Peters WinstonADDRESS IN REPLYDebate resumed from 16 November.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Five weeks ago the Government was sworn in on 26 October. Since then there have been hectic weeks of briefings requesting papers and changing policy directions. We in this Government are committed to governing for the many not the few and to ensuring economic programmes uplift the mass majority and not a small elite. We are resolved to ensure that economic plans come with a responsible human face.What we've seen in contrast of course is a bitter party imploding on itself knowing full well that when the fights start many people in the backbench will not have seen anything like it in the past. That's what's going to happen. When you look at the front bench of the National Party you can see why they're no longer in Government. They singularly to collectively lack the talent and the ability and it shows when they make claims of being a dynamic Opposition. We have seen dynamic Oppositions in the past led by people like Muldoon and Lange and others but we have not seen a replication of that in this House since Parliament has come back post the election.The fact that you've got to ask 6000 questions—6000 questions—suggests that after nine years of Government you had no idea what you were doing in the first place. Six thousand questions—I think that's more questions than I've asked in my whole career.Hon Grant Robertson: No no.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh possibly not. Ha! All we're getting there is a diet of cynicism and doubt blackguarding the new Government's policies and plans throwing cold water on visions and aspirations and badmouthing the future of a country called New Zealand. It puts one in mind of the famous line in The Mikado: Then the idiot who praises with enthusiastic toneAll centuries but this and every country but his own;Now there is one who especially does this and this is a man whose name is Finlayson. He waited until I was out of the country and then he attacked me. He waited until I was out of the country halfway around the world and he launched his personal attack. He said I acted for the National Party when it expelled you way back in the early 1990s." Funny about that because on day one of the court case they sought an adjournment. Their case collapsed—collapsed in total. He was the legal adviser. Well let me tell you: the greatest legal mind in the whole Commonwealth—namely himself; "yours truly" from Rongotai lines up in Rongotai four times in a row and four times in a row the smart people of Rongotai rejected him. And so should the National Party. This is the man who made himself a QC. He made himself a QC. He didn't vote for the profession to make him a QC—no he thought "I'll make myself one"—[Interruption] Pardon? Is that the man from Pakuranga?Hon Member: No it's not.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well he sounds as stupid. That's why I made a mistake.Chris Penk: I'm the member for somewhere; you're the member for nowhere.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh I see. Listen sunshine I can even say this. I'll be here long after you're gone.Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I'm on my feet. I think we'll have a bit of order. Thank you. That is not helpful.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is most unhelpful when you lead with your chin. And let me tell you you know—Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually it's not my chin.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes. Quite right. And in this case decidedly so. It's his chin that's the one I'm talking about.In fact if I came from Helensville where the last incumbent member visited about once every six months I wouldn't be shouting from the treetops like that member is. Helensville is a place that's never seen an MP and in fact the last MP there didn't know that the biggest controversy coming in the country was in his own electorate in the form of Kim Dotcom. Kim Dotcom had been to his office twice and he told everybody he didn't know about it. And offshore in comes the overseas security brigades and there was an international raid on Kim Dotcom's home. His predecessor said he neither knew about it as the head of the GCSB nor as the head of the SIS. I hope that member is an improvement. From what I've just seen I don't think so; I don't think so.But I want to say to that member that his colleagues sitting back there with him were forewarned before the last election as to what was going to happen. I told all those members there that they were going to be on the backbench for a long long long time. At least he could have the decency of acknowledging a forecast and a prediction that came right. I want to say this: that member will have to do a whole lot more judging from the lack of talent in front of him over there if he ever wants to see his party come back in Government. This party over there is tired. The whole front bench will not last. Even now the internecine strife and the backstabbing have started. Oh yes you can hear those knives on the grindstone. This is not an alternative Government we're looking at right now.I want to make it very clear—I want to make it very very clear—that we have plans for regional recovery we have plans for infrastructural investment and we have plans to restore our health and education systems and their resources. As I have travelled around the country and I do extensively and far more than that member there let me say what is the most amazing comment I get: "Thank God you guys turned up and made the right decision." Now I'm a humble man and I said to them "When my colleagues evaluated the alternatives the sense of going with a conscience against the blind ideology that doesn't work was profound and we made the right decision." And wearing a blue tie is not going to save that member now."