King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:623;Page:18677] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The whiff of the election has finally penetrated the previously blocked nostrils of the Opposition. The comatose members opposite have come out of their stupor and their sloth and they are setting out to convince New Zealanders that they are fit for the purpose of governing the country. Well for 2½ years they have been backbiting back-stabbing divided and demoralised—and that is just within the National Party caucus. Now they want Kiwis to believe they are united they are brimming with ideas and policies and they are eager to take the country boldly forward. Yeah right! It is all a bit rich. 
Let us examine their warrant of fitness for the job. Do they pass the test? Are there too many broken bits too many worn out bits? Are they riddled with corrosion and rust? Are their indicators on the blink? Has the previously sleek limo—only affordable by the rich—turned into a clapped-out hunk of junk? Where is the key to their future? Is he sitting two seats along from their leader? And who is in the driving seat anyway? 
Well New Zealanders could be forgiven for thinking it is supposed to be Don Brash but everyone knows that it is the invisible man Murray McCully who is often described as National’s powerful strategy and tactics man. He is a shadowy figure. He certainly does not represent the East Coast Bays in this Parliament. We never see him. When did he last speak in this Parliament? When did he ask a question? When did he last sit on a select committee? He is not even a permanent member of a select committee. Everybody else has to carry his load. He reminds me of a mole. Moles work underground they cannot see 10 centimetres ahead of them and their main purpose is to dig holes for everybody else to fall in. Even  
Molesworth & Featherston 
 in its latest edition thinks Murray McCully has lost the plot. This is the man who called the scrupulously neutral and honest commentator Colin James a leftist and who said this week that the use of condoms is an official endorsement of homosexuality. He should say that to the thousands of hot-blooded heterosexual males. 
Don Brash is the puppet and Murray McCully is the puppeteer. He has turned Don Brash into the metamorphosis man—the man who is constantly changing his principles and constantly changing his policies. Dr Brash reminds me of one of those plasticine stick men that we can bend and twist in any direction we want to put them in at any one time. In fact he is able to portray two different positions at the same time. He was for and against the seabed and foreshore legislation. He was against 4 weeks’ holiday and now he is for 4 weeks’ holiday. He was for civil unions; now he is against civil unions. He was against the superannuation fund; now he is for the superannuation fund. He was for Simon Power; now he is against him. He was for Katherine Rich; now he is against her. He was for Georgina te Heuheu; now he is against her. He was for Lynda Scott; now he is against her. He was against Nick Smith; now he is for him. He is both for and against Gerry Brownlee and he is still making up his mind about John Key. He is for blokes but he is against women—although to be fair he has been heard to say he has great respect for women. I am sure that even some of his best friends are women. He even recognises that Georgina te Heuheu and Katherine Rich are women. That is amazing. It took him 2 weeks to find a woman who was willing to talk about him in a positive light after he made the National Party front bench a woman-free zone. 
I think my local paper the  
Cook Strait News 
 got it right in its editorial last week when it wrote this about Don Brash: “Don Brash is starting to show his age … the good doctor is edging towards a twilight of shuffling around the kiwifruit orchard in slippers making unsolicited and long-winded small talk with passing strangers … He’s started up with schemes that were disastrous in the middle of last century but now have a certain nostalgic appeal to anyone who was young then.” I would say that that paper has it about right. 
What about policy? To get an insight into National’s policy we have to buy the  
Independent 
 and pay $550 for a table to be able to find out what National Party policy is.