General Debates

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I want to thank so many of the Labour members. I thank their entire front bench for staying in the House this afternoon to hear this contribution from me. I want to be the first to tell them that their days are now numbered. They have less than 2 years to occupy those benches, because this country has lost confidence in them. And I refer that nervous-looking Labour back bench to the great page in last Monday’s business section of the New Zealand Herald that contained numerous quotes from employer bodies in this country, from business owners in this country, and from business investors in this country, who have said they believe that this Government is hopelessly led and is not doing anything to grow the economy at anywhere near the rate it needs to, and that they have no confidence in the Government.

Let me make it clear that it will not be business that tips this Government out. I tell those members that when the boss gets the wind up, the workers get spooked. We have a workforce in this country that is not being paid at the levels that it should be paid at, we have workers who are not earning the incomes they should be earning, and we have a Government that can only say that its answer to the problem is to form another committee, get another reference group together, and see whether it can come up with some sort of a task force that might give it some recommendations about when and where it might do something.

We have had years now of sustained economic growth. Michael Cullen will stand up in a few minutes and tell us what a marvellous Government it has been, and how great it has been for this country. Whenever there have been long periods of sustained economic growth in this country, the first people who get the hit-up in the living standards are the workers. It has not happened this time. This Government has not allowed New Zealanders’ incomes to rise to the levels that they should have over these past few good years. The Government will pay the price.

Don Brash has made it very clear that the gap between a New Zealand worker and an Australian worker on a per capita wealth base, spread over the entire population, is over $200 per week. That is why Annette King cannot pay the nurses a reasonable salary; that is why Trevor Mallard is going around the countryside shutting down schools; and that is why almost every other social service in this country, including the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, is an utter mess. People are suffering as a result of this Government’s total neglect of the economy.

We will hear Dr Cullen stand up in a couple of minutes and say that we have the lowest unemployment rate the country has ever had. Well, I tell Dr Cullen that when we have over 300,000 working-age New Zealanders on welfare benefits other than the unemployment benefit, there is no way that the Minister can make a claim that unemployment is genuinely at that low level. Opportunity has deserted this country.

I make a few comments about the Helen Clark Christmas present to the workers. Helen Clark’s Christmas present to the workers is 4 weeks’ annual leave in four Christmases’ time. They can just hold their hat, wait four Christmases, and they will get an extra week’s leave. Let me make it clear to all the blokes in the Council of Trade Unions, who lined up to back Helen Clark in this miserable Christmas present, that that will mean 3 years of low wage-growth in this country. It is a wage cap, and once again the worker in this country will be required to forgo the benefits of this supposedly splendid economy, in order that Michael Cullen can stuff up every now and then, and say: “How magnificent we are, what huge surpluses we have, what a great Government we are.”

That will not suffice for New Zealanders. I tell Labour members on the back bench to go back into their communities, talk with their people, and ask them how easy life is. If they are still talking to the people whom they claim to represent—and frankly, I doubt that they are—then I think they will find out how much serious trouble they are in. I want to make a suggestion that the first person to go will be the member for Whanganui.

💬 Simon Power: Who?

That is right: “Who?”—exactly! Most of the people of Whanganui say that: “Who is she?”.

That was the fifth deputy leader of the National Party since it went into Opposition. Now we have two words for Gerry Brownlee—[Interruption]— apart from “Watch what the expert might do with a broken glass!”, which is “Next, please!”. Who will be No. 6 in the deputy leader’s position?

He went on about my surplus. I have to say that my surplus will never be as big as his. He is a man who has visibly grown into the role already, since yesterday morning, and cannot even do his jacket up on the second day as deputy leader of the National Party.

He told us about the nurses—the bleeding-heart National Party! Do members remember what the first act of the National Government was in 1990? It repealed the pay equity legislation. That was the first statute passed in 1990—though of course in those days he was still a woodwork teacher. I have to tell Dr Brash to be worried about Mr Brownlee. He is the first deputy who can build his own scaffold in the office. Dr Brash has to worry; Gerry Brownlee is looking up the Internet now, and he is trying to find out Don Brash’s weight. Put that knowledge together with a scaffold, and members will know what the plan is for Don Brash at some point in the future.

The honeymoon is over. Nick Smith has been thrown out of bed after 2½ weeks of failing to perform, and Gerry Brownlee has jumped in. There is not much room in many beds for Gerry Brownlee, plus somebody the size of Dr Brash.

This all started with an accidental coup, where the Bill English camp thought it had the numbers, allowed some proxy votes to get cast, and found out it had lost; Dr Brash found out to his surprise that he had won. Now, clearly, we have the party of Murphy’s Law. What a hopeless bunch: the front bench, the duo at the lead—“Mogadon” and “Mastodon”, leading the National Party! That is what we face on this side of the House.

Nobody believes that this relationship is going to be a stable one. Dr Brash has worries that ACT has given up the fight for the right and become a populist party. Mr Brownlee does not want to get into bed with the ACT party at all.

