Parker David: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: General Debate[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14408. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour): Stop the press. Stop the press. We have just seen and heard the New Zealand parliamentary equivalent of that European zoo news story—the cross between the zebra and the donkey.They are worried. They are worried on the other side of this House. They are worried. We see it in their faces. They know it in National. Labour is on the move. We are energised. We are confident. We are cohesive. We are buoyed by a fantastic conference. The media caught the mood. The media got it. Vernon Small from the Fairfax Group said that David Cunliffe “hit all the right notes … a new state-owned insurer to appeal nationally as well as to earthquake-weary premium-payers in Christchurch and a flawless delivery.” In theNew Zealand Herald John Armstrong said that David Cunliffe’s conference speech was “a tour de force in terms of tone content and delivery.” Thank you David. What a conference. David Cunliffe successfully laid out his and Labour’s vision for New Zealand: to build a future for all an economy that works for all New Zealanders a fair and just society where all live in dignity an environment we protect and a nation we can be proud of.All the while National is increasingly out of touch and failing New Zealanders. There is a two-speed economy where many especially in the regions are left behind; widening inequality; an incompetent anti-democratic Government; and crony capitalism with corporate welfare for the connected few at the expense of the people. National is so flat. This week it is mired in yet another controversy born of Steven Joyce’s incompetence. This time it is Chorus and ultra-fast broadband—“Mr Fix-it” now spelt that other way. It is yet another instance of economic mismanagement by National. John Key’s response is to undermine the regulator and consider more corporate welfare.Labour is on the move. As John Armstrong said “The buzzword of the conference was ‘energised’” and he is right. Already many polls show Labour and our potential MMP coalition partners ahead of National and its shabby discredited allies ACT whose John Banks is in the dock for electoral fraud and Peter Dunne who having lost his party was dumped for leaking a Government report.We announced a significant move to use the successful Kiwibank model for insurance. I have not got time to dwell on that but suffice it to say how shrill Mr Joyce was when he was sent out to head the spin. And how dumb of Mr English to call the idea dumb insulting hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders his former president Ross Armstrong and editorial writers across the country.I want to end on Canterbury housing. Given the abject failure of National on housing in Auckland I should not have been surprised to find how incompetent its efforts in Christchurch have been. But I really was surprised because at one level what we announced was so simple. The “Human Wrecking Ball” is so blunt. He is great at demolition but he lacks the subtlety to govern to stop the waste of short-term rentals and to give building affordable housing a boost in the devastated suburbs in Christchurch East. We caught National flat-footed and it was so easy because it is ideologically opposed to doing this sort of thing.On the front page of thePress—two-thirds of the front page—the banner headline was “New era for New Brighton?”. It is about practical help for Christchurch in partnership with the council. And how did Nick Smith and Gerry Brownlee both missit? It is so obvious. It is because they are so ideologically opposed to affordable housing. They cannot blame the Resource Management Act this time because it is already in the Christchurch plan. It is already there; they just did not find it.KiwiBuild will deliver it. This is how good Governments govern. We use the power of the State to make a difference. We caught the National Government flat-footed. Nick Smith’s lame response in thePress on Monday was: “The Government has also made early steps to investigate affordable housing areas in the city.” Five years after being elected and 3 years after the quake National has been caught not just flat-footed and not just stumbling but plain lame—lame.