The Panel will be co-chaired by Emeritus Professor John Burrows and Sir Tipene O’Regan, of Ngāi Tahu.  The other members are:

• Peter Chin
• Deborah Coddington
• Hon Dr Michael Cullen
• Hon John Luxton
• Bernice Mene
• Dr Leonie Pihama
• Hinurewa Poutu
• Professor Linda Smith
• Peter Tennent
• Emeritus Professor Ranginui Walker

This will surprise some people but I think including Dr Cullen is a brilliant move. Not because I necessarily will agree with his views. But panels like these has a habit of producing worthy but useless reports which try to lay down principles for the perfect constitution, and they become door stops.

Dr Cullen’s presence (and others) should help ensure that the panel will actually come up with some proposed reforms which are actually achievable, if the public support them.

I hated Cullen’s appointment to NZ Post – partly because of the timing, but partly because National had fought several elections railing against his economic management, so giving him the chair of our biggest SEO was a slap in the face for many National supporters.

But a role like this one, I think is much more appropriate, and Dr Cullen will I think play a very useful role in it. The issues they are looking at include:

the size of Parliament, the length of the electoral term, Māori representation, the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and whether New Zealand needs a written constitution.

Also pleased to see Deborah Coddington and John Luxton there. Again, a panel with nothing but academics would be less likely to succeed.

But academics are not bad per se, and Professor Burrows as a co-chair is also an inspired choice. He is widely respected, and has done some excellent work at the Law Commission. He has a lot of experience at taking complex issues, and turning them into specific proposed law changes.

Likewise Sir Tipene has a good track record of making things happen, and a necessary degree of pragmatism.

Peter Chin seems a solid choice and a former Mayor will have some good perspectives, as will Peter Tennent.

I don’t really know much about Bernice Mene (except that she was a great netballer) or Dr Pihama, Ms Poutu or Professor Smith. Dr Walker is more well known, and his inclusion is no surprise.

As a constitutional geek, I’m really pleased to see some important issues will be debated and discussed. I doubt I will like everything they recommend, or even most of it. But I definitely plan to be involved in the process, and will next year cover the issuees extensively on Kiwiblog.

At New Zealand Post, Hon Michael Cullen has been appointed chair from November 1.

Thanks National. Words are inadequate to describe how I feel. The closest sensation it reminds me of is a colonoscopy.

Cullen replaces Jim Bolger, so at least it means there won’t be any change in policy!

Jim Bolger is the Chairman. He has been talking for around five minutes so far. I should run a book on whether he will end up speaking for longer than the actual speakers

Heh. Dean just said that after reading in the Herald on Sunday that Dr Cullen now supports NZ becoming a republic, he wondered if he should just sit down and claim victory. Jim Bolger retorted that instead he should just not read the Herald, which got good laughs. It seems Dr Cullen feels they mis-stated his position.

Dean advocates a minimal change republic. Promote the Governor-General from being the effective Head of State to the actual Head of State – but with the same powers.

The selection of the Head of State should not be hereditary, discriminatory and foreign, Dean said.

The GG is currently effectively appointed by the Prime Minister. Dean advocates that Parliament should approve any appointment by a super-majority.

In terms of the Treaty obligations, Dean states these have already been transferred from the British Crown and Govt to the NZ Government, and these would not be affected by a move to the republic.

Dr Cullen has said that the GG is indeed our effective head of state. He points out the unusually, the selection is purely by the Government of the day.

He rejects the notion that the Queen is foreign, and that being a monarchy means we are not independent. He says countries like Australia and he UK are not fully foreign, as other countries are. Also says Canada shows you can be regarded as absolutely independent yet they have kept the Queen.

Cullen says if no change is made, Charles will become King of New Zealand automatically when he become King of the UK, even though he will probably be 80 when it happens.

Cullen totally against Judges being able to strike down laws on the basis of supreme law. Will lead to highly politicised Judges. Says if the move to a republic is dependent on having a written constitution as supreme law, then both Charles and Williams will have happy reigns as Kings of New Zealand.

Says if NZ Head of State has executive powers, then elect at large. But if they have no executive powers is silly to have an election for it, as they will have nothing to run on. I agree.

One amusing observation made by Bolger is that he and Cullen are old sparring partners, but now are the Chair and Deputy Chair of NZ Post!

Prince Charles is strange and his father so insensitive and prejudiced that he could be a breakfast TV host, says New Zealand’s former deputy prime minister.

Michael Cullen’s comments, contained in notes for a speech he will make in Wellington this week, are bound to outrage supporters of the monarchy.

As a senior Cabinet minister, Cullen described himself as the Labour Government’s “token monarchist” and fought against any move for New Zealand to become a republic.

But, in a major about-turn at a constitution conference on Friday, he will publicly lay out a road map to becoming a republic when the Queen dies.

I’m pleased to see Dr Cullen leave the monarchist camp and join the republicans.

My motivations are not so much the personal characteristics of certain royals. They are:

1. A republic would provide greater limitations on the role of the Prime Minister
2. I believe our head of state should be a New Zealander
3. Hereditary selection for a role is inferior to democratic selection
4. A move to a republic will probably lead to a written constitution, which would generally be desirable

These are not anonymous allegations – Goulter is making them himself under his name. However that does not mean they are overly reliable, and are the gospel. In fact Ian Wishart himself concludes the article by saying:

As for the abuse of trust, did Labour abuse its trust in looking after a troubled 14 year old badly, or did Jevan Goulter abuse the trust of a political party who’d taken him under their wing?