What about Dr Brash’s view of his colleagues? This is a wonderful quote: “It is a very different environment in politics. In the Reserve Bank I had a number of very bright staff who were very committed and worked very hard and were willing to debate issues very actively and aggressively.” What has he got now? He has got his National Party colleagues. They are clearly not very bright, very committed, working very hard, or willing to debate issues very actively or aggressively. The shining light over there, according to the newspapers over the last few days, is Clem Simich. While the rest of the National members were out fighting, Mr Simich was doing what any decent National Party MP would be doing, he was rescuing an elderly couple who backed their car over the edge and whose lives were endangered. I look forward to the day when the House is to yield up a very fine Assistant Speaker, and Mr Simich becomes the deputy leader or leader of the National Party, because over there is a car that is halfway over the cliff with a couple of elderly people sitting inside, and Mr Simich needs to rescue them and get them back on the road.

Then we have got ACT. It is trying to chuck out Donna Awatere Huata; it is trying to ignore Deborah Coddington because of dodgy stuff around publishing; and now we have this wonderful Mr Roodt—an ACT candidate who walked out on his sewerage obligations. He went around promising to build septic tanks for people, charged them money upfront, and now there are all these people on Waiheke Island sitting there knowing they have got no septic tank at the other end.

Is that not what the ACT party actually stands for? It stands for leaving the country sitting in a permanently anally retentive state in the knowledge that it has paid a lot of money and that whatever it produces is not going to go anywhere useful, or go where it is supposed to go. If this is the kind of coalition that the National Party and the ACT party offer the country, it is no wonder that the Labour Party is still in the lead.

Today we saw another performance from the Minister of Justice—and performances they are. This was not one of the vein-popping, shrieking attacks from the Minister of Justice on the people he calls “scumbags”. This was not one of the Minister of Justice’s attempts to tell the rest of us how staunch and how tough he is by beating his breast while he tells the Hon Margaret Wilson that her concern about human rights and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act did not matter. This was the Minister of Justice in his “I am a statesman” mode, where he tells the rest of us what huge respect he has for procedure, for the proper role of the Legal Services Agency and himself, and for the role of the courts. This is the Minister of Justice, faced with the outcome of his legislation of the last 3 years, having to listen to the description from the Hon Tony Ryall, and the other Opposition parties, of a case that must outrage every New Zealander.

Yiyu Zhang was sentenced for serious violent offences, for the sort of conduct New Zealanders used to think never happened in New Zealand—kidnapping, extortion, and ransom demands. This offender, we are told by the Waikato Times and by the New Zealand Herald, was let off 2½ years of the sentence he would have otherwise got, because his family put up $64,000 to properly make amends to some of the victims. Mr Goff could have explained, as he failed to do last time such a matter was the cause of outrage, that every offender should be making amends; that the courts should not be giving a discount to someone who makes amends, they should be adding a premium—an extra 2½ years—to the sentence of everyone who does not make amends. If it had been explained like that, New Zealanders would see that that is fair and proper because it is perfectly right that the courts should take account of the fact that someone makes amends, and take account of the fact when someone does not.

However, that passed 3 weeks ago, and today we find from the Waikato Times that Yiyu Zhang was granted more than $40,000 of legal aid to go through a 3-week trial, before he decided that his defence was hopeless and changed his plea. All that money could have gone to helping victims, to helping the police, or to helping New Zealanders in the many things that this Government says it gives priority to. Mr Goff, when asked whether he would review the law that results in this outcome, said that he does not do reviews if Mr Franks wants them.

He also failed to explain why the review of legal aid eligibility could not cover this. Legal aid eligibility has been a weeping sore in the justice system for the entire period of this Government. How do we know that? Because the Government said it was. When the Labour Government took over from National, the Minister of Justice vowed that he would review eligibility terms. In fact, we heard that it was on the work programme for the first year in office. Well, it never appeared. The Labour Government was going to do some marvellous things. It was going to make sure that it was easier for Māori claimants to get help from the legal aid system. It was going to make sure that environmental groups could find easier access to block landowners from using their land in accordance with property rights guaranteed to them in any civilised country.

Of course, the Minister started to get cold feet. It may be what he believes in, but it was not what the electorate wanted to see. The electorate is far more concerned about abuses of legal aid by the hundreds of people who make fruitless, futile, unjustified appeals against sentence. In our Court of Appeal, which is so overworked, more than half of its workload is related to appeals against sentence, of which less than one-quarter get anywhere, and 90 percent of which are on legal aid. The Minister could have reviewed legal aid. He now has a perfect reason to have a proper look at legal aid and to review his programme, but he will not.

Can I begin by congratulating my fellow Cantabrian Gerry Brownlee on his very well-deserved further rise up the ladder, and wish him well in his continued future on his way to the leadership of the National Party. It has been an extraordinarily long wait for Gerry. He has been pretty open about his ambitions and remains pretty open about his future ambitions—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Mr Brownlee; not Gerry.

Sorry. Cantabrians are more familiar with each other. I was not meaning any disrespect to Mr Brownlee.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I want to hear about it!

Not that sort of familiarity, thank you! What I cannot understand is why Mr Brownlee—in the end—accepted becoming deputy to someone to whom he has such a fundamental opposition. Mr Brownlee says of himself that he will always stand on principle; that he is not a populist politician. Clearly, he is committed to the National Party and he is opposed to National moving in with ACT. That is exactly the opposite of where his leader wants to go. So how can this odd couple get anywhere in the future? How can they lead National out of total oblivion? How can those two present a credible policy face for the National Party? The answer is they cannot, they will not, they are a failure—as a couple.

