Hipkins Chris: AdjournmentText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Adjournment[Sitting date: 10 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1358. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):It is a great pleasure to take part in this the adjournment debate for the end of the 2014 year here at Parliament. I am very pleased to take part in this debate because when looking across the House it is clear that the Government members need a holiday. They look absolutely exhausted. Looking across the House—oh! There is Hekia Parata. It is a humiliating day for Hekia Parata of course as she backs down on the Government’s flagship education policy. But when looking across the House it is hard not to feel like I am stuck in front of a TV that is tuned only to the JONES! channel. There is rerun after rerun old lame worn-out jokes the same old faces and the same old personalities. When watching Steven Joyce in the House it is hard not to think of Mr Rumbold from Are You Being Served? that cantankerous old know-all who really thinks that he is the one running the shop. Steven Joyce is clearly the Mr Rumbold of the National Party. When looking at Simon Bridges answering questions in the House how could anybody avoid the clear comparison with what’s-his-name from Get Smart—Grant Robertson: Maxwell Smart.CHRIS HIPKINS: Maxwell Smart. The Maxwell Smart of the National Party has to be Simon Bridges. When listening to Gerry Brownlee answer on behalf of the Prime Minister with an answer that effectively goes along the lines of “I know nothing.”—Sergeant Shultz of the National Party; that is Gerry Brownlee. When looking at poor old Craig Foss pushed out of Cabinet and pushed to the backbenches he is like Norm off Cheers. Things never quite work out for poor old Craig Foss. Then of course we have got Chris Finlayson the Frasier Crane of the National Party with all of that watered intellect that nobody every takes seriously there. Bill English is the Frank Spencer. If you look at the Frank Spencer of the National Party and if you look at the state of the Government’s accounts which are still not in surplus that is very clear: he is the accident-prone Bill English.Of course sometimes you get to change the channel and you end up on The Muppet Show. I know that John Key is a big fan of The Muppet Show and looking up the back to where Judith Collins and Maurice Williamson sit it is hard not to think of Waldorf and Statler from The Muppet Show up the back there passing judgment on all of their colleagues the way that they do. Or Tim Groser—when listening to Tim Groser talking about climate change it is hard not to think about Bunsen Honeydew the mad scientist from The Muppet Show. Although I am not sure what that makes Nick Smith; does that make him Beaker? I am not entirely sure about what that does. I think Hekia Parata actually probably has the closest resemblance to The Swedish Chef. She sort of throws things around and mumbles things that nobody can quite understand. I think that is very much Hekia Parata. Jonathan Coleman is The Great Gonzo over there—the maestro of the health portfolio. Peter Dunne—you could liken him a bit to Fozzie Bear really. He tries very hard to make people laugh but does not quite succeed.Then of course we have the member who just spoke David Seymour. But I realise that on the JONES! channel they have not yet brought back Doogie Howser M.D. but when they do I am sure that we will see David Seymour there reflected on the JONES! channel. Of course how can I forget the star of the show? No I am not talking about Kermit the Frog. I am talking about the Prime Minister John Key—the man with a memory like a steel trap that prematurely closed. Nothing ever gets in there. I read in a magazine article the other day that crosswords are very good for one’s memory so I bought John Key a Christmas present—a book of crosswords. I am going to give that to him in the House this year because his memory clearly needs a little bit of a workout.By giving him a Christmas present at least we know that someone’s present will arrive this year because I have it on good authority that 70000 New Zealand kids wrote to Santa Claus this year and sent their letters to New Zealand Post and New Zealand Post worked out this week that they cannot send the replies because they do not meet the new mail deadlines of New Zealand Post. That pretty much sums up the year for the National Party as all of their chickens come home to roost at Christmas time. They cannot even run the postal system so that the kids who wrote to Santa get the reply from Santa that they have been hanging out for. The National Government has stolen Christmas from the 70000 kids who wrote to Santa Claus this year. That has to be its finest achievement as Government members go off on their Christmas break—that has to be their finest achievement as they go off on their Christmas break.By contrast the Labour Party goes into the summer adjournment with confidence and optimism—with confidence and optimism. It may have been a rough year for the Labour Party but we end the year with a spring in our step and with a leader Andrew Little who says it like it is—he says it like it is. Once you get past that bubbly personality the effervescent smile and the soaring rhetoric you will find a man of great substance. He is somebody who is going to lead the Labour Party to victory in 2017 and he will have all of us behind him—a fantastic team brimming with talent unlike the one-man band opposite which has only one person there capable of doing anything.Carmel Sepuloni: Who is that?CHRIS HIPKINS: I have not quite figured out which one it is yet. Unlike the one-man band opposite this is a good team—a solid team—working together.I would like to finally take a moment to thank all of those in Parliament who make this possible: the Office of the Clerk the Parliamentary Service the caterers the cleaners the security staff and all of those who make Parliament tick on a day-to-day basis. I would like to thank them for their enormous contribution to Parliament and I wish them and their families a safe happy and enjoyable Christmas. Most of all I would like to thank the staff of the Labour Party—the people who work here in the office of the Leader of the Opposition and in the offices of all of our members of Parliament. I think one of the things that is often not acknowledged is how difficult election years can be for all of the staff working at Parliament. Whether they work on the Government side or the Opposition side elections create huge uncertainty for the people who work for us and that is very seldom acknowledged. So I want to say thank you to all of the staff wherever they work in the parliamentary complex.Finally to all of my parliamentary colleagues on this side of the House and on that side of the House and to you Mr Speaker can I wish you all the very best for the holiday season. I hope that everybody has a safe enjoyable and relaxing time and we will see everybody back here again next year.