At several points through the article, Wishart reveals that Goulter’s story is incorrect or exaggerated, and my personal take is that there is a lot of bragging there. It does not mean everything he has said is false, but I would caution people not to assume everything he has said is true.

Also in one section he says:

As for Phil Goff I probably had more to do with his daughter, who worked for a Government agency when Labour was in. Her name is Samantha. She was just stunning, she was beautiful when I met her, she was really hot. And I was like, ‘Piss off, you’re not his daughter?’ And she was, so we used to go out and have dinner and lunch quite a bit. Phil was a, I think he was a bit of a nobody then.

Now Phil Goff does have a daughter whom, umm could be seen to fit that description. However her name is not Samantha. If Jevan really was going out for meals with someone “quite a bit”, you think he would correctly remember their name. So again, does not help the credibility.

He makes allegations of sexual harassment against Tim Barnett. And some time later his partner (Mika) asked Barnett to pay $25,000 as compensation for Javen’s mental health. To my mind that is close to blackmail

Barnett makes the reasonable point that as a prominent gay MP pushing the boundaries of social legislation he was careful, like Caesar’s wife, to be above reproach, and not to be alone with people in situations that could be misconstrued.

There are no witnesses to the allegations so it is a case of he said vs she said. As someone who worked in Parliament for eight years, I got to hear a lot of gossip about a lot of MPs. You get to know which ones screw around and are sleazy. I don’t recall at the time any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour from Tim Barnett, and to the contrary he seemed very committed to his partner, Ramon. Without witnesses, I do not regard the allegations as credible. There are other MPs I would be more sceptical of.

Another allegation I find lacking in credibility is this:

INVESTIGATE: Michael Cullen?

JEVAN: I know he smoked it at the annual – I think it was the Christchurch Labour conference with Annette, but I don’t think Annette had it. I couldn’t be honest and say I saw her smoke it.

INVESTIGATE: But you did see him?

JEVAN: He had it in his hand, yes. I just remember him having it, it was passed to him by one of the young Labours.

This is in reference to cannabis use. It is quite possible Dr Cullen, like many NZers, has used cannabis at some stage. However to think the Deputy Prime Minister would openly smoke cannabis at a labour party conference – and in front of dozens of Young Labour activists is frankly incredible. I just don’t think it happened, and if that did not happen, I doubt some of the other allegations about cannabis use.

Not everything can be dismissed though. It seems very clear that some Labour Party MPs did lie about whether or not they knew Javen. The most blatant fib came from Lianne Dalziel, who confessed it online:

And yet…within five minutes of making the call to Dalziel’s office, Investigate received a phone call from Jevan, “You’ve just rung Lianne? She’s just sending me a Facebook chat apologising for denying that she knew me”.

This is what Dalziel said to Goulter:
“I owe you an apology. Ian Wishart has just contacted me and I’m afraid I said I didn’t remember you. I feel so guilty. All I’ve said, I told him you were a Facebook friend, so I knew ‘about’ you.

I hope this doesn’t affect what he is writing about you.”

Considering Lianne lost her ministerial job for not telling the truth, this doesn’t help her credibility.

The person who comes out of this looking very wise and sensible is Jacinda Ardern:

Young Labour were always very angry towards me, they didn’t like how I got to do what I wanted. Jacinda Ardern, who’s now an MP, she was my biggest hater….

But then I’m getting drunk and Jacinda comes over and rips the glass of wine out of my hand, ‘You can’t drink in here, you’re only 15!’

‘Yeah I can drink in here, it’s a private function, you’re not my mum, piss off’, and I got really verbal with her, I really didn’t like her.

So I walked over to Helen and I said,‘Jacinda’s just said I’m not allowed to drink. Am I allowed to drink or not?’ And Helen’s exact words were, ‘Of course you are, this is my house.’ I said, ‘I’m only 15’. And she said, ‘It’s my house’.

So I got my glass of wine and I started boozing up again. Jacinda just went off her nut. Now, Helen was drunk that night, in my view. Helen was drunk and she gets to the point when she’s drunk where people just take her away.

I think a number of Jacinda’s colleagues may rue that they were not as cautious around Jevan as she was. Jacinda’s actions look very prudent to me.

Incidentally I am also unconvinced of Helen Clark being drunk, and having to have people take her away. It’s not exactly an image that fits the former Prime Minister.

So overall I find the allegations lacking in credibility in significant areas. Having said that though, I think there are some lessons for Labour in the perils of letting a 14 year old run riot through Parliament and the party. He should have been in school in Christchurch.

As I have said before, I am a big fan of encouraging young people to get involved in politics. But I never encourage school age people to get significantly involved. Your school years should be a time of fun and learning, plus one often lacks the maturity to cope with “adult politics”.

That is not a universal rule. One friend of mine got involved at age 15 or 16 and went on to become a highly valued parliamentary and ministerial staffer. [UPDATE: Said staffer has e-mailed to say they are not highly valued but in fact under paid and over worked ]

But I also recall the 1993 election night when I allowed a 14 year old Young National to attend the election night HQ function, as a “results chalkie”. There was of course an open and free bar and I failed to supervise properly with the end result being the poor girl vomiting up in the boardroom, and then collapsing unconscious on the floor as she had never drunk alcohol before. I had to decide whether or not to take her to A&E or home, and had to deliver her still unconscious to her parents, who quite rightly were less than impressed. I visited the next day to check she was fine, and the parents were blaming her more than they were holding me responsible, but in the end I was the one responsible as the adult and still feel some remorse about it to this day.  Similarly, I suspect some Labour MPs are regretting allowing Jevan to spend so much time at Parliament, at functions at Premier House and the like.

