Valedictory Statement - Don Mckinnon
VALEDICTORY STATEMENT
Rt Hon. DON McKINNON
(NZ National): Thank you very much. This is but a temporary
relocation to the front bench. First Mr Speaker, I
congratulate you on being appointed to that office. I know
you will do an excellent job as the one person in the House
who probably knows Standing Orders better than anyone, and
that is always distinct advantage. My thanks to the Business
Committee too, of course, for allowing this time to be
taken. It is probably rather unusual to have a valedictory
address immediately after maiden speeches. I may well go
down in history as the shortest serving member of Parliament
in the 21st century. Nevertheless, I listened to many of the
maiden speeches. I have to say that they are probably more
refreshing than those I heard in 1978 when I arrived. One
factor that emerged is that there is probably a lot more
enthusiasm, very much, I think, as the result of the
multi-representation in the House. When I came here in 1978
this was a very, very male institution. As one who had been
through a boys' boarding school, 4 months compulsory
training in the New Zealand Army, and worked part time* in
Paremoremo prison, to come to Parliament was not very
unusual. They had a lot of similarities between them. This
is what we have, the MMP Parliamentwhether
or not the public will stay with it is not an issue I will
bother about tonight. Nevertheless I do want to say that it
has been a tremendous privilege to represent so many people
over the 21 years that I have been able to be in this House.
I have spent 18 years as a constituency
MP-the Hibiscus Coast* on Auckland's North
Shore was my centre, the seats of Albany, to Rodney, and
back to Albany and then on to the list. Through boundary
changesand as North Shore members know that
happened very regularlyI have represented
people from the bottom of Northcote to Te Hana* north of
Wellsford, from the TiriTiri lighthouse to South Kaipara
Head on the Tasman Sea, and down from Massey. Obviously,
there are a tremendous number of people to thank because no
member of Parliament ever stands alone. There are almost
plenty of people there that you need who provide lots of
support. Of course, that is principally from family and I do
appreciate my wife Claire being in the gallery tonight with
our little son James; my older children, who have come down
from Auckland; the sort-of extended family, my
parents-in-law, brothers, sister, the extended family, and
others. One thing you learn very much in politics is that
you always need a very strong support base, which is
principally family and friends, because when you really step
into a big hole they are the only ones who will stick beside
you. To the National Party, which made it very possible for
me to be here, I thank the party both singly and
collectively for; three very good electorate chairmen over
some 18 years; many branch chairmen; many secretaries,
treasurers, foot soldiers, and those formidable National
Party people who just make the cups of tea and keep members
of Parliament in line. None of them are party hacks they are
all party thoroughbreds. Also, of course, I thank my staff.
We used to call them secretary-typists; they are now called
executive assistants. They always were executive assistants
but nevertheless with the staff I have had, as a
back-bencher* and as a Minister, they have always been very,
very supportive and very, very helpful. When representing an
electorate north of the Harbour Bridge the one predominant
factor all the time is growth. Growth is just ongoing, and
often becomes one of the problems. I know my southern
colleagues used to envy this: where is the next school going
to go, where is this going to go? They would never think of
school closures, and certainly in the time I have been in
that area I have participated in the opening of seven new
primary schools. We promised the elimination of tolls off
the Harbour Bridge; we achieved that: we promised to
eliminate toll calling between the Hibiscus Coast* and
Auckland; we did not achieve that but I can blame it on the
Labour Government because it privatised Telecom and I had no
further responsibility for it. Twenty-one* years ago I
promised the citizens of Orewa that I would get them a
bypass: 21 years later the bypass finally appeared, thank
goodnessit opened last Christmas. Coming to
Wellington as a member of Parliament was not quite an alien
experience to me because I had been here in my childhood. My
family had been here, my mother's family came here many,
many, many years ago. I was intrigued by the recent debate
about the Wellington City Council variation 17, which, of
course, is all on reclaimed land. My great, great
grandfather set up a little business on the corner of Willis
Street and Lambton Quay in 1841. It was a good business. To
attract sea traffic he built a wharf out 100 metres, and
then, of course proceeded to make sure that he filled in
either side of the wharf to give himself that much more
landand he did all that without the Resource
Management Act. This what Wellingtonians are arguing about
now, how we should deal with this land. But he made one
other mistake. He sold a piece of land to a Wellington
company that opened up a newspaper called the Dominion.
Within a couple of years of coming here I became a whip. I
do not think anyone comes to Parliament for the purpose of
being a whip, but nevertheless one's colleagues seem to take
this into their hands and decide that you are the person
they would like to have there, and so it came to be. In
retrospect I have to say that being a whip for 7 years
probably is not a very healthy way of living in this place.
