Sabin Mike: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: General Debate[Sitting date: 05 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16347. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I actually want to acknowledge the member Chris Hipkins. For a guy who got absolutely knifed by David Cunliffe he just stood up and gave a very impassioned speech in his defence—ironic. But I have to hand it to the member. The trouble is that leadership is all about credibility—leadership is all about credibility. It is one of the biggest determiners of whether people will follow you and elect you to Government. This Government has been absolutely committed and relentless in the four key priorities that have got us to where we are now. The Northland electorate is a very good example of that. The Northland electorate has seen six quarters of economic growth. We are now the fastest-growing region in the country with 2.4 percent growth over the last quarter. We are investing in infrastructure—the Pūhoi to Wellsford ultra-fast broadband. We are doing our best in the Treaty settlements. There is some really good work being done there. Onshore and offshore gas minerals—that is all under way. We are boosting our primary sector and doing the most we can to grow productivity. That is one small example of what New Zealanders actually expect from a Government.The trouble with what we are seeing with the Opposition and the Labour Party is really the difference between being trustworthy and being tricky. Credibility is so important and what we know is that David Cunliffe has lost the trust. He has lost the trust within his caucus—he probably never actually had it—and he has lost it with the New Zealand public as well. In fact a poll on Stuff today even highlights that fact. David Cunliffe’s trickiness has now developed a life of its own. The Cunliffe narrative is now about his trickiness. In that Stuff poll in terms of his leadership performance 10 percent said it was good 15 percent said it was good or bad—I am not sure what that means; somewhere in the middle—but 74 percent said it was bad. That is now thenarrative. That is now the story. It is about David Cunliffe’s lack of credibility. His propensity to show a lack of judgment also known as misleading people until one gets caught out is now turning David Cunliffe into “David Cunningmyth” and the New Zealand public have woken up to that. He is too tricky for his own good.I just want to read a little excerpt from Duncan Garner who has been in this place for many many years as an experienced political voice and is certainly not always a great friend of the National Party. He says this about David Cunliffe and his messiness over the trust: “[H]is apology is more than odd. He said: ‘I don’t think in hindsight that a trust structure fully represented the values I would like to bring to this leadership.’ ” Duncan Garner said: “That is weird and simply doesn’t stack up. It looks like a fake apology to me. I actually don’t believe him.”—I actually don’t believe him. “Values don’t just appear issue by issue. Values and principles are things that guide you in your everyday life. Surely Cunliffe would have known”—Hon Annette King: Say it to the Prime Minister.MIKE SABIN: —listen—“by now that having a ‘trust’ represented his values. And a trust structure completely represents who David Cunliffe is.” That is from Duncan Garner. What a condemning statement. And now the stories are all about Mr Cunliffe and his lack of credibility. We have seen three issues. We have seen the baby bonus bluff: “It must have been my staff—oh no it was me!”. We have seen him backtracking and dilly-dallying around and trying to dodge the fact that he owns a very very nice house in Marine Parade—a $2.5 million house. What is wrong with actually being proud of what you have worked for to achieve in life? I do not know why but that is another example of him trying to mislead until he cannot do anything else. Then we have seen the debacle around the trust.The point is that you cannot just pick and choose what your values are; the values are what they are in you and when you try to please everyone by sidestepping the issue you run into the problems that he has. He has brought in Matt McCarten to help solve the problem. What an extreme irony—that the marriage of the left and the extreme left is there to help solve them. Matt McCarten is no friend of “David Cunningmyth”. My goodness has Matt McCarten had some things to say! When that marriage of inconvenience blows up we are going to see a supernova of trickiness. We on this side of the House—and I suspect probably the media—are waiting with bated breath for that. The damage is already done. The damage is already done. David Cunliffe has been the master of his own demise. The “Anyone But Cunliffe” club was right and the media has woken up to that. What we are hearing now the noise coming out of the Labour Party is: “Let’s just minimise the damage. We’re not going to win in 2014 but at least it’ll give us a chance to get rid of David Cunliffe.” David Cunliffe has become “David Cunningmyth” and is soon to become just another urban myth.