Mallard Trevor: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7555. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 It is really hard to tell where to start on this particular speech. I think the first thing is that we have established today that the speaker who preceded me did not get any of Mr Keenan’s lessons on how to fake sincerity. 
Judith Collins 
: I don’t need them. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: She says she does not need Mr Keenan’s lessons on how to fake sincerity. Well I tell her that she gives no indication of sincerity at all in this debate. Point No. 2: that was a member who was part of the parliamentary caucus who cast the vote of Donna Awatere Huata. She cast the vote as part of that caucus when ACT would not on a principled basis cast a vote. Right through the trial she did that. She was part of that. Let us just have a little bit of consistency. 
Darren Hughes 
: And when Nick was in court. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: When Dr Nick Smith was in court and when Gerry Brownlee was in court their votes were cast by the National— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That was a civil suit—don’t you know the difference? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh no it was a civil suit! He was still found guilty of assaulting a pensioner by throwing the pensioner down the stairs. But Nick Smith thinks that is all right; well I do not. But the point is that his vote was cast. 
But I want to get to another point because it is something that is not really widely known by the public and it should be drawn to their attention. I want to refer to chez Key. I am not referring to the mansion—the $8 million to $20 million mansion with three sections tennis court and things like that. I am not referring to that. I am referring to the inability of the new Leader of the Opposition to stand in this House hold a piece of paper and not have it shake. I am referring to the inability of the National Party leader to stand in this House and hold a piece of paper in his hand to ask a question without it shaking so much that he cannot ask it. 
He has got to the point within days of the House starting of having to grip the bench with two hands in order to avoid the public through the television seeing his hands shaking. Is this the confident person who has had the Peter Keenan lessons? Is this the confident person whom Peter Keenan has been training to fake sincerity? Or is this just the fact that when one is being run as a puppet by a puppeteer it is very hard to do it in the House without a little bit of wobbling going on? The point I want to emphasise is that the co-leadership is not going very well. 
Hon Member 
: That’s not what Bill says. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh it is not what Mr English says. Mr English says that it is going quite well for now but at some stage I am sure he will say: “You live by the sword John and you die by the sword. You had my vote Mr Key for a while but you haven’t got it any more.” Of course he did not have his vote because there was not one and that was something that was pretty obvious. But I still have not heard Bill English deny the fact that he has told people that he wrote the Burnside speech. The fact is that he said he wrote it because John Key knows very little about social policy. 
John Key tells the country he spent much of the summer writing it and Bill English says John Key knew so little about social policy that Bill English had to do the speech for him. Now one of them is telling the truth. I am not allowed to say that one of them is a liar and I will not but one of them is telling the truth and only one of them can possibly be telling the truth. I believe Bill English. I do believe Bill English in this case because I think he is the puppeteer rather than John Key knowing what he is doing.