Jones Shane: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Jones Shane: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 March 2010. Volume:661;Page:9768. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou. The previous speaker the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman was the member who destroyed the by-election campaign in Mt Albert and he was offering advice about leadership. He is the “Maestro of Self-defeat.” He is also the man who distinguished himself recently by being kicked out of this Chamber for refusing to apologise. We have heard from him a reminder of the A B and C of politics. The Government has united “A” for Aucklanders “B” for beneficiaries and “C” for conservationists who all hate the Government’s policies. That is why the Government is extremely worried. Polling results are showing that popularity is plummeting in Auckland. Those Aucklanders whom the Government did not disenfranchise through the super-city have been completely estranged as a consequence of the Government turning Great Barrier Island into “Gerry Brownlee’s Krakatoa”. 
Secondly the Government has shown its cruel colours by bashing not only beneficiaries but also most important those Aucklanders who love their environment. The Aucklanders who are seeing the green line being covered in diesel muck and National Party ideology in Coromandel are rising up. They will not stand by while one democracy is stripped out of the super-city and two Auckland is handed over to corporate gnomes and turned into some sort of commercial Gotham City model. In addition to that Rodney Hide drives the waka yet he drives Paula Bennett out of politics; her seat is narrowly held. She will not need to come back from her  
American Idol 
 gig when she goes overseas because she will have no seat to come back to. Similarly she does not need to go to learn about Sarah Palin over there because she is doing a good job here in our country. [ 
Interruption 
] She will be aided by the member for Maungakiekie who realises what the consequences will be of Mr Hide’s rantings and his very very destructive quality of leadership in the super-city where he consistently promises people that he is listening but does exactly the opposite hoping that they will get the blame. 
Day after day the super-city is stressed and emphasised as the lie it is by the  
New Zealand Herald 
 which has Rodney Hide in its sights. Rodney Hide went from Rodney down to the Waikato continually telling people that if they participated in the process their democratic ambitions would be realised. The exact opposite has happened. In addition there are no opportunities for slippage yet the entire thing is slipping. The elections are not very far away and the super-city is miles away from being put in place. But it suits Mr Hide’s ideology. Those are the people who will suffer quite apart from Mr Maurice Williamson’s bitter moaning that he does not like the word irirangi and instead prefers “help”. I encourage him to get Maori lessons from the Speaker. 
But let me come back to mining. In the right place mining is not a fatal economic consequence but this is a Government that has chosen to mine the most sensitive areas and to turn an economic development debate into an exercise in destroying New Zealand’s clean green image and its conservation values apparently in order to perform a step-up exercise to catch Australia. Not only has the Government united the conservationists it has also enraged all the people who have fought for the last 25 years to move away from the Muldoonist approach of digging up and quarrying the nation towards investing in innovation long-term economic change and jobs. 
 There are three things afflicting this Government. First it has lost interest in creating jobs and that is why it is belting beneficiaries. Second it has decided that the quick-fix remedy is to dig up the countryside. It thinks that by digging up the countryside it will create sustainable wealth but that will be a short fillip for foreign-owned companies. The jobs will be scarce and the degradation in those very sensitive areas will be very long term and I would think irreversible. The third and most egregious failure afflicting the Government lies in Auckland. That is where the vast majority of voters are settled. They know that over 50 to 60 percent of their current democratic influence has been handed over to shadowy organisations hand-picked by Rodney Hide. This is a travesty. The environment is being destroyed along with the Government’s political reputation.