Goff Phil: General Debate 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:637;Page:7982] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 It is four months on from the election of John Key as the leader of the National Party and clearly this week the honeymoon is over. It has been a dreadful week for John Key. It started with the  
Agenda 
 programme on television on Saturday morning. I have to say that even I felt embarrassed notwithstanding the fact that the person I was embarrassed for was the Leader of the Opposition. Lisa Owen began the interview by saying there was a real question out in the community as to “whether Key was all publicity and no policy”. More and more people are seeing that. They are seeing spin and strutting; they are not seeing substance and policy. Gerry Brownlee asked where our policy is. We articulate our policy and put it into effect every day. There is no policy on the other side of the House. 
John Key got a snap debate on a tragic mistake that was made leading to the death of a man in the Hutt Valley and he blew it. He blew it because he could not address the substance of the problem. He did not look as though he wanted to find a solution; he looked as though he wanted to massage the issue. We saw that again in the House today. John Key accused the Minister of Corrections of not apologising. Damien O’Connor had gone personally to the family of the man who was killed and had said how sorry he was about what had happened. Damien O’Connor does not do what John Key does. He does not go up to a place without care without concern totally insincerely and make a media occasion out of it. Damien O’Connor went to the family and said how dreadfully sorry we were about the death—as indeed are all New Zealanders. 
John Key has blown it not only because he lacks the substance and the experience but also because he has a man who sits beside him Mr Bill English who wants only one thing: to get revenge on John Key because he committed the act of treachery. John Key turned up at Bill English’s home on the night before the day of the leadership election in 2003 and said he would be supporting Bill English the next day yet the next day he turned his vote and got Don Brash elected. It is no wonder that Mr English sits there and daily undermines John Key; he will never forget that act of treachery. Mr English will never be satisfied until he sees John Key go the same way that Mr English engineered for Don Brash to go. Let us ask not who leaked the emails; let us look at the deputy leader of the National Party. He is the one who set out in a machiavellian way to undermine Don Brash and he did so. He did that very effectively. That is why John Key is so fearful of the man who sits alongside him. 
But John Key has some other things to answer for. I heard Bill English deny that he had met the Exclusive Brethren about any political matter and I accept the word of the honourable member. I accepted the word of John Key when he said that he had seen the Exclusive Brethren but that it was not to talk about politics. But then the next day an email turned up from the Exclusive Brethren to say that after the discussion the Exclusive Brethren had had with Mr Key they wanted to put a million dollars into getting National elected. John Key went on TV before that was disclosed and said that he knew nothing about the pamphlets and that he knew nothing about the campaign. Then that email was released which made him look like a liar and John Key said he had never opened the email—nobody had shown it to him. That email promised the National Party $1 million and no aide told John there was someone who wanted to give him a million dollars? “Yeah right!” the Tui billboard would say about that. 
We have seen the flip-flops and they are incredible. John Key said on that  
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 programme that National had made it clear it would never have sent troops to Iraq. Don Brash said that he would have sent troops. Worse than that John Key said he believed that the Americans should go to Iraq but that New Zealand would not follow. So he did not have the courage of his convictions. We know National would have sent troops. We remember what Simon Power said: that whatever the British the Americans or the Australians tell us to do National would do. He said that to the National Party conference and he was caught out and sacked as spokesperson on defence—not because he said that but because he was caught out and the media ran a story on it. There have been so many flip-flops from National. On 1 April there was meant to be $3 billion worth of tax cuts. Bill English said there would have been none now.