English Bill: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: General Debate[Sitting date: 16 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9800. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I never thought I would say this but I am missing Russel Norman. Russel Norman not long gone to run Greenpeace was a moderate sane predictable economic voice in this House—and does everyone not wish he was back because look what is happening to the voice of the Opposition without the moderate thoughtful and considered views of Russel Norman.What is happening? We are seeing that the Labour Party’s traditional reputation—which has been crafted with real effort by some admirably smart people over the last 20 or 30 years as a moderate predictable political party that in Government might have some concern for the incomes and assets of middle New Zealand and might behave in a way that was kind of predictable—is all unravelling. The obvious example is free trade—that is obvious. It is dispensing with 30 years of multi-party support for free-trade agreements and arguably it was the party in Government that negotiated the biggest and best free-trade agreement the free-trade agreement with China which it is no longer proud of—either the agreement or the Chinese for that matter.So that is free trade and you could kind of accept that—but interest rates; politicians stiff-arming banks and setting interest rates? New Zealand has tried this before. In fact not only has it tried it before but it was the world leader in making sure it did not keep happening. Here is a simple question for the Leader of the Opposition: if the Reserve Bank increases the official cash rate—which might happen one day—would the Labour Party legislate for banks to pass that on to mortgage holders? You know much as we all try to be rational politicians who take into account the longer view and all the facts we know the answer to that question. Of course he would not. Politicians will only ever stiff-arm and legislate to get interest rates down. We tried that before. It almost wrecked the New Zealand economy.So what is going on in the Labour Party? Have its members forgotten New Zealand’s economic history? Maybe they should consult Russel Norman. They seem to be consulting the Twittersphere that follows Bernie Sanders and Mr Corbyn. They seem to think that they are in economies that are stuffed. They seem to think they are in economies where there is mass disillusionment where middle-class incomes have been dropping where unemployment is high and where public debt is huge. You could argue that is the case in some economies where there is now rampant left-wing populism but it is not New Zealand—it is not New Zealand.Whereas Russel at least was trying to save the planet Labour members are on another planet and it is not the same one. They are following policies that are coming from rampant left-wing populists and economies with characteristics that are nothing like ours. But the worst of it of course is that they think the New Zealand public do not know it is cheap short-term politics. If the problem for Labour members was a lack of trust in their ability to run an economy 2 weeks ago it has got a lot worse because we have in the House a major party that wants to relive the nightmares of the 1980s and early 1990s where all this was tried. It all failed the pain was dreadful and Grant Robertson wants to go there again.