There is more to the problems of the National Party than the leadership. One can rearrange the deckchairs as often as one likes, but in the end that ship will continue to go down. Even though I congratulate Mr Brownlee on his election, I am sorry he made the mistake of moving in with someone whom he does not want to share that front-bench seat with. Because Don Brash has made it very clear that he wants to go with ACT—in fact, Catherine Judd, the current ACT president, describes Don Brash as the ninth ACT MP.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Who?

Catherine Judd describes Don Brash as the ninth ACT MP. But Mr Brownlee has said of Mr Brash—his current leader—“If people in the National Party think we are going to increase the National vote by saying we are inextricably linked to ACT, then they have got their heads that far into the sand, all they can expect is their backside to be kicked in the next election.” How can one present a credible leadership team when that is the view of the deputy in relation to his leader’s wish to get close to ACT?

Don Brash, on the other hand, said: “Many of us see National and ACT as natural coalition partners, along with others who broadly agree on”—listen to the term and remember Ruth Richardson—“the fundamental issues facing our country and the need to address them.” Mr Brash said: “It is increasingly clear that if New Zealand is to have a Government that understands the peril our nation faces, a constructive working relationship with National and ACT will need to be at its core.”

Are Don Brash and Gerry Brownlee the answer to National’s problems? Well, if they are the answer, then I think the National Party has got the question wrong. Those two have been described by the Christchurch Press as “the least awful option in a caucus where genuine leadership potential appears as thin as the hair on Don Brash’s head.” Even in the Listener, that well-known columnist Jane Clifton described Don Brash as a “stalking horse until someone better comes along”. I am sure she is using very reliable sources and information in order to describe Don Brash as a stalking horse until someone better comes along; who has been described as the man who proves constantly in the House that he does not yet have the political toolset to do a job.

I am also stunned at the way the National Party treated the most immediate former leader. Shane Ardern described it as a very decisive move from Don Brash; Shane Ardern, the man who drives tractors, said: “The controversy over the party’s deputy leadership”—and this is the most recent controversy over the party’s deputy leadership—“was dealt with in a very decisive and professional way.” Well, if that was decisive and professional I would hate to see a shambles.

It almost beggars belief that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is still conducting an aerial blanket spray programme to eradicate the Asian gypsy moth from Hamilton. Yes, I agree that the Asian gypsy moth is a destructive pest, and, yes, we do need to eradicate it, but—as my colleague Mr Woolerton has said—I question whether drenching the residents of Hamilton is the best way to do it.

I have some facts. Firstly, only one male moth has ever been found—and that was very dead! Secondly, Foray 48B, which is the spray being used, is effective only on the caterpillar phase and not on the moth itself. Thirdly, the best way to identify the extent of an infestation is by setting pheromone traps—sexual attraction traps. They are only effective on the moth phase—and that comes after the caterpillar phase. Fourthly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry uses those last two points to justify its decision to spray—in the absence of any evidence! I ask members to think about these next two points. Firstly, male egg-masses hatch simultaneously with the first leaf-buds, and that happened at the beginning of September. The ministry did not even start to spray until the beginning of October, so it was already too late to get the caterpillars. Secondly, if any caterpillars had hatched they would have been caught in the pheromone traps. Have a guess how many have been caught in the pheromone traps! The answer is a very nice round number—none. None has been found.

Male Asian gypsy moths hatch a week before female Asian gypsy moths. All that the ministry needed to do was have a series of pheromone traps around the infestation. Then as soon as the ministry found any moths, it could say: “Yes, we’ve got an infestation here. Let’s spray it.” But the ministry did not do that. It missed that weeklong window of opportunity. Overseas research shows that it takes about 20 different egg-masses to get a sustainable body of population. A single egg-mass, which is what we believe we have in the Waikato, is not sufficient; it will die out. The fundamental question in all of this is that if the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry does not find any moths, is it because the spray was successful or because there were no moths there in the first place? We do not know the answer to that.

So what are the human costs? People who were exposed to the spray complain about rashes, allergic reactions, asthma, and nausea, and those effects are more pronounced in the young, the old, and the infirm. But residents are subjected to a catch-22, because the Government refuses to tell doctors what the contents of the spray are. They have told some doctors, but when the residents go to those doctors—the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry doctors—they are told that their symptoms have nothing to do with the spray. They go to their general practitioners, who say: “Yes, the symptoms are a result of the spray, but we do not know what is in the spray, therefore we can’t help you get over it.” The Health Act states: “the ministry shall have the function of improving, promoting, and protecting public health.” Is that happening in Hamilton? I think the answer is “No”.

I would like to quote briefly from Martin Elliot, the principal of Fraser High School—the biggest high school in Hamilton. He said: “Of the 180 staff at Fraser we have six teachers and two support staff who have side effects and reactions due to the spray that I rank as very serious. As well, we have another 15 staff who are experiencing symptoms like itchy eyes, rashes to their skin, and light-headedness on spray days.” He went on to say: “A senior MAF official told me that our eight serious cases were an aberration.” He quoted the ministry officials as saying: “It was like contagious paranoia where people feed off the psychology of the propaganda spread by the anti-spray brigade.” Mr Elliot went on to say: “It took a lot of my self-control not to reach across the table and yank his testicles out through his throat.” I get the impression that Mr Elliot was rather excited. He went on to say: “I have been so disappointed with the MAF medical team that I have made a formal complaint to OSH and requested that independent OSH doctors assess my staff.”