Former prime minister Jim Bolger will be replaced as chairman of NZ Post late in the year by former finance minister Michael Cullen.

Deputy Chair wasn’t enough. I mean why the fuck don’t we just make him Reserve Bank Governor also.

The rest of the country subsidises Auckland and provides it with the wealth to exist.

This is not a view unique to Damien. Michael Cullen once said:

Auckland now sits atop the nation like a great crushing weight

I think it is commendable Damien shares his views with us. he is obviously positioning to become Finance Minister.

Incidentally a report in 2006 concluded Auckland sends $3.8 billion more tax to Wellington than it receives back in spending.

The rail assets that cost taxpayers’ $690 million last year are now valued at just $349 million.

The Australians still refer to it as the sale of the century.

The NZ Herald has a transcript of Dr Cullen’s valedictory speech, plus they stuck it on You Tube.

UPDATE: My NBR column on Friday looked at Dr Cullen’s record as a Finance Minister. I thought I was fairly harsh on him, but most of the commenters to date think I was too easy!

He stood to make his farewell speech to Parliament yesterday after nearly 28 years, observing very few people got the chance to deliver what is in effect their own eulogy “or at least a progress report thereon”. …

“[The 1980s economic reforms] certainly caused me some small financial pain. The biggest speeding fine I ever got was driving back from Whakatane to Wellington in January 1990 when I heard on the news that Geoffrey Palmer was supposedly moving to reinstate Roger Douglas as Minister of Finance. I hit 134kph.”

On the political gamesmanship of Parliament’s question time:
It is, in my view, by far the most effective test of the mettle of ministers and their opponents of any Westminster-style Parliament. Imagine, for example, how well George W. Bush would have survived question time on a daily basis if he had been our Prime Minister. It would have taken many Grecians bearing many sorts of gifts to get him through the experience.”

On the different outlooks of New Zealand and Australia:
“An Aussie believes a little ripper is something good. We are just as likely to fear it might be the son of Jack, let in by mistake by Immigration.”

Sigh. I will miss him. I didn’t like his economic policies (in fact I think they represent the missed opportunity of a lifetime- a decade of waste), but he was a great parliamentarian with a real love for the House and its institutions. Sometimes his wit (especially in their final term) would descend into bitterness or nastiness, but most of the time it was a joy to behold.

When I worked in Parliament, a lot of the staff would gather around a TV to watch question time. And obviously you are there to cheer your own side on. But Cullen was the only Labour MP who could consistently get the partisan Labour-hating (in a competitive sense) Nat staffers clapping and cheering as he skewered a National MP with a witty response.

There were times too, when said National staffers would yell abuse at Dr Cullen’s image on TV, when his tongue went from funny to malicious. The relationship was certainly a love/hate one. But for me, I will remember the good times.

Cullen is the last of the three MPs who could dominate Parliament like no others since Muldoon and Lange. The other two were Peters and Prebble.

“To those in government, a genuine thank you for the NZPost appointment. When I attacked National last year for swallowing so many dead rats little did I think that some might see me as one of them.”

Also good:

“The attorney-general does not have to be a lawyer any more than the minister of education has to be a teacher, the minister of health a doctor, or the minister of corrections a convict.”

And some advice for the Greens:

“To the Greens — good luck. But loosen up a bit; saving the planet needs to sound less like punishment for our sins if it is going to succeed.”

Will link to video and transcript when I can locate them.

New Zealand Parliamentary Debates 23 April 1982, vol. 443, p 441-446

23 April 1982 Address in Reply 441

Dr CULLEN (St. Kilda): I rise feeling like the elusive “scarlet pimpernel” of the Labour Party. Members opposite, or at least some of them, have worked themselves into a righteous lather of trembling indignation about the left-wing academics in the Labour Party. At last, the “one and only” has stood up to be counted. The previous Opposition maiden speakers are not academics by their immediate former profession. I am the first Opposition speaker to be so. Three Opposition members might be classed as academics, but I am not sure about their qualifications: the member for Christchurch Central is a lawyer, and therefore qualified to make an income outside—and that may be an automatic disqualification; and the member for Te Atatu and the member for Mt Albert taught at Auckland University, but as an Otago man I am not clear about their status as academics. When the compliments about left-wing academics are thrown across the House I shall be grateful if they are addressed to me personally and not spread around in an unwarranted fashion.

I affirm my loyalty to the Queen, and her heirs and successors, whoever they may be.

Mr East: And to your old school, Christ’s College.

Dr CULLEN: And to my old school, Christ’s College. I am proud of the fact that my secondary education was not paid for by the taxpayers of New Zealand but by the farmers of Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay. I ripped them off for 5 years then, and I shall get stuck into them again in the next few years, so the honourable member should not bring that subject up too often.

The rest is over the break.

442 Address in Reply 23 April

I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your re-election. I hope that you will have little cause to exercise certain of your powers toward me. Being a member of the Labour Party, I tend to live in hope rather than in expectation. As a historian I am reminded of that part of William Cobbett’s English Grammar in which he described nouns of number or multitude to include “Mob, Parliament, Rabble, House of Commons, Regiment, Court of King’s Bench, Den of Thieves, and the like”. I congratulate the new members who have made their maiden speeches; the mover and the seconder of the Address in Reply; the worthy successors to John Elliott and Colin McLachlan, the member for Whangarei and the member for Selwyn; and one or two other members whose speeches, thankfully, have escaped my memory. I particularly congratulate the new Opposition members. They have set an appallingly high standard for those who follow them, and I am not sure whether I shall measure up to that standard.

