King Annette: General Debates 
King Annette: General Debates 
[Volume:611;Page:8760] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Too many Opposition politicians in this place are blinded by their own self-assessed brilliance. We see their verbal acrobatics daily—not to mention their verbal diarrhoea. We see the antics of Opposition politicians as they elbow-jolt each other off the television screens. We see grandstanding bullying and a lot of time-wasting and puffed-up importance signifying nothing. Any performance in pursuit of a positive poll goes and one has to ask whether Bill English Roger Sowry Murray McCully Nick Smith and Winston Peters—who are all regular offenders—have ever stopped to think about what decent hard-working New Zealanders think of their antics in this House. Have those members ever run the test of what their mothers would think of their behaviour? I think it is time that they did. This time they have gone too far. There is nothing wrong with robust debate and strongly held views but to attack the people and institutions that this country relies on for cheap political gain is about as low as a desperate Opposition politician can go. 
Let us look at the list of the victims of those members today—and the victims are piling up day after day. There are the judges who cannot defend themselves against criticism and self-serving attacks and public servants who have been accused of collusion with the Government—Department of Labour officials Immigration Service officials the State Services Commissioner the Race Relations Commissioner the human rights commissioner the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and now the New Zealand Police. 
This country has the best police force in the world. It is corruption-free fearless and impartial. It decides whom it will prosecute and whom it will not. Its officers are trained to assess situations and make judgment calls. We rely on their integrity and judgment to uphold the law to deal fairly with people and to protect the people of New Zealand. Now the police have become the target for the Opposition’s political games. The attack on Marty Grenfell the Wellington area controller by Winston Peters and Murray McCully is nothing short of gutter politics. Mr Grenfell leads a team of men and women here in Wellington who are doing a great job. He is highly respected and a man of integrity and for him to be smeared by innuendo by a couple of our most seamy politicians is sickening. 
Why have Winston Peters and Murray McCully attacked Mr Grenfell? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek through you an assurance from the Hon Mark Burton Minister of Defence that he did not call me a “scumbag” in the tirade he threw across the Chamber. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I can assure the member that I did not call him a “scumbag” in the exchange that neither of us should have been having while my colleague was speaking. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Why are those Opposition politicians attacking Marty Grenfell? It is because he worked on secondment in the Minister of Police’s office for a period of time. If we extrapolate that argument does it mean that outstanding men like Dick Macdonald who went on to become a commissioner Paul Fitzharris who was an assistant commissioner or Ted Cox a district commander in Auckland were all biased because they worked with National or New Zealand First Ministers of Police? Of course it does not mean that. The arguments have been pathetic and they are not based on facts. 
The second reason those members have attacked Mr Grenfell is that they say he is influenced by the Government and that he was told by the Government to prosecute Shane Ardern. That is not correct. Mr Grenfell does not take instructions from this Government. It is the police who made the decision to prosecute Mr Ardern. They weighed up the situation; they decided to prosecute Shane Ardern. The police decided not to take any action against Winston Peters when he walked away without paying for a taxi fare. Most people in New Zealand would consider that to be theft. I have no doubt that the police decided to look at the circumstances. They realised Mr Peters was tired and emotional and when they made their decision they took that into account. It is the police who decide whom they will prosecute; that is certainly not decided by this Parliament. 
Now the same people in the House have decided to attack the Speaker of this Parliament. They are accusing him of bias and of influencing the police as well. Those are all actions of desperate men and they are all aimed at undermining the integrity of the institutions of this country. Why do those members do that? They do it for the sake of one or two tawdry votes. They do not do it because they believe in it or because there is any integrity in it but because they think by doing so they may sit on the Government benches one day.