Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove said he would miss Parliament and the verbal sparring and debate. Photo / Paul Taylor
A Labour MP has used his valedictory speech to outline why his party's opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is wrong - and call for a move to cross-party consensus on trade.
Clayton Cosgrove, a fifth-term list MP, has previously made it known he supported the TPP trade deal, and repeated that position in his speech last night.
"I remain a supporter of the TPP. I note that the argument is made that in signing that agreement New Zealand would give up part of its sovereignty. I respect that view - but the same is true when we sign any international agreement, whether it be the Paris Climate Change Treaty or UN protocols," Cosgrove said.
"In each case, we as a nation agree that in giving up certain sovereign rights we are attempting to make the world a better place through collective action."
Cosgrove said Parliament had produced many fantastic trade ministers, with each building on the work of the other to advance New Zealand's interests in a bipartisan way.
"We must move back to a cross-party consensus on international trade. Stakeholders in our community must be engaged with, not shut out as they have been in the recent past. Because fear is a creation of the unknown.
"Trade policy must last well beyond a three-year electoral cycle. But, colleagues, to do that it requires movement from both major political parties - Labour and National."
Cosgrove thanked the people of Waimakariri - "a strong and generous community" - and recalled door-knocking early in his career and speaking to a young man in his underwear "looking a bit worse for wear".
"He said, 'I know who you are, you've got my vote - don't worry about it'," Cosgrove recalled. He said, 'you fellas have to raise money, don't you?' He came back and he had a packet of cigarette papers in one hand and a small bag on marijuana in the other."
Cosgrove said he relished the debate and verbal sparring in Parliament, and it was an honour to serve as a Cabinet Minister because of the power to make change, and he was proud of some he made, including the licensing of builders and in property law.
On the Canterbury earthquakes, Cosgrove said he was proud of all MPs, from across the political divide, who helped people who were "hauled back from the brink".
"We helped them. We battled insurance companies. We pressured the bureaucracy. And, yes, at times we utilised the media to make the public case.
"They are now smiling. Their kids are smiling. They are in decent homes. They have got their lives back. I think that is at the very essence of the real work of Members of Parliament. Something the media and some commentators forget."
Cosgrove told his new leader Jacinda Ardern that she had "hit the reset button" on the evolution of Labour and "turbo boosted it", and he looked forward to September 24 when the party tag-line would be changed to "we've done it".
He would miss Parliament and the verbal sparring and debate.
"Politics is infectious, it gets in your blood. It is like cocaine, it is addictive. I will treasure the friendships I've made across the House. And, contrary to popular belief, we MPs don't hate each other."
Murray McCully
Former Foreign Minister Murray McCully lamented the study of foreign languages in New Zealand, which he called "truly dismal".
He also used his valedictory to criticise the lack of space for foreign policy issues in New Zealand media.
"Important foreign policy issues are denied media space by editors besotted with the eating habits of reality TV stars, their medial ailments, wardrobe malfunctions and revolving love interests."
McCully is retiring as the MP for East Coast Bays after 30 years in Parliament, including eight-and-a-half years as Foreign Minister under former Prime Minister Sir John Key, who was present for the speech.
He described the conversation he had when Key, a relative political rookie at the time, had asked him to be Foreign Minister, by saying: "My little friend, there is one portfolio where those guys can hand me my arse, and that is foreign policy. I want you to make sure they don't.
"Never before or since has the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs been so graciously bestowed," McCully said.
He also made reference to Key, a former merchant banker, whom he took under his wing, and Paula Bennett, whom he employed as his electorate secretary before her career in politics.
He said his personal advice to was to "always keep an open mind about people".
"When some financial wizz kid who gets elected in your neighbouring electorate irritates the management and you are asked to take him behind the woodshed for a chat, always leave room for the possibility that he might end up being your boss for eight years.
"And when some over-confident young woman marches into the electorate office, interviews you, and then instructs you to hire her on the spot, before you tell her to get lost, always leave room for the possibility that she might end up being your deputy Prime Minister."
McCully said he grew up in a New Zealand that saw itself as an offshore farm for Britain, and recalled the dismay when Britain joined the European Union.
"Today we are one of the truly lucky countries, camped on the rim of the Asia Pacific region that will be the powerhouse of world economic growth for as far ahead as we can see.
"We have been slow to adapt from a world where we can do business from inside our comfort zone, with people who speak the same language. The next decade or two will see an overwhelming proportion of our trade conducted with nations who are outside of that traditional comfort zone."
The same was true with security and defence, McCully said. New Zealand had to persevere with bodies like the United Nations, and remain a forceful advocate for UN reform.
New Zealand was a large player in the Pacific and was making a real difference, he said, including in fisheries and energy reform and growing tourism.
McCully said the great temptation in Parliament was to simply go along for the ride - to spend three years getting elected for another three.
"I came here 30 years ago to make a difference. This is a tough place and I've spent the greater part of those 30 years at the tougher end of it.
"I've tried to get things done, and sometimes that hasn't made it easy for colleagues, friends and family. But I could never really see the point in being here if I wasn't going to move the furniture around a bit. Thank you for putting up with me for so long. It has been a hell of a ride."
Maurice Williamson
The Pakuranga MP, who has been an MP since 1987 and will soon become the Consul General in Los Angeles, used his valedictory to pay tribute to his 95-year-old mother, and wife and three children.
He spoke about his love of technology, which meant he owned the first iPhone and iPad in New Zealand.
"When we came there was no internet. There was no computers. I went to Hong Kong and bought myself a PC and brought it down and set it up in my office and Sir Robert Muldoon walked past my office, stopped, backed back and looked at me working. 'Ah, how's the Mad Scientist tonight then?'"
He said he was proud to have introduced a private member's bill to increase penalties for cruelty to animals; set up Pharmac in 1993 - "I think Pharmac is one of our greatest inventions and I hope it never, ever gets taken away" - and establishing the Maori Broadcasting Agency, and appointing Hone Harawira and Annette Sykes as board members.
Another proud moment was tabling the Mahon Report on the Mt Erebus crash in 1999.
"I was at Air New Zealand, I was deeply involved in what was going on, and Justice Mahon got it right - it is so wrong to blame just the pilot."
Williamson also listed his failures, including floating an idea to introduce an accommodation charge for people in hospital. "That was about as successful as Lord Mountbatten's Irish holiday," Williamson said, to laughter and "ohhhs" from the chamber.
"I just want to finish up by saying it's time to move. I'm a dinosaur and I accept it. Why I think I'm now a dinosaur is I'm completely out of tune with where I think modern thinking is.
"I grew up in a farm house in Matamata that had scrim that moved on the walls and a pot belly stove and in winter it was bloody freezing. And yet I hear today, 'it is my right to a warm, dry insulated home'. No, it's not. Actually, every right you have you've got to earn it.
"Raewyn and I spent quite some time working out before we would start a family to work out how we [could] financially do it before she gave up working at Air New Zealand. The idea that someone would ever pay for us to do that, it just doesn't swing for me. I'm from the past, I should be back in my primeval swamp, and that's where I'm going."
Finally, Williamson said the standard of journalism was lamentable, and getting worse with the loss of programmes like Campbell Live.
"We now know about Kim Kardashian almost nightly and her $50 million arse. I think his name is Kanye."
Williamson, who said his view of the welfare state was it should be a hand up but not hand out, finished by quoting the British politician Edmund Burke.
"Your representative owes you - not his industry only, but his judgment. And he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
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