But nevertheless I seem to have survived that 7 years, but
then went on to become deputy leader. When you are a deputy
leader you are carrying out many of the similar duties of a
whip. If you count up about 17 years in that sort of
people-management responsibility area you then have to ask
yourself: what did you really come to Parliament for if this
was the whole exercise? If there is one thing that whips
always realise it is that they do not have the luxury of
taking an extreme position on any subject. They have to stay
pretty much in the centre in order to maintain that degree
of credibility. That was all right and one seemed to survive
that whole exercise. It was certainly a testing time for me
at a very early stage. There was that certain night in June
1984 when suddenly we realised we did not have a
majority.
END OF TURN
Continuation Line [After long
discuss. our leader Muldoon]
After long discussions with
our then leader, Rob Muldoon, and many discussions with a
lot of other people, it was decided that we would have to go
to the country. Well, I thought that was a pretty simple
sort of decision to make and that it was just a question of
us coming back the next day and sorting out a great battle
plan for the campaign. I did not realise then that Rob
Muldoon decided he had to talk to a few people around the
building. I thought: ``No, it would actually be a damned
good idea to get you home, Sir Robert.'' We started heading
towards the basement, where I knew his car was, and we ran
into a great loquacious member, Bob Bell, who said: ``Ah,
Rob, come and have another drink.'' So we went into Bob
Bell's office, and after Rob had shaken everyone's hands and
had a drink with everyone there, finally I knew we really
had a problem on our hands, and, of course, I knew that Rob
Muldoon had a fixation with driving home in a blue Triumph.
I did not think it was a very good idea going into a general
election without a leader
Hon. Phil
Goff: I don't know. It might have helped!
Rt Hon. DON
McKINNON: Many people have raised that since that time, but
maybe we should not have done what we did. Anyway, I rang a
couple of people and walked on down to the basement, just
praying that that tyre was going to be flat by the time we
got there. We turned the corner and saw the blue Triumph
slightly tilted on one side. I thought: ``Whew!''. John
Hatly, the old driver, was standing alongside the Crown limo
holding the door open, just wishing Rob to jump in so they
could go home. Rob came up, looked at the blue Triumph, and
said: ``Yeah, yeah.'' I said: ``Well, John Hately's ready to
take you home.'' He said: ``Well, I usually go home in this,
y'know.'' ``Well'' I said, ``Oh damn, a flat
tyre!'' He looked at that flat tyre for so long that I
almost thought it was going to reflate itself! Anyway, we
got him into the Crown car, and another crisis passed. He
would always say: ``Another crisis has passed.'' The crisis
was just beginning. But that is what it was all about, and
these are the kinds of things that I suppose test us all
from time to time. One learns much in the back benches, I
think more particularly by one's mistakes. And if there is
one mistake that I committed that I learnt a lot
fromand I give it to every member of
Parliamentit is: do not judge any contest.
Never judge a contest. Offer to hand out the prizes, but
never be the judge. I went to the *Albany School fair one
year and was asked: ``Would you judge the kids' fancy
dress*?'' There were about 25 kids all in fancy dress. I
said: ``Sure, sure.''anything to be noticed
as a fresh, young back-bencher*. So all these kids walked
around in a big circle and I picked the
winners``That one's number one; that one's
number two; that one's number three; and that one's number
four.'' I handed these on to the organiser of the function,
who then read out the names of all the kids who were
winners. And the four kids who got prizes all came out of
Centrepoint* commune. Now can you imagine what the rest of
the community thought about that! I think my vote in Albany
dropped by about 500 next time round. Never ever*
judgejust hand out the prizes. In 1990 we
came into Government, and this was all a major exercise. The
funniest thing was actually the night after. Four of us who
were living in a flat up in Salamanca Road all became
Ministers, and we used to take this clapped-out old Holden
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Then,
suddenly, the day after we became Ministers here were these
four big Crown limos sitting outside the old flat, and
people peering``What is going on here? Is
this some sort of military *takeover? But, anyway, we were
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Pacific
Island Affairs, the Leader of the House, and the Deputy
Prime Minister. I look back on that now and think: ``Well,
that is actually quite a load, and there's quite a lot in
conflict there.'' Nevertheless, you just get on and do the
job. In fact, I said to Phil Goff the other day: ``Look,
Phil, if you've got leadership aspirations, don't become
foreign Minister.'' He said Helen Clark really wanted him
there! You do have to remind yourself from time to time that
it is a very real privilege to serve in the New Zealand
Parliament. We all take it too lightly quite a lot of the
time, especially if you have been here a long time. But you
do have to remind yourself that you have been specially
singled out by your party or by the people, and it is
something you should not forget. On top of that, I would
have to say that it is an absolute honour to be the
country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, because you are
carrying the label of the country outside the
countrynot quite up there with the All
Blacks or Silver Ferns, but sort of heading in that
direction. I have been very lucky in that time. I have
clearly a very good department, under Graham Ansell, Dick
Nottage up there, and, of course, now Neil Walter. They are
very highly competent people in that department, and it is
probably one of the last career departments in the country.