I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for making such a contribution to party membership, and I mean Labour Party membership. I was in my electorate office and came out of a meeting with a constituent last Friday. I was pleased to see a woman I had not met before sitting at the front desk with the Labour Party membership book, signing up. After welcoming her and having a chat to her about what she did and so on, and the many new tasks that she was prepared to adopt for the party, I asked her what had made her join Labour. She said to me that she had been thinking about it for some time, but Don Brash for her was the final straw. I think there are many people around the country who, like that woman, are pleased to know what the National Party stands for. I am pleased that Dr Brash now makes no bones about National policy. He is certainly keen to give the party some bite! In fact, I had a taxi driver the same day last week ask me why Dr Brash had not yet shown his teeth. Rather uncharitably, he suggested that they might have been left in a glass beside the bed.

But seriously, I would like to wish Dr Brash well. It is an important day for him—his first meeting of the National Party board, at age 63. I know he will make it clear to the board today that he wants further privatisation of whatever assets remain owned by this country: TVNZ, the remaining power companies, which he has mentioned since day one, and Air New Zealand, should we ever be unfortunate enough for him to get his hands on it. We know Dr Brash will make it clear to the board that he will limit health care, that he will raise the age of eligibility for superannuation, that he is clearly determined to give tax breaks to the rich—I guess that is most of the National Party board—and that he supports a capital gains tax. We all know that Dr Brash will not brook any objection; he has already shown himself to be, er, decisive! We know he communicates well with the media 24/7, as we say these days—except for last weekend, of course, when that wee glitch just turned into 0/72. And what a knack Dr Brash has for public relations. Dr Brash even turned the Chen and Palmer Christmas party into what John Campbell called a “National Party get-together”.

I think Dr Brash is the perfect leader for the National Party. Who else would one want to lead an uninspiring and unimaginative lot like those members? National is a party with no solutions other than the policies already rejected by the electorate, a party that, in the words of Jane Clifton, “could barely organise a coup plot, so why would you trust them with a country—people who genuinely think they could save the National Party by destroying it?”. So that is what we have: a moribund leader for a moribund party. What could be more appropriate than that—someone to add a little intellectual rigor? Well, it looks more like rigor mortis to me, with a disintegrating National Party. We can combine that with National’s tainted friends from ACT: doubtful Donna Awatere Huata and her double-dipping friend Deborah Coddington, Rodney Hide, the star of stage and screen and Fiji, and Richard Prebble himself, the man who left the oh, so embarrassing file on the plane.

Now it is easy to understand why Mr Prebble would be preoccupied. He has a lot on his mind. Mainfreight obviously demands a lot of his time; otherwise it would not be paying him $35,000 to be a director. There are a lot of important decisions to be made in the Australasian transport industry, and Mr Prebble would want to be very sure that his interests were not in any way in conflict with ACT transport policy. And, as ACT transport spokesperson, where better to read a file and leave it than on a plane? Well, I tell Mr Prebble that Mr McCardle has certainly got the cartoon character he wants! His problem now is that he has such a feast of humour available he will not be able to choose. Who will be the new cartoon face of ACT? Well “Super Simich” and “Winnie-the-Pooh” have already gone, but there is no shortage of choice in ACT. What about “Daffy Duck”, or “Betty Boop”? Some of those may not be appropriate, but “Heckle and Jeckyl” certainly rings a chord—[Interruption] Perhaps with an interjection from that person, “Porky Pig” or “Fat Albert” may be more appropriate.

But nothing matches the shambles opposite on the National benches. We have witnessed the ultimate sadism being demonstrated in this House this week. What did Dr Brash do with his trusted and respected deputy of 3 weeks ago—that intelligent and hard-working builder of bridges? He dumped him before he started, and rewarded him with a seat between his successor, Gerry Brownlee, and David Carter, the Brash numbers man. To sit Nick Smith between David Carter and Gerry Brownlee—what an act of political sadism that is. Let us just dwell for a moment on the actual scenario of last week. The honeymoon is well and truly over. The best thing that Dr Brash can do is to put on his hair shirt and drink a glass of lant.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I feel obliged to rise in the interests of decorum in the House. I was, in fact, expecting Mr Hide to take this point of order. A very serious allegation was made about a member receiving money—$35,000—and the question of the influence of that in relation to transport policy. That member, we all know, is overseas and unable to defend himself. I would have thought it was appropriate for Mr Hide to take a point of order. But I think it is important for you to indicate whether those comments are in order.

I am sorry to disappoint Trevor Mallard, but I just could not stop myself. I fell asleep right through that 5 minutes, because that speech was so terrible. I did not hear a thing.

