Sutton Jim: General Debate 
Sutton Jim: General Debate 
[Volume:621;Page:16544] 
Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. It has been said that teams play as well as they have to and it has also been said that Governments are only as good as their Oppositions oblige them to be. I sincerely hope for the sake of the people of New Zealand that that is not the case. I have every confidence that we can perform much better—and we do perform much better—as a Government than we are obliged to by the pathetic efforts of our Opposition. 
I want to look back over the year of Dr Don Brash the Leader of the Opposition. He has had a busy and productive year. We would like to highlight Dr Brash’s significant achievements in the areas of policy announcements. In January Dr Brash said this: “Over the next few months I plan to give a major speech in each of my five main priorities—race relations education welfare dependency security and the economy”—at least he had those written down. That is the sort of speech that a retiring speechwriter might write: “Over the next 5 months I plan to give major speeches on each of my five main priorities. They are—” and then he looks at the next page and it reads: “You’re on your own you sod.”  but in this case they did not need to write it. 
In July Dr Brash said: “The thing”—we can see he had been thinking about it between January and July—“you’ll see increasingly is major policies being rolled out.” In September he said: “The likelihood is that we won’t do any other major speeches on things like social welfare reform education and so on until the beginning of next year.” Later on in September he said: “We’ll hold fire until next year.” In October we hear this—and he is backtracking of course following a series of bad polls for National—“It is now reported that Dr Brash may bring forward a key speech on reforming welfare.” 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Stop reading it. 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: I am quoting. “Despite deciding to hold fire on policy Dr Brash announced National’s policy on Kyoto a few weeks ago.” Their policy he said would be to follow the United States and Australia. He said: “I can’t be more specific than that. What will determine it is whether we think there is any advantage in that and at the moment that is still not firmly resolved.” National’s policy on the Kyoto Protocol is not the only one still not firmly resolved. 
On the issue of New Zealand being nuclear-free in April 1987 Dr Brash said this: “I have always taken the view that there is not a great deal to be said for New Zealand being an active participant in a nuclear alliance.” He was a nuclear-free warrior in those days. He told the  
Dominion Post  
that even when he was a National Party candidate he favoured a ban on visits by nuclear warships. But by October 2003 he said this: “Well I have got some views on that issue but I won’t tell you about them at this point because Wyatt Creech is doing a report on that issue and it is due out. So until it comes out I think I’ll hold my counsel.” Well talk about decisive leadership! The presenter asked him: “So you think that is what Bill English should have done?”. Dr Brash said: “Err well let’s say he got himself into some trouble by adding a degree of confusion about the National Party’s policy. I think he was probably unwise to have expressed views on that.” By January 2004 Dr Brash is still undecided but much more decisively undecided than previously. He said: “If the report suggests that we should change our position we will look at it.”