Sittings of the House

I move, That the House do now adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 13 February 2007, and that the sitting days in 2007 be as follows:

February 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28;

March 1, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, and 29;

April 3, 4, and 5;

May 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, and 24;

June 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, and 28;

July 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, and 26;

August 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, and 23;

September 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, and 20;

October 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, and 25;

November 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22;

December 4, 5, and 6;

and that the House do, at its rising on Thursday, 6 December 2007, adjourn until Tuesday, 11 December 2007.

Could I begin, Madam Speaker, by congratulating you on your year. Your cool—at times, icy—wit is starting, I think, to exert some control, even over those who are not used to having women in control of them. I also congratulate Mr Deputy Speaker on his always courteous manner within the House, the Assistant Speakers—and particularly I call upon the honourable Ross Robertson in that respect—the Clerk’s Office, the Hansard staff, the messengers, the security staff, our secretaries, ministerial staff, research units, media staff, and anybody who I have missed out in that long list, because I am sure there is somebody who does not come within those particular categories.

This year, 2006, has been a fascinating year. We can look at the achievements made in just the last 2 or 3 days. The Government has put out an energy strategy. The Government has passed a tax bill, which Bill English admitted yesterday that National tried to do but could not get it through Parliament—could not even get it through its own Government. We put through a major rewriting of the telecommunications legislation. We got a tax discussion document out today on the international tax regime, to fix up the mess that the National Government put in place in 1991. Tomorrow we release a new tertiary education strategy. And that is just from Monday to Thursday. In the meantime, all that National has done is to try to comb its hair in the mirror.

At the start of the year we had a Government with a secure majority, and two major parties: one centre-left, and one trying to be centre-right but actually veering off to the far right. Now we have a Government with a secure majority and—if we are to believe National—there are two major centre-left parties in Parliament. The centre-right party appears to have disappeared within the last couple of weeks. It is not just a new face; it is a whole new book that we are supposed to believe. Apparently, it is now a Coke versus Pepsi battle, going down to 2008. The trouble is that we are the real thing; they are Pepsi. That is the problem those members will have.

We can look at National’s amazing flip-flops. It has been sort of Opposition by press statement and speech. Race Ōrewa has gone. Nuclear issues are fixed. National is saying: “Do not worry, US, we will not change the policy.”, and on industrial relations, it is saying: “We are going to keep the current industrial relations Act.” On Iraq National is saying: “We should never have been there.”, on the Exclusive Brethren it is asking: “Who are they?”, and on tax it is saying: “We are back with Mr English, too. We will have small incremental changes as we can afford them, and we are fiscally responsible.” Well, I thought that was what I had being saying for the last couple of years. That is Mr English’s bold new policy. He went on Morning Report especially to tell the nation that it was the National Party’s policy.

On the issue of climate change, of course, National members are now true believers. But the problem is that that is not what Mr Key has been saying before on climate change. He now says that he firmly believes in climate change and always has, yet he used to say it was all a hoax. It was all a hoax, but now he firmly believes in it. This is a man who firmly believes in a hoax. It is not surprising. He is the only man I know of who can remember not opening one email 18 months or so ago. He must receive very few emails if he can remember that the one he did not open came from the Exclusive Brethren.

Of course, Mr Key has done other flip-flops. He was asked: “Do you think New Zealand should have taken part in the invasion of Iraq?”—to which the appropriate reply is that the Iraqis probably would not have noticed had we done so—but he answered: “No, I do not. The position from the National Party caucus at the time was that they did not think New Zealand should send combat troops to Iraq. Ah, what we thought was, and what I felt was, that America and the coalition of the willing had the right to take action in Iraq, because at that time the world believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.” In other words, he believed America was right, but he believed that he should not have backed America.

That is not what Mr English said at the time, because—as Dr Brash now tells us—he sat there silently saying that we should not go, Bill says: “We would have gone if we had been the Government.”, and John now says: “We would not have gone.” Well, I do not know whether people can follow all that, but I am completely lost through it all.

Mr Key is a man who is now, what, 48 or 49. At the time of the Springbok tour he was about 23. That is the kind of age when events impress themselves on us. He has said that he cannot remember the Springbok tour. Why? Because to remember it is to remember that he held a position on the Springbok tour. There was not a single New Zealander who did not have a position on the Springbok tour. Dr Brash was opposed—I can remember that quite well. Mr Key cannot remember. Why? Because it is politically inconvenient for him to remember what he was doing on that particular issue.

On industrial relations, Mr Key said 2 years ago that there was nothing wrong with the Employment Contracts Act. Then he said a couple of days ago that National was not planning to make any major changes to the Employment Relations Act. Well, which is it? Does he back the Employment Contracts Act or does he back the Employment Relations Act? The reason he cannot choose between them is that he does not know what the differences are. He has not thought about it. When someone gets up in the morning and asks himself: “What has happened to my Merrill Lynch shares overnight?”, he is greatly disinterested in what happens in employment relations policies.