My maiden speech as the member for St. Kilda is notable in one respect, if no other— maiden speeches from Labour members for St. Kilda are infrequent events. That reflects the good sense of the people in the electorate. With the exception of a brief period between 1951 and 1957 when “battling” Jim Barnes was the member, the electorate, or its predecessor Dunedin South, has returned Labour members since 1931. Yet I am only the third Labour member. That fact has always proved to be a disappointment to the two minor political parties in Dunedin. The leader of one of the parties was so bold, at his party’s Otago-Southland divisional conference last year, as to guarantee that his party would win the St. Kilda seat in 1981. It was not so much a gravy train as a ghost train on the fast track that was supposed to win the party the seat. He did not, however, have sufficient confidence in his guarantee to accept my challenge to stand himself as the candidate for St. Kilda, and I deeply regret that fact.

I am very well aware of the fact that one major reason that the prediction proved false was the excellent service given by my predecessor the Hon. Bill Fraser. He was not one of the noisier or more outspoken members of the House. In that respect, we may well prove to be rather different representatives for the people of St. Kilda, but I shall be more than satisfied if I can manage a fraction of his dedication to the people, and his effectiveness in assisting them with their problems. Over the years, his dedication and effectiveness were rewarded with a gradual increase in his majority, to its peak in the Labour victory in 1972. With that victory, he at last had the opportunity to carry out some of his ideas about housing the people—ideas he had talked about so often inside and outside the Chamber. I am sure that all members of the House will join me in wishing him a long and happy retirement, and ‘the good health to wield a hammer for many years to come.

I pay tribute to all the people who worked hard for me over the long and arduous campaign. It was the most intensive campaign fought in the St. Kilda electorate for many years, being complicated by certain extraneous issues. Yet all those involved kept working to the end for the victory that properly belongs to them and not to me. I know that those people are ready to fight again at any time for the cause in which they believe, and in which I believe. I thank the National Party candidate, Mr Stewart Clark, for the clean and open campaign he fought and for his generous spirit in defeat.

I shall spend some time talking about my electorate—as Labour members have so few chances in their maiden speeches to talk about the electorate of St. Kilda, which is a very diverse and varied one. The small and fiercely independent borough from which it takes its name comprises about one-sixth of the population and no more than about one-twentieth of the area of the electorate. It fiercely fights off the irredentist ambitions of the Dunedin City Council. The electorate falls into three geographical parts, although it is not in fact Gaul: the western hills suburbs; the densely settled flats that include the only major centres of employment; and then, stretching away to the north-east, the Otago Peninsula, with its gentle bays and strong communities on the harbour side and its rugged beaches on the seaward side.

The peninsula is not merely a recreation area for Dunedin as a whole. With its many attractions it represents a large part of the underdeveloped tourist potential of the Dunedin area. This potential must not be ruined by foolish so-called development—development of the type represented by the possibility of extensive opencast mining for low-grade gold deposits—and I make my position on that perfectly clear. It is to be hoped that the mining company that holds rights over the peninsula will soon withdraw, and leave the area to more

23 April Address in Reply 443

appropriate development in keeping with its character and charm.

It is surprising that, until the last year or two, not a great deal of attention was paid to our local tourist potential in Dunedin. Part of the explanation may be a not entirely misplaced sense of modesty about our climate, yet climate is only one factor in tourism. In Dunedin’s case, the human and architectural history of the city are major countervailing factors. What is required to develop Dunedin’s potential tourism is, as in other areas, a sense of self-reliance on the part of our business and community leaders. It is time for much of the rhetoric of free enterprise that spouts forth to be applied in practice.

Too much reliance has been placed on the hope that some saviour will appear from outside, suitably subsidised by the rest of the country. Well, the legs fell off the horses of the light-blue cavalry last seen charging to the rescue; and, to reverse the old nursery rhyme, I have a feeling that even Humpty Dumpty will not put those horses back together again. We now know better about where our strengths lie, and where our future lies. It is time for Dunedin to shake off its self-imposed image as a social and economic invalid.

Mr East: It needs a carpet factory!

Dr CULLEN: Indeed, it does need a carpet factory, which is a much more serious proposal than many others that floated around before the general election. As a city, Dunedin has been through a long time of troubles that have had many causes: old industries that could not survive for ever; old business families that were content to sit on their assets, and did not do too much good with their “brainets”, either; the snowball effect of the drift north robbing us of much of our talent; a failure to understand the true basis of urban prosperity in New Zealand, which rests upon a strong and wealthy hinterland; rapidly rising transport costs, the biggest complaint that local manufacturers come to me about—all these and other factors have led to a long relative decline that dates back a little more than 100 years.

In the past few years, that relative decline has become an absolute one. Between 1976 and 1981, Dunedin lost some 5000 people, which is a fearful haemorrhage made all the worse because it consisted largely of the young and the talented. When I was canvassing, I found the real clue to the reasons for those people leaving. Those missing young people were no longer to be found in Auckland but in Australia. The addresses were Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane. In other words, they were not fleeing Dunedin because of Dunedin, but they were fleeing the National Government.

There are some signs of hope and of a new realism in my city, despite 6 years of fundamentally anti-Dunedin government. What has been achieved, and is being achieved, has been achieved by the people themselves. The Otago Regional Development Council continues its basic work, although I wish it were more representative of the community at large. The Dunedin Promotion Association has begun the long-overdue task of co­ordinating the sale of our tourist attractions. In and around Dunedin we are seeing signs of development in processing industries, and expansion in timber, wool, and hides. Industries of that type, growing out of an expanding resource base in Otago, will provide one of our economic mainstays in coming decades. All we need, and all we ask, is the right kind of encouragement, and a recognition of our true strengths and comparative advantages. We do not come begging to Wellington on our knees.

