Brownlee Gerry: General Debates 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debates 
[Volume:613;Page:9726] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 The arrogance and stupidity behind the content of the previous speech is why Don Brash will be the next Prime Minister of New Zealand immediately after the 2005 election. Mr Benson-Pope outlined in the House today very clearly why the Labour Government will lose the next election. The Labour Government will lose the next election because it has idiot Ministers like Paul Swain who came into the House today and told New Zealanders who are earning $38000 a year that they are rich. People like Mr Benson-Pope stood up and said that Dr Brash’s decision to raise the income level of New Zealanders will somehow be such a huge lurch to the right that New Zealanders will reject it. Let me tell the House that New Zealanders are poor when compared with their Australian cousins and this Government celebrates that. 
Earlier this afternoon another incompetent Minister Steve Maharey gave an explanation of why he is known as the “Minister for Institutionalised Poverty”. He is the man who presides over the lives of the 400000 working-age New Zealanders who derive their incomes from the benefit. Those 400000 New Zealanders take $1 million a day out of the pockets of people earning $38000 and less. If Labour politicians think they can stand on the floor of a factory and convince New Zealanders who work hard in difficult conditions that Labour is out there working for them then they have it wrong. Those people want aspiration in their lives. They do not want Helen Clark telling them what they can have what they can do and when they can do it. They will listen to Don Brash telling them that they deserve better because they do. 
October 28 was the day on which the Labour Government began to lose its grip on Government in this country. It was noticeable when Don Brash stood up this afternoon that all of those on the Government benches were full of nervous twittering. Some of them decided to grandstand and then walk out and we know that they then hung around the lobbies to hear the bad news. Others on the other side of the House sat glum-faced. Darren Hughes just smiled because he is a young man and he knows that in 2025 he will still be young enough to be a young Cabinet Minister the next time Labour gets anywhere near being in Government. 
I want to ask a couple of questions this afternoon. Do any Labour politicians think that telling New Zealanders it is OK to be $200 a week worse off than Australians will win them a vote? Do any Labour politicians think they can tell New Zealanders that we can no longer afford first-line drugs for simple conditions like Alzheimer’s that that is good for people and that they should therefore vote for that? The answer is no. Do any Labour politicians think they can go into the suburbs of this country and tell people that they cannot make choices about their children’s education and that they simply have to put them into the institution that the State decides is best for them? The answer is no. It is those points that will knock those guys over. 
That is why people like Mr—I cannot remember the guy’s name; he comes from Hamilton; he comes here only every second term and he is having the next term off—and people like “Dazza Hughes” the great white hope will be gone. He will do a “Phil Goff” and be on his backside next time. That chap from Dunedin—the guy that people still think is on the city council—David Benson-Pope he will be gone. He will be out. As for the member from Whanganui she should get the cardboard boxes into the office now and start filling them because she will be gone. I am afraid it is all over for my friend Paul Swain too. When New Zealanders wake up and realise that Helen Clark is saying that their current relative poverty compared with Australia is OK and that Don Brash is saying we should lift our aspirations grow our economy and see the incomes of average working New Zealanders grow there is no doubt whom they will follow. 
This Government lost its grip on 28 October. Don Brash will be the next Prime Minister of New Zealand and I look forward to serving in his Cabinet.