Cosgrove Clayton: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: General Debate[Sitting date: 17 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4493. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): Andrew Little is right. This Government did start off with a bit of a hiss and a roar and then as happens with many third-term Governments arrogant out of touch and out of touch with the community are the themes that start creeping in. Is it not interesting that on the day that Nick Smith is out on walkabout—out in never-never land or somewhere out of the House gone—the Government sacks the Southern District Health Board? On the same day as the cheese slides right off Nick Smith’s cracker—right off it: the same day. He is gone troppo: gone bush. I will tell you this: if ever a Minister exhibited the themes of arrogance and being out of touch it is that member Nick Smith.What a litany what a political catastrophe that man’s career has been. God alone knows why the Prime Minister is so benevolent—in fact a number of Prime Ministers—as to put him back into Cabinet. Nick Smith is the man who in 1999 had his first defamation case and lost. He is the man who in 2003—and as I say again that was a time when the cheese did slip off the cracker; his headlights were on dim as he wandered through life—lasted as deputy leader of the National Party for a long 21 days. Then we hit 2005 the second defamation case—he lost again. Then in 2010 we find out $270000-odd of taxpayers’ money was spent on his legal defence. He then acquiesced to and settled those two defamation cases. He had to make a payout and an apology.Then we go forward of course to 2012: sacked from Cabinet for gross impropriety in respect of ACC and then he goes back into Cabinet as housing Minister. Then we have a whole series month after month week after week of the claim that there is no housing crisis. Then in the Budget there was a rush of blood to the head. The lights went from dim to high beam really quickly—maybe the fuse was blown—“We’ll come up with a surplus land housing policy.” Yet again that was a complete debacle—I will not waste the time by relitigating the excellent chronology that my leader went through to evidence that fact—with the result of course that the iwi are now taking the Government to court. What a litany!Then of course the ultimate irony on a very serious note was his response to the death of an infant Emma-Lita Bourne. I will read the quote because he denied it you will recall in the House yesterday. He said on TV3’s The Paul Henry Show that “people dying from pneumonia in winter was ‘not new’.” He also said: “People have got unwell during winter died from pneumonia and other illnesses for a very very long time.” That is what he said and that is what he denied in the House yesterday—he denied it in the House yesterday. That is an example not only of a Minister who is completely out of touch—possibly with reality definitely with the community—but of a Minister who is so arrogant so lacking in compassion that he would not even draw breath breathe through his nose nod to the family nod to the loved ones and express some sort of remorse some sort of compassion some sort of sympathy. The best the Government can do today after it has sacked the board—coincidentally when yet again Nick Smith’s feet are firmly in the fire—is to talk about that and not actually address the issue. I just ask in the high standards that the Prime Minister has for his Ministers—Hon David Parker: Theoretically.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —theoretically—what does this guy have to do to get sacked and what does the country have to do to be put out of its misery of putting up with him? He has exhibited qualities of a person who should be nowhere near a Cabinet door—nowhere near a dunny door outside Cabinet let alone Cabinet itself.Chris Bishop: Closer than you mate.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: If a person Mr Bishop—and I suspect that member would not be as stupid or dispassionate as Dr Smith as he grins—cannot give a little bit of compassion and acknowledge as he is the responsible Minister that perhaps his department could have done better that perhaps his department was indeed as the coroner said partially if not greatly responsible as a contributing factor to that little girl’s death then there is something very very wrong. The Prime Minister and this Government should see Dr Smith for what he is: an example of where this Government is going right off the rails is completely arrogant and is out of touch with the community.