The power development on the Upper Clutha is the necessary pre-condition for large-scale irrigation projects. Multiple-use development of the Upper Clutha must not be surrendered in a headlong rush to create a power surplus that must then be sold off at well below cost, nor must it be surrendered to a fit of pique by the Minister of Works and Development. It is not a question of whether or not to think big; it is a question of actually thinking in the first place. When the Prime Minister referred to the sweat on the brow of members opposite I assumed that it came from the strain of the effort of trying to think, and I congratulate them on effort, if not achievement. Strutting in front of the mirror in foreign-made uniforms as economic supermen is no substitute at all for serious analysis of our economic problems or of possible projects, especially when those uniforms have all the substance of the emperor’s new clothes.

Our future in forestry, fishing, and certain types of horticulture is only just beginning to be explored. Central Otago has big lignite deposits largely free of the environmental problems associated with the Southland fields. My colleague the member for Dunedin North has referred to this already. Research into the use of those deposits must continue apace.

444 Address in Reply 23 April

Finally in this context I mention the future exploitation of the Chatham Rise phosphorite deposits. In the initial stages, exploitation will need to be accompanied by substantial marine research. As a base, it will require both a port and a centre of marine research. Only the Otago Harbour fulfils both those needs.

There is still much that central government must bear in mind. Over the next few years it can either support or destroy the slowly emerging confidence of the Dunedin area. Within my own electorate, it is crucial that the redevelopment of the Hillside railway workshops continues. Parts of the workshops are a disgrace, and I can only wonder at the skill and dedication of the men who still manage to produce excellent results out of them. They are an exercise in economic archaeology rather than in economic progress. The railways must remain the backbone of long-distance freight haulage, and that means a substantial programme of upgrading, as well as a programme of electrificiation, welcomed and supported by members on this side. New Zealand workers must take the lion’s share of the benefits of the programme, and that will be possible only if we proceed rapidly with the upgrading of our own workshops, Hillside among them. The real communist threat to jobs and livelihood comes more from Hungarian train-sets than it does from the Socialist Unity Party.

Equally, the Government must come to understand, as it seems not to understand at present, the importance of the health and education industries to Dunedin, and the value of those industries to the nation at large. I am sure that if the Minister of Trade and Industry stopped reading for a while he would care to support me in that matter. I shall be referring to the health and education industries at greater length later in the session.

I find inexplicable the present Government’s reluctance to accept and support the concept of centres of excellence with regard to those industries. In education, the issue is one of urgency. The University of Otago is staffed by many intelligent, responsible, and dedicated people, and some of those who teach there are not too bad, either. The university is crucial to the future of Dunedin. Although I began with somewhat jocular remarks about academics, I am saddened by the bitterness, resentment, sourness, mean-mindedness, and pettiness of the attacks upon academics and universities coming from the other side. I am sad for two reasons. I can speak only for myself—and I hope my parents are listening, if they can receive 2YA in Christchurch—but many people working in universities had parents who made great sacrifices to put them through a lengthy education. Members opposite demean the people who made those sacrifices, and they do something else as well. The universities represent a large portion of the accumulated knowledge, wisdom, traditions, and experience of our civilisation—and, indeed, of other civilisations. In making those petty, mean-minded attacks. Government members are demeaning the heritage of our civilisation. That is because they are scared of that heritage, but I shall return to that point later.

The role of the University of Otago is highly dependent on students from outside the region, who find travel costs increasingly prohibitive. That is the nub of the issue—the level of bursary payments, and particularly the problem of travel costs to get to the University of Otago. Perhaps it is not too late for the Minister of Education to recognise that fact, but, as I said, I live in hope rather than expectation.

The rebuilding of the polytechnic must go ahead along the lines of the plans already prepared. No cheap-jack solution threatening the essential integrity of the teachers college will be acceptable to the people of Otago and Southland—and that includes the people in six National-held electorates. All three institutions must survive as viable entities. On adjacent sites, they will provide the potential for new experiments in co-operation and joint development. Equally, the Government must recognise the fallacies embedded in the hospital boards’ funding reallocation system. If the Government, at least outside Auckland, wishes to embark upon a programme spreading mediocrity equally across the nation, it should proceed with its present plans. If it does not wish to do that it must look again, and provide the appropriate mechanisms to protect the Otago medical school. In 1981 Otago gave the National Party what it had often said it sought—two highly marginal seats. We will now watch with interest to see if the long-promised rewards are forthcoming. Otherwise, I suspect that there will be two marginal Labour seats in their place after the next election.

I am particularly pleased to be giving my maiden speech on this day, which, for the information of the member for Whangarei, is St. George’s Day. As we seek to establish our identity as a Pacific nation, this day serves to remind us of a number of things of significance.

23 April Address in Reply 445

It reminds us, above all, that we are a nation of immigrants. No one in this land is descended from people who were here much more than 1000 years ago—a brief span in the long history of humankind. The large majority are descended from people who arrived in New Zealand not more than 150 years ago, and many of us—myself included, as well as some members opposite—are first-generation New Zealanders. Somebody with an acutely trained ear, for example, can just detect in the tones of the member for Clutha a faint hint of Caledonian accents. The member for Napier and I are founder-members of Parliament’s newest club, the Honourable Kipper Eaters Society. The member for Onehunga runs on a famous campaign slogan, “Wine producers of the world unite”. Many people in the House have links back to different civilisations and different ethnic traditions. That is what ‘makes us a rich and varied nation, and we should not be ashamed of that fact. It is very sad indeed to hear people attacking that part of our heritage in the House.

