Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
[Volume:624;Page:19478] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 In this morning’s  
Dominion Post 
 the deputy leader of the once-great National Party Gerry Brownlee—not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree said Catherine Judd the president of ACT—said that the National Party was going to announce its list in August. It was not going to do it beforehand; it was going to do it in August when a September election seems scheduled. Now what does that mean? Is that a party that is confident about its ability to put a list together and weather the disappointment of many folk? I do not think so. 
It seems to me that the idea behind the National Party’s plan of putting its list together just weeks before that list is put to the people is that it wants to manage problems. It does not want a situation to arise where those people who might not do too well on the list—for example Katherine Rich Georgina te Heuheu or Pansy Wong—would want to kick up a stir. National would not want to have people who were ranked lower than they should be—people like Lockwood Smith Maurice Williamson Clem Simich or Wayne Mapp—getting upset and it would not want them joining the forces who are already pretty unimpressed with the current leader of the National Party; people like Bill English Tony Ryall Nick Smith Lynda Scott or Roger Sowry—and on it goes actually. There is a majority against Dr Brash there now; they just do not want to trigger it so it is never going to be happening before August. 
What is really interesting is that the National Party has never taken that long over announcing its list before. We read in black letter print this morning that it will be August and that tells me that the National Party is still in trouble and is still without any particular leadership. That is not a surprise. Its members are not happy campers because they cannot stop flip-flopping. Here is a list of the flip-flops. Without any sort of explanation of them they go like this. Do members remember the nuclear policy flip-flop the superannuation policy flip-flop the tax cuts flip-flop the primary healthcare flip-flop and the Kiwibank flip-flop—do members remember that one?—the TVNZ flip-flop the school zoning flip-flop the Employment Relations Act flip-flop the Holidays Act flip-flop and the tangi leave flip-flop? Do members remember the flip-flop on apprenticeships? Do members remember the flip-flop on prisons? Do members remember the flip-flop on the prostitution law reform legislation? But we have another one. It is the Department of Conservation flip-flop and it is a dinger. It is a cracker because it is a double flip-flop—a flip-flop flip-flop. The logic of the double flip-flop goes like this. A couple of weeks ago Dr Brash arrived at Molesworth Station by helicopter. He was late was he not? 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: He was late. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: He was late. He came clattering down on top of the existing speakers and rushed out of his helicopter. Then he hid behind a truck so that he could read his notes and have somewhere to put them and then he slavishly read them out. He insulted the Department of Conservation and the Landcorp workers which was a bit of a shame because they were hosting— 
Simon Power 
: Not the Landcorp workers; just the Department of Conservation. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: No—the Department of Conservation and the Landcorp workers. It was a bit of a shame because they were the hosts of the event. But that did not matter to him. Then he was unable to stay for a cup of tea and spend a bit of time mixing and mingling. He was back into his helicopter—clatter clatter clatter—back up into the skies disrupting yet another speaker and pretty much making a nuisance of himself. He said in his speech that tenure review was a deliberate land grab and the following morning he had to acknowledge that one cannot grab back land that one already owns. But it did not matter that he got his facts wrong it did not matter that he got all his areas wrong and it did not matter that he got all his numerical facts wrong and then blamed the runholders for giving him dodgy data. What was really interesting was that the main theme of his speech was that he was going to constrain the Department of Conservation. He was going to keep them doing only stuff that was important for— 
Simon Power 
: Core functions people. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: —core functions. He was going to have them with a core task of protecting unique flora and fauna and endangered species and cut out all the other stuff. How long did that last? 
Simon Power 
: A long time. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Until Easter. Then what happened was that a motor camp got shut down up near the Whangarei Heads and in rushed the good Dr Brash. All hell brook loose. “We need more camping grounds.” he breathlessly advised a startled nation. “We need more camping grounds. DOC must provide them.” he said. To hell with the core principles of the Department of Conservation—so much so that he decided that we are going to have 25 of them even though we already have 235 Department of Conservation camping grounds.