The fact of the matter is that John Key is the man who went to Britain to be told what to do. He came back, and he is David Cameron without the substance—David Cameron without the bicycle and with only the VIP car. That is what he is at the present time.

John Key is the man who now makes National’s policy on the hoof. Can people imagine a Labour Party where the leader of the party gets up and, in three speeches, overturns every policy on which the party ran at the last election—just like that! Every statement that Mr Key makes is utterly vague and utterly meaningless. He is a walking billboard, saying no more than three words of any significance, and when he does utter them, they are utterly confused.

When Mr Key was asked his views on civil unions, he said that he thought the Civil Union Bill was a gay marriage bill. Then, when he was talking to gay people on www.gaynz.com, he said that marriage was not being asked for in the civil union bill. When he was asked how he voted, he had to admit he had voted against it. Did he vote against it because it was a matter of principle? No, he said—look at that! He waves his biro and says “No”—he voted against it because he thought that was the way to vote to please his electorate. There is a man of conscience! We have a conscience vote and he says: “Oh look, my conscience is that way. I am this way, but my conscience is that way.” At least Dr Brash pretended he had changed his mind honestly on the process; Mr Key never had a mind on the issue, at all.

What we had with Don Brash was a lemon curd pretending to be a pavlova. That was Dr Brash as the National Party leader. What we have with John Key is a blancmange pretending to be a fruit salad. That is what we are going to face between now and the election.

Mr Key’s deputy is Bill English, a man who nurtures more grievances than anybody I have ever met in my life. He is a man who will back John Key to the hilt—and if he ever gets the chance, right in it will go, and he will try again to be the leader. He is now saying about John Key exactly what he said about Jenny Shipley. “I will back her all the way through to the next election,” he said about Jenny Shipley, and: “I will back him all the way through to the next election,” he says about John Key—and we already know that it is not true.

Then there are the all the new disenchanted. Poor Lockwood Smith! He asks one question every day. It is the same question, but it does not matter. Look where he is! He bought a new pair of speedos and he still did not get on to the National Party front bench. He saw Maurice Williamson promoted on the grounds of Maurice’s outstanding performance in the House. Maurice has not asked a single question all year, as far as I can remember, and has given no more than two speeches. Poor old Lockwood Smith has been overtaken by him in the race back to the front bench for all the retreads in the National Party.

Helen Clark and I are now facing our fifth National leader and our seventh National deputy leader. Only a brave person would lay any money on those numbers staying the same between now and the next general election. Roll on No. 6, roll on No. 8, roll on No. 7, and roll on No. 9. Merry Christmas!

That was Michael Cullen’s “I’m 10 percent behind in the polls” speech. Frankly, all it proved is that Michael Cullen needs a holiday, and in 18 months he will get a permanent one. Do not worry about that.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Give us a new one, John!

Trevor should go back to his stadium.

Madam Speaker, I begin by wishing you a very merry Christmas. I also express my gratitude to those who keep Parliament running: you, Madam Speaker; the Deputy Speaker, Clem Simich; the Assistant Speakers, Ann Hartley and Ross Robertson; the Clerk of the House, David McGee; his staff; the select committee personnel; our friends at Bellamy’s; the Hansard writers; the security and parliamentary travel staff; of course, the VIP drivers, who may well save me buying a third Navman in 6 weeks; my colleagues and our long-suffering families; and, of course, the messengers.

I say to the messengers that they have served me well in the last 12 months, but I have one message that I will deliver myself. I will not be asking you to deliver it, Madam Speaker. It is to the Government, and the message is a pretty simple one: “Enjoy it, fellas, because you are on borrowed time.” That is for sure. As we saw from Michael Cullen’s speech, their days are numbered. They are a Walkman Government in an iPod world. They are dinosaurs, that is what they are. They are gone. That member does not know what an iPod is, that is the problem. He should plug it into his ears; it would be better than listening to Helen Clark, trust me. This was a Government of leak and spin, smoke and mirrors, and truths and half-truths. The standards were so low the only instruction from the Prime Minister to her MPs was “Don’t get arrested.”, and Taito Phillip Field could not even stick to that one! That was the situation.

In 2006 we saw something we had not seen for a long time—Labour’s calculating, self-serving acts were even worse than the harshest critics ever thought possible. Labour members got caught red-handed with their hands in the till for $800,000, and they have spent the entire year refusing to pay the money back. That is what they did. They spent $800,000, and they are refusing to pay it back. The Government came up with a whole lot of excuses. The first of them, from the Prime Minister, was that they had done it twice before, so why could they not have another go! That was a good one. The second one was that it was not electioneering, which, for the record, is defined as soliciting a vote. Now, if giving out a pledge card and saying to people “Follow these policies and vote for me” is not soliciting a vote, I do not know what is. But the best of the excuses came when Helen Clark told the country that the referee had changed the rules after the game had finished. I hate to tell her, but the referee in this case was none other than the co - New Zealander of the year, Auditor-General Kevin Brady, who wrote to her months before the game even started and tried to come and see her to explain the rules exactly. But she was too busy parading overseas in “UN Idol”. That is what she was doing.