As a people, we therefore express in a very real sense the striving for betterment and the search for a better way of living that is such a common theme in human history. For us to retreat into either a peaceful or self-satisfied conservatism is to deny our very origins and the reasons for our being in this particular place. In so doing, we would destroy our identity as a people; we would cease to be citizens of a new nation and become pale imitations of the old, doomed to repeat the mistakes rather than develop the innate potential of our heritage.

There are signs that this is indeed one possible future for us. The failure to solve social and economic problems has led to a growing disillusionment with parliamentary democracy and any established forms of democracy. We are seeing around us the growth of extremist political movements that provide simple solutions to complex problems. Let us be clear that the most rapidly growing, well funded, and best organised of those movements are to be found at the extreme right-wing end of the political spectrum. Last year, for example, we saw the sudden emergence of the Tax Reform Integrity Movement, which was able to spend huge sums of money on a clever but dishonest political campaign—and in that particular instance I did riot hear members opposite cry, “Where is the money coming from?”. There is also the neo-fascist League of Rights and the New Force group, with their adherence to the ideas of Major Douglas. Those groups represent a far more serious threat to liberal democracy in New Zealand than those at the other extreme.

One of the major reasons they do so is because politicians, within the traditional framework, have foolishly prepared the ground for them. Their objects of hatred are all too familiar—an orchestrated litany of hate objects: trade unions, political activists on the left, foreigners, immigrants, academics, and the news media. We have heard those objects of hatred mentioned by members opposite one after the other during this debate. Already we have heard too many echoes of that strange modern New Zealand phenomenon, the self-pitying whine of the rich, and the insecure arrogance of those who know their abilities do not justify their wealth or power. It would be as well if some of the sorcerers’ apprentices in politics thought a little more before adding their treble voices to the chorus of hatred and intolerance.

I have come to the House representing a very different political tradition—a tradition of which St. George’s Day also serves to remind us. It is a tradition of radicalism, a tradition of individual liberty operating within an ethos of co-operation. That tradition is no fly-by-night affair, for it dates back some centuries to a time when Russia was a poverty-stricken, oriental despotism—not that much has changed—and the United States of America was not even thought of. Its first mass supporters were the artisans and craftsmen of England, and so it is a tradition of whose origins I am proud, and for which I shall never apologise to any member of the House. The message conveyed by that tradition is as relevant today and in this nation as it was more than 300 years ago in England, for it is a message concerned with human dignity and the liberation of the human spirit. It rejects the inherent right of one person to lord it over another. It is not a complicated message. It does not require the sophistry necessary for ideologies that seek to justify rampant greed in the name of the general good, or tyranny in the name of some higher purpose. In its simplest form it is summarised by a single remark in the constitutional debates that took place between the rank and file of the new model army of Oliver Cromwell and the generals, after King Charles I had been defeated. As a spokesman for the rank and file put it, “For really, I think that the poorest he that is in England has the right to live as the greatest he.” That simple remark represented then, and still represents, a turning upside down of the world view of conservatives

446 Address in Reply 23 April

everywhere. It is an affirmation of the essential dignity of all people, and it is of growing and not declining relevance to New Zealand. We are becoming a more unequal society in which the arrogant tones of privilege and condescension are to be heard more and more clearly. Those tones must be drowned out by the genuine New Zealand heritage, including the radical tradition to which I adhere.

We have still to house all our people decently, we have still to ensure adequate health care where and when needed, we have still to create genuine equality of educational opportunity, and we have still to provide jobs for all those ready and willing to work. We are also faced with a phase of rapid technological change that may either enslave or liberate. If we go down one path, the benefits will go to the few and the cost to the many. If we go down a different path, we will find a sharing of the benefits and the creation of greater leisure and freedom.

We are faced with a choice. One the one hand we have what is, in the short term, the easy option: let things happen as they will and acquiesce in the creation of social injustice and division—a choice never better summed up than by the kind of existential Pollyannaism of the maiden speech by the member for Waikato. On the other hand, there is the struggle to find justice and to realise a moral purpose in politics. The irony is that it is the path of struggle that will lead surely to peace, civility, and good order. The other path may well lead to chaos and confusion, and to the breakdown of all order. In a very real sense we on this side are the true conservatives.

The seventeenth century radical, raised in a stern religious tradition and guided by right reason, would not have found that choice a difficult one. As one of them put it: “Right reason shall and will endure for ever. It is that by which in all our actions we must stand or fall, be justified or condemned.” After 300 years it is not a bad guide for members of the House. It is certainly a good place to begin.

Mr Goff says the person who should be most grateful for the legacy left by Michael Cullen is the current Finance Minister Bill English.

Oh yes, Bill gets up every morning I am sure and says to Mary “Boy am I glad Michael Cullen left me a structural $10 billion a year deficit”.

He gets in to work and tells his staff “Think how boring our job would be if Dr Cullen had not increased spending by $4.5 billion a year in his last budget”.

At Cabinet every week Bill reminds his colleagues of how good a legacy Dr Cullen left them, as he screws them departmental budgets down.

Goff should do stand up comedy if he really said that with a straight face.

Love him or hate him, Cullen has been one of the funniest debaters in the House in recent years, and I hope he will not disappoint in his valedictory. If it is as dispassionate as Helen’s, I’ll slit my wrists.

One of his former press secretaries has a tribute to him in the Herald. It covers some of the complexities:

For many in the public, reconciling the man seen visibly angry in a controversially broadcast exchange with Guyon Espiner with the man visibly moved at the signing of the Central North Island forestry settlement is not an easy task.