I hope that a lot of what they have, that institutional
memory, does not get lost but is retained in the way that a
career department can do so. If I have made a contribution
as foreign Minister, I would like to think it was saying to
the ministry to look a bit outside the square, to think a
little a bit outside the very core activities it is
responsible to. That really resulted, I believe, in the
establishment of the *Asia 2000 foundation, the Centre for
Strategic Studies*, and a very full, open campaign to win a
seat on the Security Council, and I have to say that I think
the advice from the ministry is: ``I think we should play it
low key, Minister, in case we lose.'' Well, in politics, if
you are going to win something you just have to go all out.
It is win or bust. Also, I instigated the trips around the
South Pacific, I think in about 1993, taking members of
Parliament, taking ``NGOs'', defence people, and school
kids. They have had a great impact on the island states we
visit. To me, it is so important that every New Zealand
member of Parliament must have some knowledge of the Pacific
Islands. Most of us kind of fly over them to go to North
America or to East Asia. It is very important that every
member of Parliament does have an understanding of that. I
encouraged pushing ambassadors out on to the lecture circuit
when they get homeand before they get
absorbed back into the ministrybecause they
all have very good stories to tell about New Zealand in the
rest of the world; and pushing the new foreign affairs
recruits out for a day with members of Parliament.
END
OF TURN
Continuation Line [I still get very
interesting]
I still get very interesting comments from
those new recruits who either spent a day with John Banks or
someone and thoroughly enjoyed it. They saw a whole side of
New Zealandnot just John
Banksthat they would otherwise not have
seen. A tremendous amount of travel is involved in the
exercise. I have certainly been to more than 100 countries,
and to many of them more than once. I have had thousands of
meetings with foreign Ministers, Prime Ministers,
Presidents, Kings, and Queens. Most of these visits are
referred to my friends up here as ``overseas junkets''. I
want the media to just think about another test. The test
should be that if the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade
and the Minister for Trade Negotiations each cannot do 100
days outside the country in the course of the year, then
they are not doing their job. When they have done 100 days,
then members of the media can start to criticism them, but
they should not criticism them for the first 100 days. It is
an absolute requirement. We have to keep knocking on the
doors. We have to keep on ensuring that the New Zealand file
is dusted off, because most countries have 180 other
countries' files there and we are just one of them. We have
to work hard at that all the time. Clearly, I have certainly
developed a very strong attachment to the island of
Bougainville. I probably get a lot more credit for what is
happening there than what I deserve. It has been a case of
working with very good peoplepeople who are
clearly motivated to see something happen there, and people
who have very iron constitutions to see it through. We found
out very early in the piece that when we are dealing with
our Polynesian and Melanesian friends we do not stick to the
normal clock. We do not start at 9 in the morning and have
it wrapped up by 5 in the afternoon. We might start this
year and wrap up in 5 years' time, but we have to keep
working at it. Certainly, the defence people who have been
involved in these exercises have also been just tremendous.
There has always been a slight degree of semi-professional
tension between defence people and foreign affairs people. I
would like to think that I might have got the best out both
of them in a case like Bougainville, because we all worked
together. In other words, the defence people were invited to
comment on the foreign policy issues and the diplomats were
invited to comment on the defence issues. We kept the whole
show moving along. We have to be tremendously proud of the
peacekeepers* who we have sent from this country. They are
just excellent. Having sent them into activities in the Gulf
war, into Kuwait, Somalia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola,
Laos, East Timor, and Bougainville, we can be very proud of
what these people can achieve. Wherever they go they just
fit in to the local community. They adapt to the local
conditions. We should remember that these are first and
foremost highly trained combat soldiers. People often think
of peacekeepers as wearing a cardigan and jandals and
carrying a peace banner. A peacekeeper is a highly trained
combat soldier who has been trained up to be a peacekeeper.
It is extra training. But first and foremost that person has
to be good. Peacekeepers have to have the support behind
them all of the time. It is not enough just to say: ``Well,
you're the army, you can do it alone.'' I know that this
debate is going on at the present time, but peacekeepers
knowing that they have a navy, an air force, a navy, and an
army behind is just so importanta
comprehensive defence force. I was tremendously glad, and it
is not the sort of thing that we talked about all the time,
but when we got the hostages off Bougainville, which is part
of the original Burnham agreement, we had a well-armed naval
ship off Bougainville. I made it very clear to certain
recalcitrant people on Bougainville that that was a very
heavily armed ship and that they should not mess with us. It
might be used only as a deterrent, but it gives me or the
Minister of Defence a lot more confidence when we are doing
something. It is very risky, and people's lives could be
lost when one can display that level of strength. This
process in Bougainville will probably go on for a couple of
years yet. I know that some people think that can be wound
up sooner, but, nevertheless, it is still moving in the
right direction. I was really brought down to earth once
when I was talking to a bunch of school kids here in
Parliament about Bougainville. They wanted to know what I
had been doing. One lovely, young, innocent 8 or 9 year-old
put up his hand and said: ``Mr McKinnon, you have been to
Bougainville. You should come to Naenae, there's lost of
`Bougains' there, too.'' I was going to leave that for the
local member of Parliament but I could not remember whether
it was Trevor Mallard or Paul Swain. The role of Minister of
Foreign Affairs and Trade is all about protecting New
Zealand's interests and projecting New Zealand's interests.
