Hutchison Paul: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: General Debate[Sitting date: 18 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18629. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua):The tweet of the afternoon comes from Mr David Farrar and it reads that Rajen Prasad has reversed his resignation to come back as leader of the Labour Party. That is how desperate Labour is—nobody wants the job. Nobody wants the job. It is a grave grave worry for the Labour Party. Last night I was in the parliamentary cafeteria and I just happened to glance across and there was Matt McCarten chief of staff of the Labour Party looking very dishevelled but next to him was an even more dishevelled absolutely dejected David Cunliffe. I reflected to myself: “What have they done to that once proud Labour Party?”.First of all there is a different dimension to this latest revelation and that of course is that Labour has shifted under David Cunliffe deeply deeply to the left. We have of course the recognition that the Labour Party leader whatever he is must be centre-left—just a little bit pink. But what we have seen on the horizon is this deep hue of red almost scarlet as we see the influence of Matt McCarten. We see the coalition partners: the Greens—a total misnomer undoubtedly with their Marxist co-leader Russel Norman—followed by Labour’s other coalition partner Mana led by Hone Harawira who is to the left of Russel Norman. And then there is the newcomer on the block Laila Harré. Laila Harré and Hone Harawira are bankrolled by none other than that Germanic oddity who has certainly shown his true colours just as David Cunliffe will in the near future. But the deep concern about this is that this group of individuals this coalition of the left may have the possibility of taking the Treasury benches but the chances are fortunately becoming less and less and less.The good news though is what a great and justified accolade Rod Oram political economic commentator gave the National Government in the Sunday Star-Times in the weekend. Mr Oram is not known for favouring the centre-right but during the weekend—Paul Goldsmith: He must be unwell.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Well that is what I was worried about. He is a law-abiding citizen so he was definitely not on psychoactive drugs or anything like that but he gave the National Government three “excellents” and Labour one “excellent”. In fact Mr Oram praised the National Government and the Hon Bill English in his words “for their strong [fiscal] discipline and bold strategy to help us survive the global financial crisis and build for the future.” He praised the National Government saying that since 2009 it “has improved fiscal discipline initiated its Better Public Services programme and set itself 10 big challenges such as reducing welfare dependency and boosting skills and employment.” These are the sorts of things that that ragtag collation of the left could just simply not do because they are destined to tax more to borrow more to lend more and now to deny more.But Mr Oram praised the National Government in his words for having “bravely tackled the incredibly complex and fraught issues of freshwater regulation.” He goes on and notes that “The previous Labour Government had failed abysmally on these ...” issues during the 9 years it was in office. And these are very serious issues as Kennedy Graham would agree but that regime would absolutely fail to address them. Mr Oram praised the National Government for changing New Zealand Trade and Enterprise from a good to an excellent support agency for many of our fastest exporters. And what better praise could Mr Oram give the National Government than when he stated that “Callaghan Innovation’s overall strategy represents the most intelligent ... response yet by a [New Zealand] Government to the challenge of commercialising science and developing a more sophisticated economy.”? Even more National’s Primary Growth Partnership “is now delivering exciting breakthroughs such as the new technology for precision seafood harvesting.” Finally Mr Oram says that “National was right in the 2008 election to commit government investment to accelerate the development of ultrafast broadband.”