Swain Paul: General Debate 
Swain Paul: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15734] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I will take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the slippery asset sale policy of the National Party but I heard some things before that I feel I must comment on. I heard National members saying that they were concerned about petrol prices. Of course we all are concerned—not just personally but for all the people in our electorates. So I waited to hear what a future National Government would do about the internationally set price. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: You’ve been waiting for 8 years but doing nothing. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Well I was previously the Minister of Commerce and had to look at this issue. I found it a difficult thing to deal with. So I ask the National members who are here what they would do about petrol prices. What would a future National Government do? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: We wouldn’t have wasted 8 years— 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It would not have wasted 8 years. That is all we hear. We hear them whingeing whining grizzling and groaning but we never hear from them what they will do. That is the huge frustration. Of course— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. The member on my left is interjecting in the second person. That will cease immediately otherwise he will go back to his own seat. He is using the position to facilitate interjection which is out of order. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: When National members try to start to talk about what National would do they slip and slide on it. One of the things that is not well known around this place is that actually quite a lot of humour goes on here even though the National Party has attacked the Labour Government for its humour and the National Party is a bit humourless. But a lot of humour goes on around this place and some of the best humour comes from cartoons. There have been some fabulous cartoons. My own policy on this issue is that having had a few cartoons done about me in my time if I think they are funny about other people then I suppose they are funny when they are done about me. I think that that is the general rule I have applied. 
I have picked up a fabulous cartoon. It shows the leader of the National Party John Key sitting at a table with a little label on it that states “National first term”. John Key is holding out in his left hand a turkey—a nicely cooked fresh juicy turkey—that has “Assets sales” written on it. John Key is saying in front of a whole lot of microphones: “Rest assured this issue is off the table.”—that is the asset sales issue is off the table. Sitting underneath the freshly cooked turkey is a salivating bulldog with a knife and fork and with a bib on that states “Second term”. The cartoon means that although the National Party has said that asset sales are off the table for the first term everybody knows that they will be on the table for the second term. That is the problem with the National Party: even when it tries to clarify it still tries to be slippery. 
Of course on that policy the National Party has annoyed everyone. It has annoyed the public because the public know that asset sales are actually on the agenda. It is just that National members have not got the fortitude to say “This term.”; they have said “Oh next term.” But the National Party has also annoyed its own support base who are asking “What is wrong with asset sales? Why isn’t my party the National Party coming clean and saying that asset sales should be on the agenda?”. We know there are lots of National members over there who think that asset sales should be on the agenda. Bill English believes in asset sales. Why does he not come clean and say so? Maurice Williamson agrees with asset sales. He has said in the past that they should be done. Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith believes in asset sales. In fact John Key himself—a man of the private sector—desperately believes in asset sales. But they just cannot bring themselves to come to Parliament and say “Well we actually believe in asset sales because we are the National Party and our supporters want us to do it.” 
What is wrong with them? They cannot do it. Do members know why? It is because National members know that if they said that to the public the public would never ever vote for them. So National has had this kind of $1 bet each way—a bit of slip here a bit of slide there; a bit of flip here and a bit of flop there. They have said “We won’t sell assets in our first term.” so everybody knows that that means it will sell them in the second term. 
Let us have a look at a bit of history. In 2002 John Key said he believed that some form of orientation towards privatisation in health education and superannuation made sense. That was in 2002. In 2003 John Key said “I can’t see any compelling reason to own Air New Zealand.” Then in 2004 Don Brash said they were not willing to say whether there were going to be any State-owned enterprises. And so it goes on—slipping and sliding on asset sales. Assets will be gone under National.