How do you make sense of the formidable policy mind who amazed senior officials when he designed the expansion of KiwiSaver on a couple of sides of A5 (complete with costings) with the infuriated figure who labelled John Key a “rich prick”?

I’ve referred to Cullen as a flawed genius previously and will try and cover this in more detail later in the week.

Bill English all but confirmed this week that the tax cuts planned (and legislated) for 2010 and 2011 will be cancelled.

They are a casualty of not just the global recession, but a victim of Michael Cullen’s “Scorched Earth” policy, otherwise known as his 2008 Budget.

Dr Cullen was gleeful in the hours after his final budget. He smirked and gloated that he had left no money for National. In fact he agreed in an interview with Gordon Campbell that his budget was a “booby trap” for National. …

You can reduce taxes if you keep spending under control, but Dr Cullen increased spending in his final budget by a massive $4.5 billion, at the same time as he also delivered (finally) tax cuts which when fully implemented would reduce revenue by around $3 to $4 billion a year.

Comments and feedback can be done over at NBR.

It is bad that once again they try to rewrite history about why they did so. Here is what Dr Cullen says:

“Labour believed at the time of the Ngati Apa decision that it would have been unacceptable not to respond to the Court of Appeal ruling in a definitive way. The finding created widespread uncertainty that a responsible Government needed to address.

“We responded with the best solution possible at the time. But I have always regretted the fact that National and other parties refused to enter into proper discussions on this issue, so that a broad political consensus – as has been established with the Treaty settlement process – could be reached.

Labour made their key decision before there was any attempt to get consensus. Within just a few days of the Court of Appeal ruling, Clark and Wilson announced they would legislate to over-turn the decision.

“The matter must be resolved once and for all. Now that National claims to have disavowed its previous ‘Iwi vs Kiwi’ stance and a review has been established, the potential for that broad consensus to be reached appears possible.

Labour are trying to rewrite history to portray their decision to legislate to remove access to the courts, as being the result of National’s Iwi/Kiwi campaign.  Again – the truth is Labour made the key decision to legislate within a few days of the Court decision – which was around two years or more before the Iwi/Kiwi billboard.

The sensible and principled thing to do would have been to appeal the Court of Appeal decision to the Privy Council. Labour did not want to do that as they had announced they wished to abolish such appeals, so rather than follow the law, they unilaterally changed it.

Chris Finlayson has resisted the urge to score cheap points at Labour’s expense (a lesson they could learn) and is reported as saying:

Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson last night welcomed Labour’s move.

“I agree completely with Dr Cullen’s sentiment that the review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act needs to be approached in a non-partisan way, and that the issue should not be used as a political football.

“I welcome his assurance that the Labour Party will engage constructively with the review. Our goal is to reach the best possible outcome for Maori and all the people of New Zealand, and it is important that the voices of all parties in Parliament are heard.”

Of course the details of what the review panel proposes will be crucial.

But finally we have an answer. We have a quote from Hansard on 9 August 2000 (a week before the let’s do lunch one I blogged earlier). It is:

“Eat that! You lost, we won, it [the ECA] goes! It is as simple as that!”

So there has been a minor mangling with the “Eat that” being at the beginning, not the end, but otherwise it is confirmed Dr Cullen did say that. My thanks to AG and all the others who have been at work on this.

Interestingly, one wonders then why Dr Cullen told the SST:

On “We won, you lost, eat that!” No, he says, he never said that to National. “It’s a wonderful piece of historic myth.”

Hardly a myth it seems. I don’t think a minor re-ordering which doesn’t affect the intent or arrogance qualifies Dr Cullen to call it a historic myth.

I’m glad someone finally dug up the actual quote. I was close to e-mailing Dr Cullen himself asking for what he thinks he said!

At the time Cullen announced his retirement, there was a lot of searching for the quote. I even had a couple of calls asking me if I could recall where and when. I said I was pretty sure it was during the Employment Relations Bill debate as I was pretty much in Parliament from 9 am to midnight every day for a week as the main analyst on that law. I think I wrote over 1,000 amendments!

Anyway I recall Cullen saying it after one of the mammoth fillybustering sessions came to an end. And it was indeed at that time, but not quite as legend now reports it. My reader has seen the original video footage:

it was the day of 16 August 2000. Parliament has just finished the 7th and final day of the Employment Relations Bill second debate. The Clerk has just announced there will be a debate for the 3rd reading of the ERB.

Speaker Hunt calls for a meal break as both sides stand after what must have been a long morning.

Cullen is heard on the camera mic as he stands saying in a loud voice to his front bench colleagues, “We won, they lost, let’s do lunch”.

It seems the original quote has been through Chinese whispers since then, and the “eat that” part is not accurate. The first media reports of it were some days later.

So as a farewell present to Dr Cullen, Kiwiblog is pleased to set the record straight!

MICHAEL CULLEN didn’t mean to call John Key a rich prick. At least, not out loud. “That was an interjection I never meant to be heard by anybody, not even those around me,” says the former deputy prime minister. “It was under voice,” he explains, mouthing and whispering the infamous words again to show how it happened.

Just like when Steve Maharey said “fuck you” to Jonathan Coleman and Ruth Dyson referred to Katherine Rich as a stupid tart. Also there was no whispering when Cullen called Key a scumbag, so I think we should be careful of rewriting history.

But Cullen was angry that day in Parliament, for family reasons. National leader Key had brought Cullen’s wife Anne Collins into the debate the previous night.