What a stunning contribution that was from David Benson-Pope! Members on the Opposition side of the House will be taking themselves off to hospital to have their sides re-stitched. That was an appalling attempt at a speech, and it is a good reason why that member is the most unpopular member in this House—a good indication as to why the whips on the Opposition side of the House will not deal with him any more. Members on the Opposition side of the Chamber have had a gutsful of the senior Government whip. I want to say that the Government’s legislative programme is falling apart. It will stop early, all because of the incompetence of that man sitting in the senior Government whip’s chair. We are all going home early for Christmas because that member has been unable to manage the legislative programme for this Government.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Gerry Brownlee and welcome him to the deputy leader’s seat in the National Party. I want to let the members of this House know that they will be dealing with a member with a fine level of debating skill, a member of substance, and a member who will bring good South Island representation to the No. 2 spot in the National Party and bring his 8 years of experience to the Opposition side of the House. I congratulate Gerry Brownlee and wish him well for the course of the next wee while in that job.

Labour’s Christmas present to the electorate this year is 4 weeks’ annual leave—but not until 2007.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: What?

Not until 2007. Therefore, 8-year-olds will be able to just lie there and say it is only 1,200 more sleeps until they get 4 weeks’ annual leave. Young parents who have mortgages want to be able to work, to repay those mortgages. They do not want to be told by those members on the Government side of the House when they have to take a holiday, how they have to take a holiday, where they can smoke, or where they cannot smoke. Nor do they want their petrol tax to go up through the roof. That is exactly what we are seeing from Government members on the opposite side of the House.

What an old, tired effort we heard from Michael Cullen this afternoon—the dinosaur of New Zealand politics. I have news for Dr Cullen: the ice age is coming, and Dr Brash and Mr Brownlee will be wiping out those old historic political dinosaurs from New Zealand. It was interesting that Dr Cullen spent only about 2 minutes talking about the National Party. He then moved on to the ACT party. He did not have much material on National. Why did Dr Cullen not spend any time talking about the talents of the members on the Government side? Well, Jim Anderton is being reduced to the role of a travelling bank teller, handing out cheques for $2,000 all over New Zealand in front of alleged regional development tasks. Steve Maharey single-handedly completely wrecked the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, Trevor Mallard is ripping into rural schools all over New Zealand, Annette King is desperately waiting for the Speaker to head off to the UK so she can get out of the health portfolio as fast as her legs will carry her and get into the Speaker’s chair, and Jim Sutton is clearly ready to retire. There does not seem to be any debate about that, at all; Jim Sutton has had enough and is ready to go. There is no one else. That is the extent of the substance of the Labour Party benches. What a sad state of affairs that is.

To be fair, there is one member whom we quite like—the Hon John Tamihere. He is not scared to tell the Minister for Social Development and Employment what he thinks of the Government’s progress. To be fair, there are a few members over here in the Opposition who want to agree with John Tamihere’s particular view of the Government’s social policy. But what about the rest of the Government members? It is all very well for Dr Cullen to stand up like the old tyrannosaurus rex of New Zealand politics and fire into people over on the Opposition side of the House, but there is nobody else there on the Government benches. There is no depth over in those particular chairs. It is nice that Margaret Wilson even deems it appropriate to turn up in the House and put her newspaper down, instead of holding it up in front of her face during question time as she does.

Labour members are running out of time. We have got the ticket that will deliver the goods in 2005.

💬 Darren Hughes: Get your money back!

I say to Darren Hughes that he should get used to the idea of spending a long time in Opposition, because when the election in 2005 rolls round he will have to attend some of the functions in his electorate that he keeps missing.

In the spirit of charitableness, I want to congratulate Mr Brownlee on his elevation to the deputy leadership of the National Party. When he was a woodwork teacher at St Bede’s College he could not quite get his angles right when making a cutting board, but I am told by his colleagues that he was very, very useful with a Skilsaw. We saw that with regard to Nick Smith this week. There sit Gerry Brownlee and Don Brash—sort of bubble and squeak, whim and wham, or Gerry and the Pacemakers; and my word, they need a few over there! Don Brash needs his batteries recharged.

As I did last week, I want to concentrate on the would-be coalition partner of a National Government—if one ever gets on to the Treasury benches—because it deserves some scrutiny. Once again I want to talk about the party with form—the ACT party! I refer again to Alister Taylor and the controversy surrounding Deborah Coddington. In my speech last week I outlined the labyrinth of companies that we are told by the Companies Office Mr Taylor has set up, five of which Miss Coddington is still a director of—a labyrinth of publishing companies with similar names and against which there are a whole host of accusations about not supplying books to the good folk who paid for them, on this side of the Tasman and in Australia. I hope the media are listening.

Then there is the company that does not exist—the company listed in the documents I tabled last week called New Zealand Who’s Who Publications 2004 Ltd. I think that Miss Coddington owes this House some explanations about her conduct as a former director and also as a person who transferred her shares from the holding company that controls a number of those entities to Mr Taylor and another family member in January of this year. I say to Miss Coddington that she as ACT’s spokesperson on consumer affairs owes this House an explanation. It is no good her saying that she as a director of those companies—companies that have rorted people for years—suddenly has amnesia concerning the shares she transferred a few months ago. I ask her why all those companies have similar names. Why is there a company that does not exist—one that we will never find on the companies register? That company never existed, yet its name is on a document that was sent to many members of this Parliament, soliciting money and asking for biographical details for a publication published by a company that does not exist. Why all the name changes? I ask Miss Coddington whether all these companies had separate bank accounts. Did they all file proper and individual tax returns? Did they flick business from one entity to another, or from one company to another in order to disguise debts that we now know are riddled around this nation?

