Hodgson Pete: General Debates 
Hodgson Pete: General Debates 
[Volume:607;Page:4423] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Energy) 
: 
 One would think that with this nation’s proclivity for a bit of gambling a bit of a punt the TAB would be running a ticket on who will be the leader of the National Party in say 3 months from now. One would expect the TAB to come out and say: “We’ve worked out what the opening odds are and we invite people to place their bets.” It has not done so because it cannot work out what the opening odds are. One cannot get any one to place a bet on any person in the National Party unless the odds are really long because that person has no form. But if everybody has really long odds the TAB will not be able to run the thing at a profit. So they cannot have shortened odds. That is the underlying reason that Bill English is still the leader of the National Party. There is no one left to replace him; there is no obvious successor. 
Let us look at how bad he is and then ask why he is still there. This is the man who polled 7 percent in the last poll and he still has the job. He is now running third in the preferred Prime Minister stakes in this House behind not only the Prime Minister but also the leader of New Zealand First. Bill English came third in the poll and he still has the job. He has fallen from a rating of 21 percent as the preferred Prime Minister to a rating of 7 percent. He has lost two-thirds of his support since he got the job and he still has the job. How can that possibly be? He is outperformed in Parliament by the leader of the ACT party time and time again but he still has the job. He says he will join the war in Iraq even though he does not quite know whether that means sending troops and he still has the job. He has already given away the next election by saying that we will be a three-term Government but he still has the job. He has no policy position on anything but he still has the job. Instead of having a policy position he says we need a debate a dialogue or a national conversation or we need to review everything. 
Why is he still there? Is it because people think he can win in 2008? No; they do not think that. Is he there because people think he has some leadership or vision? No. What is the reason? I will quote none other than a National MP who said: “It would be the case that Mr English would be replaced in days if there was a logical alternative. I don’t think there is a logical alternative.” 
Who is in the wings? If there is no logical alternative what does an illogical alternative look like? We could try bright young futuristic and flexible-minded Don Brash. Here is what someone from the National Party caucus said about Don Brash: “There is only one alternative to the current leadership and that is Don Brash.” That same member of Parliament went on to say this about Mr English: “It is not far now from being irretrievable.” So it seems that something might be happening and that that something might be Mr Brash. Perhaps National will be re-elected with Don Brash at the head of the team by scrapping the dole by raising the age of eligibility for superannuation and by allowing a deregulating privatising and cost-cutting ideology to come back. Will it be a case of déjà vu and “back to the future” as we rerun the 1990s? I do not think so. Don Brash will not be elected any time in the next 5 years—and he will be 68 by then. 
Let us talk about Mr Brownlee. People like Mr Brownlee. They warm to him. They find him funny. They try to refloat him at high tide. So if Mr Brownlee were to become the leader of the National Party—assuming he does not float away at high tide—what might we get? The subtlety of—what? I say we will get the subtlety of a brick. Nuclear ships would be back in our ports and we would have a leader with a command of the English language that would make President Bush sound like a Shakespearean actor. We would also have an electricity market that proves its workability by not delivering enough generation. We would have a leader who went through the last election failing to write an energy policy for the National Party and failing even to get anyone else to write an energy policy for the National Party. I think it will be Richard Worth.