Mallard Trevor: Address in Reply 
Mallard Trevor: Address in Reply 
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Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker Barker; I congratulate you and the other people who have taken the chair on accession to those positions. I also compliment the previous speaker Craig Foss for his speech. Clearly a lot of thought had gone into it. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Which bit? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think there were some substantial bits in it and the member made some important points. Frankly I commiserate with him as he sits over there at question time looking at members answering from the Government’s ministerial benches: Steven Joyce and Kate Wilkinson today and Paula Bennett yesterday. He must wonder why he is sitting there and they are sitting where they are. If Ministers’ positions were based on talent he would certainly be on the ministerial benches. 
Paul Quinn 
: At least he’s not over there. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I hear Paul Quinn and I say that I disagree with a couple of his colleagues and a number of mine who have sidled up to me and said that his was the worst maiden speech in the House. I thought Melissa Lee’s speech was pretty poor and I did not think much of the one from Amy Adams either so I do not agree. 
But I must say to the member that the classic example of hypocrisy came right at the end of last year after Parliament had finished. Paul Quinn a man who called for the abolition of the Maori seats himself holds the Maori seat on the Rugby Union. It became clear at the end of last year that he had abandoned his job: for the first time in about a decade I understand the New Zealand Maori rugby team did not get a single game much less a tour and involvement in the Pacific nations tournament. Yet it seems classic behaviour that that member can take the baubles of office. In fact I think that last year instead of campaigning he went off to Canada with the New Zealand Maori rugby team as the Maori representative. Then he came back to New Zealand and said that Maori seats should be abolished. I cannot call him a hypocrite in the House because we are not allowed to but I am sure a lot of people will and a lot of people outside the House will be thinking he is just that. Having had the perk of travel when he came back did he go to the meetings and try to see that the New Zealand Maori rugby team could continue in that tournament? Did he turn up? Did he do his job? Did he fight for them? No he did not. 
Paul Quinn 
: How would you know? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is fair to say that when that member fights for something we all know about it. In this particular case he did not. 
That is enough on him. I gather that he has already made an application to become the candidate in Wellington Central in order to fight against my colleague Grant Robertson at the next election. After going around telling people he was going to win Hutt South he hardly knocked any off the Labour majority out there even though it was a really good year for National. In a year that with a decent candidate National could have probably taken the seat Labour ended up with a majority of 4000. He stood in Hutt South. It was meant to be a low year in Hutt South. He lined up Tau Henare to try to help him but he did not make much progress and now he says he wants to be the candidate for Wellington Central. To be fair he was the rejected candidate for Wellington Central last time. What was the name of the joker who got the seat? 
Hon Member 
: Frankie Stevens. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No Frankie Stevens is a good guy from Upper Hutt. I think Stephen Franks was the candidate; they chose Stephen Franks over Paul Quinn. I ask members if anything could be more embarrassing than that situation. 
I congratulate Catherine Delahunty on coming into the House. Catherine is an old friend of mine. Catherine and I were in the same class at school. I think she is probably about the fifth person from Onslow College— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: She looks a lot younger! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: She used to look a lot younger. There is no doubt that the relaxed lifestyle of the Coromandel which she partook of for a period of time meant that she aged slightly slower than some of us who were in Parliament at around the same time. I acknowledge that through her political career which certainly started—from my memory—in secondary school she has made a real contribution. She is someone who thinks about issues carefully. I do not always agree with her and I sometimes think she could have given Helen Clark and others more credit for taking ministerial decisions on mining in the Coromandel. The fact that Catherine did a lot of work to convince people is certainly true but in the end people took decisions: Judith Tizard Fran Wilde and—earlier on—Helen Clark took some decisions in that area. My only recommendation to Catherine is that every now and again she might like to give some credit to people who took the decisions and not only to those who worked hard on those particular issues. 
Today was an interesting day because we had been led to believe that the rolling maul was going to score a try today. I tell members that today the rolling maul collapsed with very very little result. As members know I am very keen on rugby and I have taken part in a number of rolling mauls in the past. But generally in New Zealand Kiwis have not been very good at the rolling maul. Generally they are not successful; far too often the ball is dropped out of the rolling maul. I know that whenever it looked like a rolling maul was starting Mr Tremain’s father would get the ball and start running for the try line rather than continue with a rolling maul. Far too often in rolling mauls people get offside lose direction go backwards get pushed and lose the ball and that is the case with National. 
We were told that there would be a pile of infrastructure announcements and what did we have today? We had something really pathetic: some projects that were brought forward 3 months. That will change the world; that will create a pile of jobs! What a pile of rubbish. What a desperate Government scraping the bottom of the barrel for announcements to try to look good! It is absolutely pathetic. 
But towards the end of my speech I want to make a serious point. That is that we need to—[ 
Interruption 
] I dealt with Paul Quinn earlier; dealing with Paul Quinn could not be serious because he is a joke. The point I want to make is that this announcement was the opportunity to talk about transforming the New Zealand economy. This was the opportunity to make a massive change towards quality jobs and real jobs. What did we get? We got a little bit of stimulus at the lower end of the job market. Did we get training? Did we get skills? Did we get capital investment? No we did not. We got a Government determined to get our workers in competition with those in India and China. We got a Government determined to deskill the New Zealand economy and not transform it. We got a Government determined to have an economy that is sliding downwards internationally rather than taking what is now a massive opportunity to take a step up and have real wages higher wages higher skills and bigger investment. Every decision that this Government has taken has gone in the opposite direction to what is needed. It is just not good enough. I think Bill English understands that; I know that John Key does not care.