As Miss Coddington’s paedophile index books were published by Mr Taylor, I ask her whether they were paid for out of funds that should have been returned to other Kiwis who bought other publications that were never supplied to them by Mr Taylor. Were they paid for off the back of those people who are now owed money by Mr Taylor for publications they never received? How many small businesses and small printers—we know some are owed $5,000 here and $3,000 there—did Miss Coddington and Mr Taylor put out of business because they did not pay their debts? Of course, Miss Coddington is none other than ACT’s spokesperson on small business.

💬 Rod Donald: And consumer affairs.

Yes, she is also ACT’s spokesperson on consumer affairs. As ACT’s spokesperson on consumer affairs and on small business, Miss Coddington has a conflict of interest, because she is riddled with these allegations. At the very least she should resign those portfolios. Why did she volunteer to take them up? I say to Miss Coddington that the ACT party should publish an atonement index, listing all the people that were rorted, scammed, intimidated, and bullied by the ACT party. Maybe we should have an atonement index, and maybe Mr Taylor should publish it; but this time maybe we should ensure he sends it out to the people who actually pay for it. The ACT party is the party of rorts. I ask Mr Hide—I pose this question knowing that other members have posed it in the past, but we have never had an answer—whether he is being paid by third parties to be in this House.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Clayton Cosgrove raised a question about whether I was being paid. Yes, indeed, like all MPs I am being paid by the taxpayer. I think Clayton Cosgrove should start to give some explanations about some plane tickets he took when working for Mike Moore, pretending he was someone else.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order.

Is it not interesting to listen to the Government members rabbiting on about strong leadership, strong direction, strong Ministers, and strong this and strong that when the very foundation of leadership in their Government is built on spin, deceit, double standards, and total untruths? When I think about the various debates we have listened to today and the chorus of criticism on the new leadership of the National Party, I note that the “Business Herald” states that New National leader Don Brash is head and shoulders above anybody else when it comes to understanding business in New Zealand. Is that not interesting? Five-hundred senior business people surveyed in Auckland said that was the case about Don Brash. I congratulate Gerry Brownlee—somebody from the South Island who actually knows what it is like out there on the street in New Zealand at the moment—on his recent elevation to the position of deputy leader of the National Party.

The Labour Party has a Christmas present for the working-class people of New Zealand. It is called a wage freeze. There is no other way to describe it. The Government is going to introduce 4 weeks’ leave—in 1,200 sleeps, as my honourable colleague in the front bench mentioned earlier on—and that will mean that wages will be frozen in this country until that legislation is introduced, and Government members do not understand that. I am reminded of the comments of Colin Meads, a famous constituent of mine, about the recent All Blacks’ loss: “No passion, no pride, no brains, no leadership, wrong tactics, wrong options. I’m”—beep, because I cannot use the word—“gutted.” He could have been talking about the Government of New Zealand, and I am sure that he probably was, because that is exactly the same problem we have with the Government of New Zealand at the moment. It has no brains, no leadership, wrong tactics, wrong options—and we are gutted. That is exactly where we are at with this Government at this point in time.

On the one hand, the Minister of Education has, for some time, gone up and down the country and has talked about the need for a good education, but, on the other hand, he is closing 300 schools across rural New Zealand—right in the place that the economy driving the figures that Dr Cullen talks about so passionately comes from. That is the reason why the National Party has placed so much emphasis back on rural New Zealand and on agriculture, and it is to be congratulated on doing that. I wonder whether the Government will ever wake up and realise that rural New Zealand is the engine room and the wherewithal that drives this economy. I suspect that the answer is: “Absolutely not!”, and rural New Zealand, as all recent polls are saying, now knows that, and rural people will demonstrate that at the next election. Some of those members opposite who are sitting in marginal rural seats or marginal provincial seats should really start to worry, because their number is up. I am looking around the Chamber and thinking: “That member is gone, she is gone, he has gone, and he has definitely gone.” A few Government members over there have very limited time left in this Parliament, and they are about to experience that at the next election. The member who is interjecting is certainly on shaky ground; he is gone.

The Government has run out of options, and it is demonstrating that over and over again. The Government is now placing $20 million of extra costs on exporters—agricultural exporters primarily, but not entirely—for security. That is the latest tax in a long list. There have been 18 new taxes, and this is No. 19. A $20 million security cost has been imposed on exporters, because a foreign nation has said we need to beef up our security. A foreign nation has said to New Zealand: “Try this on for size; you need to beef up your security in this area.”, and the Government has said: “We agree. We’ll just get the industries of New Zealand and the exporters of New Zealand to pay for it.”—security costs that have always been paid by the taxpayer.

First, I congratulate Gerry Brownlee on his ascension to the deputy leadership of the National Party. I know that my father, the reverend of Bishopdale, would certainly like me to pass on his regards, too.

💬 Darren Hughes: Is he praying for him?

My father prays for lots of people. However, as the member can see, sometimes it does no good. But I say to Mr Brownlee that it is pleasing to see, I wish him well, and he should not give up the ambition. I also say to Katherine Rich—[Interruption] That was a message from Bob. Katherine Rich must be absolutely gutted. In the reshuffle she stayed at No. 4, and Mr Power was moved from No. 6 to No. 3. I tell Shane Ardern, who was overlooked for the agriculture portfolio on the front bench, not to worry—Katherine Rich’s star is on the wane already. That inane question she asked at question time today certainly shows that. Shane Ardern is on the way up, like any good lad from Manaia should be. I am looking forward to him taking his rightful place at the top, as well. I say to Simon Power, who is a little bit bemused and befuddled that we did not spend too much time on the National Party—

💬 Rodney Hide: He knows all about being promoted.

