English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9271] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The fact that the Government spends the day before the Budget attacking some non-entity no one knows shows how that Government has lost its way and its will to govern. Government members cannot even talk up their own Budget on the day before it is presented 
The reason is that in the next week or so this House will see something it has never seen before: a Budget passed by a minority of votes in this House. That is what will happen and it has never happened before. Even in 1998 and 1999 the National Government when it was having the same experience this Government is now having still had a majority of the House voting for the confidence and supply motion. When that motion comes to this House in the next 2 weeks a minority of this House will vote for it. 
Interestingly that simply reflects the loss of confidence of the public in this Government. It certainly shows the loss of confidence in the House. But in fact the House is trailing the public whose confidence has been lost. Let us see what has happened to the Government’s numbers since the beginning of the year. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What happened? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: On 1 January the Government had 61 votes tied up in two confidence and supply agreements out of 121 votes. On St Valentine’s Day Phillip Field left the Government. The confidence and supply numbers were down to 60—technically a minority Government. Gordon Copeland is leaving today. That takes the number down to 59. 
But that is just the start. Judy Turner will almost certainly leave United Future and join Copeland’s new party because that is where her voters are. She has no future in United Future because it does not have much of a future outside of Peter Dunne. That will take the number down to 58. What will Peter Dunne then do marooned by himself as a one-man party supporting a Government that his electorate will certainly want out of power? He could end up going with it. He will not stay in his confidence and supply agreement of one. 
Then what will happen to New Zealand First? New Zealand First will then be left as the one conservative party supporting a left-wing Government that is polling in the low thirties. Winston Peters has many faults but one of them is not stupidity about suicide. He knows where that is going. 
This Government is unravelling as we watch. It will be putting a Budget to this House that will not command a majority. Why will it not command a majority? It is because the Government of New Zealand now depends on a party that will not vote. The Greens’ agreement with Labour is to abstain on motions of confidence and supply. The Labour-led Government—the Government of New Zealand—is now as of Gordon Copeland’s resignation from United Future dependent on that agreement with the Greens. Do the Greens support a $1 billion company tax cut? Would they have allowed it to happen if they had the swing votes in the run-up to the Budget? No. 
This is a Government that will pass a Budget when it does not have a parliamentary or public mandate to do it and that is a fact. It does not matter how confident Helen Clark sounds it does not matter how many articles are written about her being the most competent Prime Minister ever because she has lost her majority in the House. It has gone. She is now dependent on the Greens who will not vote— 
Hon Member 
: Nandor! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —on Nandor Tanczos and Phillip Field. What will happen after this Budget is that the Greens will get their long-awaited opportunity. They have been patient and their time has come.