Quinn Paul: General Debate 
Quinn Paul: General Debate 
[Volume:653;Page:2310] 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 There is no doubt that like the All Black team and the New Zealand Maori team this finely tuned National Party team has hit the ground running. Like all high performance teams there are many aspects to our winning ways. Before each game we take time to examine the opposition we are going to play. We carefully analyse their performance—we look for areas of strength and we look for areas of weakness. We plan to nullify their strengths and we prepare to attack their weaknesses in order to score the winning runs. 
The starting point for any analysis of course is the leadership team. Let us look at “Captain Goff”. The problem with the captain is that not only do we know he is on shaky ground but also unfortunately Opposition members know that he is on shaky ground. How can a team have confidence if the captain is not an automatic selection in the team? To have confidence one must know that the captain will always be an automatic selection. But this is not the case. He is always looking over his shoulder. He will not have any problems from “Vice-Captain Annette” because—now what is that saying about a sinking ship? Is it something about rats and mice? No it is: “Women and children first.”—that is right. Of course she will be diving off to prepare for her Wellington mayoral campaign; she will be out of here at a rate of knots. 
The other key member of the leadership team is “Coach Cullen”. Let us look at “Coach Cullen”. The critical job of a coach is to get the team ready to get it to a level of preparedness so that when it goes into battle it can go into the game with confidence. The problem we believe is that “Coach Cullen” is probably the Opposition’s weakest link. The reason is that he has not analysed the real issues confronting the team. Members will recall that during the adjournment debate “Coach Cullen” expressed the view that the reason Labour lost the election was the “underwear principle”. Do members recall the “underwear principle”? Until “Coach Cullen” realises that New Zealand decided that the stench of 9 years of unchanged nappies was too much and just got rid of them and until he plans to address that issue Labour has no chance. 
I now turn to my dear friend and colleague Parekura Horomia. He is the cornerstone of the scrum; the Carl Hayman of the Opposition; the man mountain of the front bench. The trouble is that he bleeds a lot and takes regular trips to the blood bin. We think that our tactic of a fast-paced game will run him out of breath. The advantage for our team is that as he makes regular trips to the blood bin to take in oxygen and to recover Labour will be in serious trouble as it will have to send on “Old Moper” and “Clodhopper” from the reserve bench as replacements. Both Mr Mallard and Mr Cosgrove are easily niggled. The difficulty for them is that they regularly spend time getting yellow cards—they have a real problem. In fact we have come to the conclusion that there is a glaring weakness in their front row. Old Charles Chauvel is thrown in as hooker and Grant Robertson at loose-head prop and they are backed up by Pete Hodgson and Chris Carter at lock. What a front five! I actually feel sorry for the front row. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.