English Bill: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
English Bill: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:636;Page:7231] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 Paul Swain is becoming the Larry Sutherland of the Labour Party. 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Let me be more precise—Larry without the charisma. That is not a surprise given that Rodney Hide sounds more and more like Peter Dunne every time he gets up to speak. I might say to the leader of the ACT party: “Throw away the self-improvement books put the dancing shoes back in the cupboard and return ACT to what this country needs it to be—a firebrand liberal party that keeps us honest tells us where we should be going and keeps getting 2 percent in the polls.” 
If anything sums up the Labour Party in its current state it is the way it has handled the Liam Ashley affair. This House will remember a New Zealander called Kit Richards a civil servant who wrote an email the Prime Minister did not like. And he lost his job. He lost his career and was unable ever again to get a job in the civil service. A couple of months ago Liam Ashley was strangled in the back of a prison van that was under the supervision of the police and the Department of Corrections. I might say that if Liam Ashley had been a 35-year-old middle-class mother of three Damien O’Connor would be a former Minister. The Labour Party has cynically decided that no heads will roll and no responsibility will be taken by any individual person but a young teenager lies buried 6 feet deep in a cemetery when his parents and every New Zealander would have assumed he was in safe hands. That is the deep cynicism of the Labour Party. Someone who says something the Prime Minister does not like can never get a job again in the pay of the State; someone who allowed a young teenager in the care of the State to be strangled does not have to be accountable does not have to be responsible does not have to tell the public why it happened or how; and gets to keep his job when Liam Ashley lost his life. 
Damien O’Connor a man of whom this Parliament thought better has decided to do what Heather Simpson has told him to do—that is to hold the line because Labour cannot afford to go into Christmas losing a scalp. What a disgrace! The public would have stood and respected that Government if it had shown that it still had the capacity to understand that when someone dies brutally while he is in the care of the State the State takes responsibility. What if that were my teenage boy getting a sharp lesson with a night in the cell which is what Liam Ashley’s parents thought was happening? 
Jill Pettis 
: Would you send him to prison for the lesson? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Sorry would you say that again? 
Jill Pettis 
: Would you send him to prison for the lesson? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Oh so it is his fault? Now it is his fault. I thought that is what she said. Let that be in the newspaper tomorrow—that Liam Ashley died because of his parents because they made the ridiculous mistake of assuming that if he was in prison someone would care for his life. How ridiculous! 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: She blames the family. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Labour blames the family! 
I thought the pledge card was a deeply cynical exercise. I thought Labour’s breach of the electoral spending cap by half a million dollars was a deeply cynical exercise. I thought that Helen Clark’s willingness to say to her caucus: “Do what you like but don’t get arrested and you can stay on the parliamentary payroll.” was a cynical exercise. I thought Damien O’Connor’s refusal to accept responsibility or make sure that someone did was a cynical exercise. But even I never thought that Labour would believe that it is Liam Ashley’s fault that he is dead. What a disgrace! Nothing better symbolises the end of this dreadful year for that party. 
Our leader said it was a Walkman Government in an iPod world. Well it is not. It is a hand-cranked phonograph in an iPod world. You see this is a Government that has done what it came to do. The job is done. All the signs of decline are there. 
John Carter 
: Decay actually. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Decay! Government members bullied the media. They told APN it would lose its tax arrangements if it kept writing the wrong stories. The Government now believes that process matters more than results. 
We saw that with Labour’s response to climate change—the issue of our time. Labour now thinks that compiling a list of things to do is doing them. It is done. Labour has done energy. I know what Labour members did. They rang up Government departments and asked for a list of all the things that departments were doing. They put them in a strategy and launched it and now it is done. 
Hon Member 
: We know that’s the case. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We know that is the case; we know that is how they do it. But they need to know this: all those sector groups that have been bullied manipulated and bribed are now knocking on the Opposition’s door. Our diaries are filling up with meetings with people some of whom did not even know where the Opposition offices were but who have now worked out they had better find out. And they all tell the same story: “We are sick of it.”—even the civil service. The civil service wants the opportunity to serve the public not the Labour Party. We will give them that opportunity. 
The other sign of a Government nearing the end of its life is that the consequences of its choices are coming home to roost. No one is more affected by that than the cornered dog of Dr Cullen. Dr Cullen is now in the position where Peter Dunne and Helen Clark are saying to him: “You must cut personal taxes.” and Dr Bollard is saying to him: “You must not.” The reason is that Dr Bollard now has an inflation problem. One of the main drivers of that inflation problem is his runaway spending under Dr Cullen. 
I want to thank some people. I want to thank Don Brash for his long admirable and irreplaceable record of public life and I want to thank him for turning this party into a Government. I want to thank John Key. Political leadership is a big ask for anyone and I am so pleased that a man so capable has stepped up to become the leader of the National Party and the next Prime Minister. I want to tell Paul Swain that if this is John Key with his L-plates on wait till he gets his full licence. I tell members that he is driving the National Party and we are all on the bus and it will roll right over this bunch who are lying in the middle of the road doing their best already to play dead. 
I want to thank the National Party caucus. I have been brought up on the National Party on the great figures of the past because my parents knew them all and talked about them. This will be the best National Cabinet in 50 years. I have absolutely no doubt about it. We have the talent we have the commitment and we passed the test a couple of weeks ago by showing that our desire to change this country overrode all those other forces that are so difficult to manage in an Opposition. So we are ready with a leader who is ready—and a Government that is dead.