So the Labour Government did what a Labour Government always does. Out came the personal attacks. No one was safe, not even APN, the owners of the New Zealand Herald. They were not safe. Dr Cullen was dispatched to tell the New Zealand Herald in no uncertain terms that if it did not stop writing the truth about that rort, it would have a tax liability bigger than his surplus. Oh, Dr Cullen does not like it. He should not worry. We can give it on this side of the House as well as take it, I tell him. Anyway, it is not surprising. What we found out in October is that Mike Williams went to the Labour Party conference and said that Labour was bankrupt. The next week Helen Clark came out and said that she had discovered a new-found interest in State-funded elections. There is a convenient thing. Well, we have a little tip for the Prime Minister. When she comes back to the House next year and tells us about the merits of State-funded elections, she should spare us the spin on this side of the House, because taxpayers are sick of paying for things that Labour Governments waste their money on, and they sure as hell do not want to pay money to bail out a Labour Government that is bankrupt.

What else happened in 2006? It will be remembered for one thing: the case of Taito Phillip Field. On this side of the House, we have “Bob the Builder”. On Labour’s side of the House there is “Taito the Tiler”. The only difference is that on this side of the House we pay market rates for what we get done. So what did Helen Clark do? It was pretty normal, right? She called an inquiry, spent half a million bucks, parked him on the back bench, and told Labour he would be brought back—she has done it dozens of times before. He knew the track. The only problem was that the Ingram report was so bad and left so many unanswered questions that she could never bring him back, so the police were called in. It was all very interesting. We had months of negative headlines, so what happened? The Prime Minister said that they had better find a diversion, so she wandered down to the seventh floor, got her trusty colleague Trevor Mallard, and told him to give Auckland 2 weeks to decide whether it wanted a billion-dollar waterfront stadium. But poor old Trevor could not even manage to get through week one before we had his style of Heineken diplomacy, when he told Aucklanders they were visionless, and by week two it was gone.

Anyway, it was not all that bad, because it proved one thing—that Trevor’s career path has now been successfully marked out. He will never be Minister of Finance. We know that one. Mind you, he did not have quite as bad a year as Steve Maharey, who got sacked as the tertiary education Minister and is now the only living New Zealander who believes that when one’s portfolio gets given to Dr Cullen, it is because it is running so well. Michael should not worry; it is a compliment. I say to him that we see the best in everyone, son, so do not worry about that. He might as well enjoy the next few months.

It was a kind of interesting year, was it not? Hospital waiting lists were wazoo. Another Budget—Michael Cullen’s night—was sunk by a lack of tax cuts. The Prime Minister went green but forgot to mention that we have emission targets rising faster than Kyoto no-shows Australia and the US. She forgot to tell the country that 85 percent of her new electricity generation is from burning coal and gas and that we are chopping down trees faster than we are planting them. Then she went off to the Labour Party conference and said that the country was going carbon neutral! Her only minor problem was that she forgot to tell David Parker before he did his press conference on Monday. That was a minor issue. Anyway, do not worry, we treat that statement with the same contempt as we do her ambition to get us in the top half of the OECD. Neither of those will happen.

Anyway, enough of the tired old Labour members; they are yesterday’s news, so to speak. The future does not lie with them; the future lies with the National Party. If I do say so myself, with my leadership and that of my deputy, Bill English, and my incredibly talented team, that is where the future lies. The best years of our country and of our party are in front of us, not behind us.

💬 Darren Hughes: Oh, that’s another David Cameron line!

Darren should not worry, he will grow up one day and be a big boy; it is all right. He will get out of nappies—it eventually happens to most of us. Let us take a moment to celebrate some fine New Zealanders who did some wonderful things. We like to look at the best side of things in life. We want to celebrate the entrepreneurs, the creative New Zealanders: Sam Morgan; the fine men and women of 42 Below, who made something work on the world stage and did fantastically well; our sportsmen and sportswomen; and the All Blacks, who had a great year as they defended the Tri-Nations and the Bledisloe Cup, won everything in Europe, and are on their way to winning the Rugby World Cup in 2007. Let us not forget the Black Ferns, who had a great year and won their third successive Women’s Rugby World Cup; the stories of heroism, like that of Hayden Roulston, the cyclist who was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening, career-ending condition but battled his way back; triumphs over adversity, like that of Jamie Philip and Robert Atua-Toki, who were on a benefit, decided that they did not want any more handouts from Labour, and set up a great business of mobile pizza-making; and everyday New Zealanders like Louis Salt, who has been driving so long for the Cancer Society of New Zealand. There are so many more I could name.

I end by saying that the National Party is in cracking shape. National members are ready, willing, and able to serve the country. We have no doubt that we have the team, we have the policies, and we have the commitment. If I do say so myself, it is all going so well that it is almost a shame to take a holiday. Merry Christmas.

Debate interrupted.