Dyson Ruth: General Debate 
Dyson Ruth: General Debate 
[Volume:636;Page:6936] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 A number of points have become very clear since Mr Key was elected the current leader of the National Party just a week and 2 days ago. The most obvious of those many points is the National Party’s disunity. Who could be surprised at the disunity in the National caucus when John Key has Bill English as his deputy with Bill English pledging to John Key exactly the same loyalty he pledged to Jenny Shipley. I have a quote before me from the  
New Zealand Herald  
of 29 November 1999 in which Bill English said: “The caucus is solidly behind Mrs Shipley as I am and the party is solidly behind Mrs Shipley.” And he said—and this is almost word for word what he said in regard to Mr Key last week—that that would last through to the next election. Barely a year later Bill English rolled Jenny Shipley. 
My colleague Phil Goff described the feeling of Bill English backing John Key to the hilt. It is no wonder John Key wanted Bill English sitting beside him. Would members want him sitting behind them if they were leader of the National Party? Absolutely not! So National members’ first problem is that their deputy leader wants the job. He has as much loyalty to John Key as he had to Jenny Shipley—zilch none—and as much loyalty as he had to Don Brash. Zilch none! 
John Key should have chosen a little more wisely. And National members still have their key strategy advice coming from Murray McCully. What did the deputy leader say about Murray McCully? He said: “You”—talking to Don Brash—“need to know now that the experienced people you will have will NOT work in a government run by McCully. I and others will not tolerate him exercising the same influence he does now.” But who worked with John Key and Bill English over the weekend securing the leadership team and securing Gerry Brownlee’s sacking as deputy? It was none other than Murray McCully. Well is it not interesting how people can change in a matter of just a few weeks if it looks like a bit of a ladder-step on their own career paths? 
What about National’s welfare spokesperson Judith Collins? She got the job when Katherine Rich was sacked from that job. What does Bill English the deputy leader think of her? He said that Judith Collins had been “pushed beyond her capacity” she had an “unfortunately high estimation of her own competence” and she had “spent too much time cultivating the media herself and believing the resulting publicity. She will find it hard to recover her credibility in caucus where she has been a tough critic of her colleagues …”. Those comments from the deputy leader were about the welfare spokesperson. But what does John Key the leader think of her? According to the  
Listener 
 in March of this year John Key on his own a single individual within the entire National caucus thinks Judith Collins is “terrific”. Well he is keeping that quiet that is for sure. 
The disunity is so obvious in the House in select committees and in the Koru lounge at the airport and I am sure that it will just increase over summer. Any party that goes into the Christmas adjournment with that sort of disunity so obvious is in for a barbecue-filled summer which is what I predict will happen as members of the National Party leave this house and go their very very separate ways into the summer break. 
So can John Key carry on the farce of being the leader of a team with Bill English as his deputy? Can Bill English work—ever—with Maurice Williamson with Judith Collins or with John Carter? Can anyone in the National Party work with Lockwood Smith? I think that the answers to those questions will become more obvious over the coming weeks and the answer to every one of those questions will be no. 
Mr Key has a couple of very big challenges facing him. The first one is to instil genuine unity within his own caucus and in my view that may well mean a smaller caucus because it will be impossible to unite the caucus as it is. I am sure that the movement of more than one National member out of caucus alongside Don Brash is being considered as we speak—if not by Mr Key by his No. 1 adviser Murray McCully. And I bet he is not planning his own exit; it will be the exit of others who have not backed him up. 
The second challenge in my view is harder than the first one. Despite how hard the challenge of uniting the National Party will be the second challenge will be harder—that is for John Key to become a substantial politician; substance rather than just style.