Well, I say to the member that I have not been promoted enough to be demoted. If I keep progressing at this rate, I will be here until I am 100. I say to Simon Power that the reason we do not spend too much time on the National Party is, as Dr Cullen says, an ongoing matter, and we will certainly watch with interest.

I have a couple of things to say about the potential coalition partner, ACT. I say to Rodney Hide that if it had not been for Fiji he would have been looking like the top seat. When we look at the rest of his colleagues, we see that things are looking a little bit, sort of, dodgy. In fact, I would have thought that Rodney Hide would be delighted with the way things are going with ACT at the moment. Deborah Coddington came into this House as the bright new thing who would eventually replace the leader.

💬 Rodney Hide: I heard that about you, Mark.

They did say that about me once, but they do not say it any more, so I am not terribly worried about that. However, the bright new thing who was going to go to the front of the Chamber when Mr Prebble retires has got herself into a little bit of trouble. She has been in cahoots with a guy called Alister Taylor, whom Richard Prebble calls a bit of a hard case—knew he was a bankrupt, but said he did not want somebody who was a hard case stopping somebody getting into Parliament, and the somebody that he thought would make a good MP was Deborah Coddington. A bunch of companies that have been outlined in the House in the last couple of weeks—

💬 Rodney Hide: He’s old Clayton Cosgrove’s sidekick.

I do not take Clayton Cosgrove’s line on this. The line I take on this goes this way: Deborah Coddington has been responsible for ripping off quite a bunch of senior citizens in Australia. She has ripped off Trish Clutterbuck, aged 61, and Sid Hansen, 64—both senior citizens. She and her partner ripped off those people. Those people thought that something good would be done to honour their lives at a time in their lives when they were getting on in age. They thought that they were going to be honoured, and they were ripped off. Trish Clutterbuck cannot believe that she got away with it, so they cannot imagine her lasting very long, and Sid Hansen said that he hoped she would be called to account. Deborah Coddington wants to promote a little book about a rubber ducky. I remember reading about the rubber ducky when my kids were growing up. I used to sing them the song about the rubber ducky; joy of joys, and that sort of thing.

💬 Rod Donald: Sing it for us.

No, I cannot sing. My voice is nearly gone. She certainly wants to write a book about integrity, honesty, and independence, yet she has not once stood up in this House and disavowed any knowledge of those connections with her former partner. I do wonder why it is that all the issues with which Deborah Coddington is associated, in a formal sense, with her partner—that those bills have been paid. Was that to save her neck as a member of Parliament while others who have lost money along the way have to find their own way out of the problem? I do not think that is good enough. But there is nothing unusual about this. There is one little bit in here, and I actually agree with Donna Awatere Huata—people like Owen Jennings were treated a little bit differently, and others in the ACT party who got into trouble were treated differently from the way she was treated, and that speaks volumes about the ACT party.

I want to talk about something that is increasingly of concern to me, and it is increasingly of concern to my fellow New Zealanders because they talk about it all the time. I want to talk about the erosion of the Kiwi lifestyle. What this Government has done to the Kiwi lifestyle is try to annihilate it. This PC Labour Government that we have at present has done nasty things to good working-class New Zealanders. It has done things that people could never have contemplated in their wildest dreams. This is a PC Government that is interested, as far as I can see, only in minorities.

I must say that if that was all it was doing, that would be bad enough. But even worse than that, we have a National Party Opposition that is even worse. The National Party Opposition, we know from history—the new leader has said so, and the new deputy will back it up—believes in more immigrants coming into this country, and believes in selling more of our land. I come from the land. I am a farmer, and I am very proud to be a farmer. The National Party does not support farmers, and has not done so for many, many years. New Zealand First, on the other hand, does. New Zealand First says that we want to protect this country for the people who inhabit it—be they people who have originated from other countries, or be they born in this country—for they are New Zealanders, and New Zealand First is here to do things in New Zealanders’ interests.

It was not so long ago—it is certainly well within memory for me, and I am not that old—that average New Zealanders, or, as we now call them, middle-class New Zealanders, in the South Island would have had as one of their ambitions—an achievable ambition, I might say—a crib by a lake or a beach, or something of that nature. In the North Island we call a crib a bach. My family was not fortunate enough to own one, but many of my friends’ families owned a bach at the beach. They had achieved the dream of the average New Zealander.

That dream is no longer available to middle-class New Zealanders. It is not even available to wealthy New Zealanders. It certainly is available to wealthy Americans, and it certainly is available to wealthy Europeans—but we do not get elected to this House to look after Americans or Europeans. I wish the Labour Party and the National Party would understand that. We are elected to this House to look after New Zealanders, and New Zealanders’ lifestyle is disappearing. It is well understood, and it has been mentioned several times in this debate alone, that inhabitants of countries like Australia, countries in Europe, and the Americas earn more salary that we do in New Zealand, and that is accepted. I wish it were not so. I wish we had a real plan for growth in this country, but we do not. Having accepted the fact that New Zealanders have less money, and have on average less wages and less income than other people around the world, it is surely necessary—even more necessary than before—to protect the one thing we have left, and that is our lifestyle. If we do not protect our lifestyle, we will see people going from our shores like we have never seen before.

