O'Connor Damien: General Debate 
O'Connor Damien: General Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21151] 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Racing) 
: 
 That was the most unbelievable speech I have heard in this House from Maurice Williamson the man who would be leader of the National Party. He is a bitter and twisted back-bencher—a man who sat in this House as Minister of Transport and did nothing to solve the chaos that is Auckland roading. One thing I do know is that this Government is absolutely committed—and not all of us are comfortable with it all the time—to sorting out the mess in Auckland which is effectively a traffic disaster. I applaud my colleagues for doing that. 
I am here to raise just two points today. Don Brash is going to trot around this country over the next couple of months saying that he should be Prime Minister. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Who? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: Exactly! Who is Don Brash? Is he a 61-year-old conservative bureaucrat struggling to establish an identity for himself? Is he a monetary manager fixated on interest rates and monetary policy? Is he a lame duck leader of a party trying to drag itself from the 20th century into the 21st century? Well I do not know whether he is any of those three. I think he is a man who lacks judgment; a man who does not live in the real world. I say that because many people who know him reasonably well—and we can only make an assessment from this side of the House having watched him operate as Reserve Bank governor for many years—Brian Rudman being one of them say that it is as though the mistakes and excesses of the past 20 years have passed Don Brash by unseen. He has learnt nothing from the mistakes of the 1990s. 
He lives in a world where he thinks private health insurance and private schools will deliver to this country. Well wake up Don Brash! This country has rejected the privatisation of health. We have rejected the privatisation of the education system. That is why we kicked the National Party out of power in 1999. That party had its chance. It tried all those experiments through the 1990s and they failed. Did Don Brash learn anything? No he did not. He still says: “I don’t care who owns the schools.” He still says: “Most schools are privately owned and operated and I would be happy to have that.” He says: “I have had private health insurance for a long time. I want the choice of having faster health-care than is available.” Well someone who is 65 years old on a fixed income and facing a huge increase in his or her private health insurance premium learns the realities of the private health system. We need someone who lives in the real world and Don Brash does not. 
My first question about him was whether he lives in the real world. The second question is whether he has any judgment. Here is the question I put to Gerry Brownlee: how many New Zealanders would be dead if Don Brash had been Prime Minister of this country when the Americans went to war in Iraq? How many New Zealanders would he have killed by committing New Zealand to a war that we deem unnecessary one that could have been prevented? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Same number as Australia. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: Wayne Mapp is quite happy to have New Zealanders killed in Iraq. That is a man who probably would want to be a Minister under Don Brash. He is another person who lacks judgment. 
The next serious issue is biosecurity. In fact it is a more serious issue because biosecurity is more important for this country than our military security. Do members know why? It is because one outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease could effectively undermine this economy. Some nutter and I hope we catch him and string him up perpetrated a hoax on this country. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s right—in the Prime Minister’s office. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: Gerry Brownlee is clearly someone who is out of touch with the real world. Down there in Fendalton there are a few like that and Gerry Brownlee is one of them. Gerry Brownlee thinks we created a hoax. I tell Gerry Brownlee and Don Brash to wake up. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Was it a hoax? What a convenient hoax it was. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: Well yes. Don Brash has poor judgment.