because the stones that were flying up were striking the windscreen with such force it had to be replaced. But Ms Clark did not know anything about that. She was working in the back of the car with her head down. Her knuckles were not gripping the holdalls on the vehicle as it rocketed down those gravel roads. She was not sitting there as most New Zealanders would have been if they had had the privilege of sitting in the back seat of a car that was part of a Diplomatic Protection Squad convoy with a trained driver blasting its way through the countryside. Most New Zealanders would have gritted their teeth held on and thought: “Oh Jesus I hope these guys do it right.” But not her! She was engrossed in her work signing documents. That is the sort of integrity that will be challenged on the hustings believe you me. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.