New Zealand Parliamentary Debate

General Debate [4431]

they may understand it, the House needs to be certain that the laws it makes are clear. Adding the word principles without any definition of it certainly does not make the law clear.

A lot of people are rather scared of this bill. They believe that if it goes any further, the intention will be to remove reference to the Treaty itself from all legislation. That could not be further from the truth. If these principles are so important, I ask members why reference to them is not included in the Education Act.

Hon Maurice Williamson

: Good question!

PITA PARAONE

: It is a good question. Do I have a good answer? No.

GERRY BROWNLEE( Deputy Leader-National):

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Kei te pehea koutou e hoa ma. Kia ora Te Reo Maori.

It is Maori Language Week, and I offer that support at the beginning of my speech. Is it not an irony that on the very day the Government has decided to do away with the principles of good, open, honest Government it has decided also to do away with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. I am not sure those things are connected, but when we look at the motives of these people we cannot be sure they are not. My friend Mr Jones criticised the National Party for having no brown Muppets on the front bench. Well, when one has a Brownlee one does not need a brown Muppet.

I would love to spend my time talking about the failure of the Labour Government to meet the expectations of the Maori community, but I want to turn to the ruling given to the House today by the Speaker in the case of the honourable Taito Phillip Field. It seems to me that the Government is working on the principle that there is no corruption if there is no corruption-so let us not deal with the issues of Phillip Field and his avaricious ways; let us simply get rid of corruption as an offence for parliamentarians. The Speaker has ruled today that as long as an MP does not engage on behalf of someone else in the House, at a select committee, through the question process, or through an inquiry process in the House, then the way is open to take whatever fee for service the member deems appropriate. Shane Jones, for example, could send a bill to the Angus Steak House for the promotion he gave it in the House this afternoon. He laughs, but we know he is a merciless double-dipper, and I expect that the invoice is on its way.

I ask members to think about the number of times MPs advocate for a business activity, a social enterprise, or any of a range of activities in the New Zealand community that involve interaction with the Government. The Speaker has said that it is OK to hang out a shingle and put a scale of fees on it. That really indicates that the Government knows that Phillip Field was up to no good in his activities in his electorate office. Phillip Field was holding his hand out as often as he could to get pecuniary gain. So I want to know what the Government will do when it finds out that other MPs are acting in the same way. That will not happen, because the overwhelming majority of members of this House conduct their business with the utmost honesty and integrity. I think it is an utter disgrace that the Speaker has not moved to allow Parliament to protect its own integrity. If my comments here are offensive and cause me to be sent to the Privileges Committee for raising the issue against the Speaker, then I welcome that. I welcome it because this House cannot turn a blind eye to the issues left unresolved in the Ingram report.

It is abundantly clear that Mr Field accepted lafo on numerous occasions.

John Key

: What's that?

GERRY BROWNLEE

: Lafo is a payment made by someone as a thank you. The report says it was not uncommon for 10 and 20 notes to be left at the electorate office for Mr Field. One of these lafo was 500.

Hon Paul Swain

: It's culture.