There is always something of a natural conflict between what
the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade will want to say,
whether one is saying something for domestic consumption,
something for a home audience, or even something just to
make oneself feel pretty good, as opposed to something one
wants to say that is getting a message out there. Most
message one wants to put out as a Minister of Foreign
Affairs and Trade really have to be what one wants the other
country to hear. That conflict is something that all
Ministers have to grapple with. Invariably, they will be
told that they should be saying a lot more about a subject.
At the end of the day, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and
trade, one is sometimes inclined to say: ``Well, one of your
other ministerial colleagues can say, but I am more
concerned about a long-term relationship with another
country and that's the way it will be.'' As a nation, the
nation of New Zealand, we want to be heard, to be listened
to, to be taken seriously, we do want what we say to be
acted on, and we want to have credibility. I believe in the
kind of activities that we have pursued over the last 9
years. We have achieved what Secretary-General Kofi Annan
said yesterday at our luncheon meeting: ``New Zealand
definitely punches above its weight.'' I often get thrown at
me: ``Why are you following this country or that country?
Why can't New Zealand have an independent foreign policy?''
That is not the question. The question should be: ``What are
you doing that is good for New Zealand?'' It does not matter
whether it is dependent or independent. Is it good for New
Zealand? We could have a fantastically independent foreign
policy and drive this country into bankruptcy. We could do
the same with a fantastically dependent
policydrive it into bankruptcy. We do what
is good for New Zealand at the timewhat is
advancing New Zealand's interest and what is building up
credits out there. There are times when we want to draw upon
those credits. We should remember that 3,800,000 people do
not quite swing the same weight as the United States,
Europe, or even Australia, which is next door to us.
END
OF TURN
Continuation Line [So we have to work hard]
So
we have to work hard at that, knowing from time to time that
we will, naturally, draw down on those credits. I hope in my
absence, of course, the credits are not drawn down too
rapidly, but one will be watching this very, very closely.
But credibility is what it is all about. I say this quite
carefully. There is no use saying that I do not want to pass
this message beyond the House, but since I have been in
oppositionthere are three parties in
GovernmentI have not heard one word on the
issue of genocide in Chechnya from any of those three
Government parties. Now that is where our credibility gets
questioned. Hammer away at East Timor, that is fine. But
watch those issues wherever they are happening. The last
statement made about Chechnya was made by myself as Minister
on 9 December.
Hon. Phil Goff: At my request Don.
Rt
Hon. DON McKINNON: And we have not heard from the member
since Philip, have we? Here I am laying the ground for the
member. So we have to watch that situation. Foreign policy
debate in New Zealand is pretty thin. My one message to the
medianot the journalists, the media
ownersis that there are 20 journalists in
Asia working for the Australian media. They are filing
stories all the time. Australian audiences are well informed
about what is happening. There are no journalists from New
Zealand. The odd stringer does something. But if a salaried
person in Asia is sending back stories to New Zealand
newspapers they will get printed, and they will get read.
The New Zealand media ownership "particularly the print
media" are just too mean. They will not print this tomorrow,
I know. I have raised this issue with them once before. We
will not get mature public debate in New Zealand if we do
not get the broad range of stories that come out of that
area. I am leaving for another part of the world, and I am
an incredibly lucky person to be doing so with Clare and my
young son. I want to thank Jenny Shipley for giving me
fulsome support through the campaign, as did her
predecessor, Jim Bolger.
I want to thank Helen Clark for coming out very early in the peace and supporting me, as did Jim Anderton and other political leaders. It is a great challenge, and it will be fascinating for me. The one little pleasure I get is that a number of people, both journalists and academics who wrote me off about 7 years ago as being useless, are now writing to me and saying: ``Don, you have done such a good job that I would like to come and work with you in the commonwealth secretariat because you are such a good sort of person. Well, they were not writing that about 7 or 8 years ago. Well, that is the way things happen. John Carter is not here now, but he asked me about what changes I was going to make, and whether I was going to stick with the Secretary-General's current limousine. Would it not be more appropriate if I took his HQ Holden to London as a true replica of New Zealand? Mr Speaker, fellow parliamentarians, for me it has been a tremendous privilege, and an honour to serve New Zealand for more than 21 years.
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