Benson-Pope David: General Debates 
Benson-Pope David: General Debates 
[Volume:613;Page:9725] 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I would like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for making his views so clear. I am one of the members of this House who have often asked National members what the National Party stands for so I am particularly pleased that Dr Brash makes no bones about what National policy is. I think that will be strongly welcomed by voters who have also been wondering what if anything National represents apart from it being a party that is prepared to sell thousands of State houses then complain that there are none. I think most of the members of this community will find it really useful to hear what Dr Brash says. 
I believe what Dr Brash says and voters in New Zealand should also believe what he says. He says that the most impressive MPs outside National are Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble. It is easy to see why he cannot find any in National. He wants further privatisation and further asset sales. On day one he started talking about selling TVNZ the remaining power companies and Air New Zealand. That will be a policy that is new to and welcomed by New Zealand voters! Dr Brash has been very clear that he would raise the age of entitlement for New Zealand superannuation. He would give tax breaks to his friends the rich and give nothing to lower-income people. He supports a capital gains tax and perhaps most important of all he supports the continued privatisation of health and education services. I think we should all be very grateful that he has been so unequivocal about the new difference between the National Party and the Government. 
I think most New Zealanders now regard the National Party as a hapless bunch of two-timers. It took Dr Brash two goes to get rid of Bill English. It took 2 minutes for him to start talking about selling assets again. It took about 2½ days for the new deputy to get 2 weeks leave. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned it is just too good to be true! 
Let us talk about the strategic brilliance of it all. Let us talk about how National members waited until Friday evening to have a crisis that had been building up over 3 days. Let us talk about how they waited until Friday evening so that they could fill the front page of all the Saturday papers—the only newspapers that people in this country read—with their great secret. Most people know the expression “day of the long knives”. This party has given the language a new saying. This was and will go down in history as the “disastrous day of the Dick Long”. It was his finest hour. I congratulate Dr Brash and his team on the strategic brilliance they have brought to the National Party. I shall repeat the Jane Clifton quote in the current  
Listener 
 that we have already had read to us: “National could barely organise a coup [plot] so why would voters trust them with a country? … Could these plotters have made themselves and more important their party look more desperate unstable and indecisive if they’d been secret Labour Party operatives? The kindest thing you can say is that they genuinely thought they could save the National Party by destroying it.” 
What did actually happen? I defer to the extra information shared by my ministerial predecessor but I have heard a slightly different story. I believe that the actual scenario last week was that Bill English had 20 votes the day before and that was why his numbers men were over at the Back Bencher celebrating—because they knew that they had stitched up the 20 votes. What happened? Well they trumpeted it just a tad too loudly. There were people in the National caucus who were so disillusioned and so frustrated by the lack of leadership that they decided when it came to the vote to give Mr English a bit of a fright. So one or two of them changed their vote. Unfortunately it was just one or two too many. It was a monumental mistake. They wanted to send a message to Mr English—they wanted to give him a fright—but they gave him the wrong message. They simply stuffed it up. 
What does it mean? It means that the National Party is led by a minority leader. It means in simple terms that of the people who sit around Dr Brash fewer support him than support Mr English. Let us look at some of those supporters. Richard Worth will not be around after Rodney Hide rolls him in Epsom. David Carter and Lockwood Smith are great assets; they are despised by the rest of the caucus. What thanks did Georgina te Heuheu get for her support? She is in the third row now. Mrs Rich is a good supporter: she supported Jenny Shipley she supported Bill English and now she supports Don Brash. Frankly with friends like that and with a majority opposing Dr Brash he should be very very worried.