In fact, that is happening, and the National Party and the Labour Government are forced to bring people into this country by means of immigration. They are not our sons. They are not our daughters. They are people from other cultures whom we are bringing into this country. They can afford the lifestyle that we cannot. Any Government that is participating in that action is not working in the best interests of New Zealanders.

I thank the member for his contribution about the leisure time of ordinary Kiwis. I look forward to New Zealand First supporting the Labour-Progressive Government on 4 weeks’ annual leave for ordinary Kiwis, so that they can enjoy more time with their families and in their communities.

It was a great pleasure to pick up the newspaper today—and I will be spending most of my time today talking about the National Party—go to page 2 and see this obituary. There is a photo of four very young men in 1993: Mr English, Mr Sowry, Dr Smith, and Mr Ryall sitting in the Lambton Quay McDonald’s eating a Happy Meal. The only thing that has gone up since those days is the Happy Meal; everything went down for that lot, including their opinion-poll rating. I notice that they have not even bothered changing ties. These were the four young men who were going to take the National Party to great heights. When they inherited the party, they had 47 percent of the vote. Those four geniuses got together and ate those cholesterol-busting Big Macs and a Fillet of Fish, and they drove the National Party down to 20 percent in the polls. Today we saw an obituary for those four, and not a moment too soon.

But what did the National Party do once it had finished killing them off? First, it sent Dr Brash off to the National Party board to try to resurrect Mr Williamson—a very good idea, I would have thought, but that was the only shot in the gun. Then they had to decide who they wanted to put on the front bench, so they decided to put Dr Brash there—well, he has been here for 1 year. They decided to put Gerry Brownlee there—he has been here for 7 years—and then to put Mr Power, who has been here for 4 years, in at No. 3. Those three National Party members bring a collective experience of just 12 years in Parliament.

Then I looked across to the Government, which is polling very, very highly, and I thought: “Well, what is the secret to their success?”. Then I saw that Helen Clark, Michael Cullen, and Jim Anderton between them—the top three in the Government—have 63 years of Parliament and political experience. The only thing the National Party has in common with that figure is that 63 is the same age as its leader. So our three top people have been in Parliament for the same length of time that Don Brash has been alive, but the top three people who make up the Opposition in New Zealand have been in Parliament for a total of 12 years—which is about Form 1, so we are going to see intermediate school - style politics from the Opposition.

In respect of the ACT party, I want to just say, very briefly, that it was nice to hear from Mr Maharey yesterday that the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme is being used effectively when it comes to writing books, and that the birth of the Little Yellow Duck of Freedom has been used to pay for these books to be written, and the taxpayer, of course, has been very faithful about paying that $110,000 subsidy every second Wednesday to Deborah Coddington. The only problem, it seems, is that even though taxpayers have been keeping up their share of the bargain in terms of writing the book, they are having a lot of trouble finding a reliable publisher to take the Little Yellow Duck of Freedom out to ordinary homes across the country.

I actually thought that Gerry Brownlee was a bit rich today in Parliament, and a bit mean to Nick Smith. After Mr Brownlee had given us his huffed-up speech, Dr Smith rushed in with great theatrics to shake Gerry Brownlee’s hand, and as he extended his mitt across the Leader of the Opposition’s bench, what did he do? He knocked over a glass of water and the glass splattered and splintered all over the bench. I thought it was a bit mean of Gerry Brownlee to draw blood from Nick Smith twice in a week. I thought that was a terrible way to treat somebody who has been treated pretty appallingly anyway. Nick Smith never got a chance. It is true that Nick Smith is not the most popular member on that side, but they elected him deputy 3 weeks ago. What did they do? They did not even give him the chance to put his feet under the table before they got rid of him. Mr Brownlee used the same rough style on him that he used to throw that poor man down the stairs all those years ago. So my only message to Don Brash is: “Keep your hand on the handrail, because Gerry Brownlee is coming up to you, right down the stairs!”.

The other very interesting thing this week is that the National Party has announced that it will set up a candidate school to train people to be future National Party MPs. It must be a very serious thing, because they have put such political heavyweights on it as Simon Power and Pansy Wong. Having Pansy Wong telling people how to run a political career, and the highly marginal member for Rangitikei in charge of that as well, is, I think, a very strange thing to do. But the National Party told us: “Don’t worry. It’s a great idea. The Tories in Britain have done this. The Tories in Britain have great candidate conferences.”

So they have appointed a principal to this school, and he will be Roger McClay. David Carter is going to run a course called “Running Coups That Destroy Our Party”. Gerry Brownlee is going to run a course entitled “Fitting Food into a Busy Schedule”. Phil Heatley is going to write a course entitled “Making the Transition from Intellectual Heavyweight to Opposition Back-bencher”, and the brat pack are going to run a combined session called “Bowing out Disgracefully”. Simon Power’s session will be called “How to Get Other People to Talk You Up”, and John Key’s will be “How to Cope on a Minimum Wage When You Are an MP”.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.