I generally agree that MPs families should be left out of politics. But there is an exception to that rule – when the family members willingly get involved in politics themselves.

I’ve looked at Hansard of that day, and the reference is merely to Anne Collins having supported Russel Fairbrother’s nomination in 2002, and Cullen signing Stuart Nash’s nomination papers in 2008. If you are actively involved in a political party, supporting various candidates, then you are in politics and it is not the same as a spouse who has no political involvement at all.

The politician finds it depressing that “everyone made a federal case” out of his blurt. He’s the father of Kiwisaver, the Cullen superannuation fund, of Working for Families and a return to egalitarianism in the age of excess, and all the media want to talk about is the “rich prick”! Cullen sighs in his blank office.

It was the quote that kept on giving. And the reason it did, was the inclusion of “rich”. If he just called him a prick it would have been forgotten. But by calling him a “rich prick” it implied being rich was a bad, nasty thing – like being a prick.

The government was sensitive to the charge that it was Nannyish, he says, but the rage over the light-bulb ban seemed “highly irrational”. The new bulbs were more efficient, less expensive and more environmentally desirable. But it didn’t think it could reverse the ban either. “When you’re a government that’s been there a long time, you keep doing u-turns and people start seeing you again as weak.”

This is one of the key mistakes third term Governments make. National did it with Punket in 1999, and Labour with various things in its third term. You convince yourself that “winning” and “not giving in” is more important than killing off an issue.

The anti-smacking bill was another strange case: even though National ended up voting for it, Labour got all the flak. Cullen says Labour could not have avoided the issue posed by green Sue Bradford’s bill. Section 59 of the Crimes Act had led to the acquittal of people who had made quite serious attacks on children. And it fitted Labour policy, so opposing the measure would make people say it had no principles.

But it was not a binary choice between the old law and Bradford’s proposal. The Borrows amendment would have stopped those acquittals but not criminalised parents who apply a light smack for correctional purposes.

Cullen still insists he could not have afforded big tax cuts in 2005 when he offered only the “chewing gum” cuts. Treasury was still forecasting disappearing surpluses.

“It’s a brave minister of finance who tells Treasury, `You’re wrong, I think we can spend it’, and then Treasury will produce numbers which will show you moving into significant deficit… I’d have been shot.”

Bullshit. Because he did exactly that in 2008. Even before the credit crisis, the tax cuts he announced were on a far far worst set of books than in 2005. The irony is tax cuts in 2005 would have been sustainable, but his 2008 tax cuts probably will not be.

The National-led government cut 70 staff from the Tertiary Education Commission. “The chances are this will lead to another blowout in low-quality education spending [such as the notorious "twilight golf" courses], which will cost far more than the bureaucrats.

These twilight golf courses occured under the TEC Labour set up. They had hundreds of staff and did nothing about them. WHen there were just 25 staff in the Ministry of Education, they had far better quality control than the montrosity created by Labour. Does Cullen really think twlight golf courses occured because there were too few TEC staff?

Cullen believes “only a tiny group of highly entrepreneurial people will make their way out of any situation, because they’ve got this enormous gift and it’s a lucky gift they’ve got”.

So sucess is all due to “luck” and a “gift”. Hard work, perseverance, education, training have nothing to do with it?

“It doesn’t matter that much how rich people get, provided they’re prepared to pay their taxes. What I always hate is when I hear the rich complaining they have to pay their taxes, that that is so unfair. I’ve always said, `Gosh, I was so pleased when I was deputy prime minister earning enough money to pay so much tax’.”

Dr Cullen has never worked in the private sector. When your income is due to your activites actually generating wealth, you do get upset as almost half of it disappears to Dr Cullen. When you have been on a state salary for 35 years or so, then of course you don’t mind paying tax.

On the PM: “[John] Key is a natural high pragmatist or low pragmatist. He wants to be prime minister, he wants to do things but he’s quite pragmatic about methods. Bill English is much harder-line.” So how come Labour painted Key as a neo-con wolf in sheep’s clothing? “I’d prefer not to go into that.”

This is quite extraordinary. Cullen basically admits that Labour’s negative campaign against Key was false, and they knew it was false, but they hoped the mud would stick. What else did Labour campaign on, knowing it was false?

On “We won, you lost, eat that!” No, he says, he never said that to National. “It’s a wonderful piece of historic myth.”

I think it was directed to business actually. Hansard for back then is not online, so hard to tell.

Slightly cheering me up also is the talk that quite a few in Labour are pissed off also, with his decision to take up a Government Board role. By departing before the Mt Albert by-election (his valedictory is 29 April), it will make the issues around candidate selection more transparent to the public as Damien O’Connor will be an MP before Mt Albert goes to vote.

I’ve also made lots of money on iPredict investing in the probability that Clark and Cullen would both be gone this year.

And with Clark and Cullen gone, we get a new Father of the House. Initially I thought this would be Phil Goff as he was elected in 1981 – the only Muldoon era MP left in Parliament now.

But he lost his seat in 1990, so his time only counts from 1993. Mr Speaker will in fact become the Father of the House when Clark and Cullen go. He came in in 1984. So did Mallard and King but they also spent 1990 – 1993 out of the House. And for those who like trivia, Jacinida Ardern is the “Baby of the House”.

UPDATE: Rodney reminds me that Sir Roger entered Parliament in 1969! Of course he had a small break from 1990 to 2008!

UPDATE2: Actually Jim Anderton and then Peter Dunne will become Father of the House. They also entered in 1984 and were swown in before Lockwood as it is done in alphabetical order. I only looked at the two main parties as the minor parties were all set up in the 1990s, but of course they both entered as Labour.