Hodgson Pete: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Hodgson Pete: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:22235] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed his seat has a bible. It is called “ 
Unfinished Business 
”. 
The business remains unfinished. The party will be finished. The low-tax policies that are promoted by the ACT party have fallen into disfavour to an extent and just the same the member continues to promote the idea that the electorate has rejected. I must say that the ACT party is consistent. It has been consistent from its outset and it has been consistently wrong. 
The ACT party is not of much concern to me but Ken Shirley who resumed his seat did make some interesting comments about energy. He said that there was no generation going in and that there was not enough investment. He said that we had put up the price of electricity in order to get our favoured wind generation away etc. Then he went on in a remarkable admission in the same speech—actually it was within 1 minute of that—to say that one of our great advantages as a nation was a reliable equable mid-latitude island climate. That is what the Kyoto Protocol is about and yet a minute or two earlier that gentleman had spoken against Kyoto even though it is easily the best opportunity we have to protect that which the same member holds dear. 
Here are a few facts about the energy scene. The price of Maui gas was set about 30 years ago in a contract and it has risen by half the rate of inflation for all of those 30 or 35 years which is why gas out of Maui is worth $2 or $1.80 a gigajoule. It is a subsidised fossil fuel and the Maui gasfield unsurprisingly is running out. That is what happens when one subsidises the price of anything. The replacement gas is not $1.80. It is about $6.50 or $5.50 a gigajoule depending on the gasfield involved. That more than anything is what has been driving electricity prices in this country. Wind generation has another story to tell. Wind generation in this country got under way because of carbon credits which exist because of Kyoto. Without the protocol there would be no credits and no wind energy. The member should get that. There was a loop to be closed there and this Government did it. 
But as far as the National Party is concerned one would never know what its policy was on energy. National has had a different energy spokesperson about every 6 months. It has never recovered from the disaster of Max Bradford who decided that a person who owned a lines company could not own an electron flowing through it. The remarkable restructuring that took place at that time did this country no good at all. That man said that on 1 April 1999 electricity prices would fall and they did not. They rose and Max Bradford left politics as a result of that. That member made a mess of the portfolio and the subsequent National Party energy spokespeople have never got their heads around it. That is why National continues to change its energy spokesperson. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Who is it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I do not know whom the present energy spokesperson is. It used to be Pansy Wong. It used to be Roger Sowry but he gave his valedictory speech today so it cannot be him. It used to be Gerry Brownlee but he found energy too difficult and took up Maori affairs instead. I do not know whom the spokesperson is. It may be Simon Power but I thought he was the whip. The point is that the National Party does not have a good policy on energy. 
Actually National does not have much of a policy on anything. It has a tax policy which is yet to be released. It has a nuclear policy times nine it has an Iraq policy times seven it has an issue about the ownership of schools times five and it has a view about health organisations times three. It depends on the time of the day it depends on the audience it depends on the mood and it depends on the poll ratings—it depends on those things. The National Party will not be able to print a manifesto unless it is one that has so much sandpaper over it that one will not know what National stands for. The National Party does not know what it stands for and if one does not know what one stands for in politics one should not stand. Yet the National Party has decided to contest this election by saying that that kind of platitude generalisation and vagueness will get it through. Well it will not because the democratic process is about close scrutiny—close scrutiny on television close scrutiny in the town hall and close scrutiny in the newspapers. Close scrutiny will result in people seeing the National Party for what it is: a bunch of flip-floppers—a bunch of people who have a point of view that changes at every occasion. 
 That is not the fault of most of the National caucus. The fault rests with the leadership. The fault rests with the leadership because National’s leader has in earlier times spoken freely and given his mind. There was Dr Brash’s comment on nuclear ships that they would be “gone by lunchtime” his comment that “Frankly I do not care who owns the schools” and the idea that he would have followed President Bush into Iraq—those three will do. There are plenty of other examples like: “If a person was associated with the local marae I probably wouldn’t employ him.”—a further statement by Dr Brash. As the heatwave has come on Dr Brash—as the blowtorch has gone on him—he has found himself changing his position to make it less unacceptable. He has said things like: “These are irrelevancies.” “This is not the issue of the day.” and “We will have a referendum on the nuclear issue.” A referendum on the nuclear issue—called by whom I wonder? Would it be called by the National Government if there were ever to be one? There is silence on that. Would it be called by the Americans? Well we know that Lockwood Smith wanted the think tank to come and soften us up but the Americans bless them said that no that was our business and that they would not interfere in domestic policy. That is exactly what the Americans said. There are somewhat higher standards from US senators than we see from our own Opposition MPs. 
But the question does arise: who would call the referendum on the nuclear power issue if National ever formed a Government? National has not yet answered that question. Under what pretext under what circumstances for what reason and over what period of time might National arrange for there to be a referendum? Would it be in the first 3 years? No answer has been given. So even now on the nuclear issue just to pick on one issue—it is such a simple thing because the answer is either yes or no which is why it is a good political issue to pick on—we cannot get an answer from National. We can get only seven answers. That is exactly what is wrong with the National Party as it finds itself 6 weeks and 3 days out from an election. It does not have a firm view on anything. Of course if National did have a firm view and I felt that that view was wrong it would be a different thing. We would then contest for the 4 million New Zealanders—those amongst them who have votes—to say who will win at the election. But we do not know where the National Party stands because it flip-flops. 
What we do know is that the underlying rhetoric of National’s leader is radical. It is swirly-eyed; it is really very different. It is really quite scary. The gentleman is rather odd. We know that about the National Party leader. We do not need to go to his utterances to learn that; we can just read the authorised biography. We know the gentleman is odd. But what we do not know is what National would do in Government. We suspect it would be radical and we suspect there would be significant change. We suspect we would go back to the future in a rerun of the 1990s. But we cannot tell what National would do because National has not said clearly what its policy is. We are 6 weeks and 3 days away from polling day. It really is time for the National Party to front up to stop flip-flopping to stop trying to disguise its policy to come clean on what its policy is to have the courage to say what its policy is to spell it out to give it some detail and to point out where the detail cannot yet be determined because that is fair enough and to put its policy out clearly to the public so that we know what the National Party in the year 2005 stands for. No one seems to know that now because it does depend on the time of the day the speaker and the audience. That is not the way to run a democracy and National will get caught out as we move closer and closer to a campaign for having more than one viewpoint on virtually any subject really. 
Primary health organisations would be a cracker. Would they be gone by lunchtime? Would they be gone slowly? Would National just amalgamate the little ones first? Would it change their governance? Would National turn them back in order that they come under greater control from general practitioners? Would National require primary health organisations to have high levels of auditing? Would it get rid of them by punishing them with high levels of compliance? Or would National get rid of them in a clean sweep? That is not clear. We do know that National does not like primary health organisations even though New Zealanders do and even though New Zealanders enrol in them at a huge 99-point-something percent rate. We know that New Zealanders like primary health organisations and we know that those organisations are working but we do not know how National would get rid of them. We just know that National does not like them. We just know that the primary health organisations would go backwards but we do not know the detail of how that would occur. National itself perhaps does not know that and it has 6 weeks and 3 days to find out. If National does not have a clear position by then we will tell people what its position is and National will be in the position of having to deny that. That is how it works. So too it is the case on almost any other subject. The National Party needs to know what it stands for because it is about to stand.