Hughes Darren: General Debate 
Hughes Darren: General Debate 
[Volume:668;Page:15172] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 If any member of the executive greeted with great delight the announcement made by the Prime Minister this week that there will not be a major Cabinet reshuffle before the general election it would have been the Hon Anne Tolley. I think her lack of passion in describing her education portfolio at the tail end of her speech just shows why when everyone thought the skids would be put under her before the election she must have been so happy at John Key’s announcement that there would be no change in Cabinet. The national standards slogan that the Minister is trying to turn into a policy is a disaster up hill and down dale. Anybody who delves into the issue to understand it gets to see that it was a slogan for an election; it was never meant to be a policy for a country. That is what all the people tell us who sit in meetings and look at the issue in a clever way—be they parents students or teachers. The same thing comes through time and time again: the slogan does not work as a policy. But then of course it is part of the whole mantra of “smile and wave”. 
I want to follow on from what the deputy leader of the Labour Party the Hon Annette King had to say about the Mana by-election. There are some really important issues for that by-election to be held on 20 November that we believe are worth exploring. Annette King has talked about the health issues in that electorate. I want to touch on some of the transport issues in the Mana electorate. 
At the last general election residents of the Mana and Otaki electorates thought there was a bipartisan transport policy between Labour and National when it came to transport. They thought that both parties were saying the same thing. In fact the National candidates went quite some way to wrap themselves in the cloak of the Labour Government of that time. They said they believed in Transmission Gully and they said they believed in the 90 percent Government subsidy for a local two-lane Western Link Road like the one that the Labour Party had proposed and funded. They said they believed in the further electrification and double tracking of rail. Those were the things they said at the time of the general election. 
Then about a year or so ago in the dead of night Steven Joyce the Minister of Transport who runs large swathes of the Government behind closed doors decided he had a better idea than everybody else—a bit of a theme there actually. He thought he knew better than absolutely everybody else. He turned up and said he had lived in the community 35 years ago so therefore he knew what the answer should be. He said a four-lane 110 kilometre an hour motorway an autobahn should go right through the whole of the Kapiti coast. That is what he said he was going to do but that was not what the National Party had campaigned on and the community was taken by huge surprise because of that. 
Of course during the consultation period the big bold decisive brave and courageous National MPs in the area when asked what their opinion was said nothing. They had no opinion on the preferred option in the consultation period. They had absolutely nothing to say about it at all. They sat on the fence waiting and waiting to see what the Minister of Transport would decide. As soon as he made a decision they were gung-ho behind him—the greatest cheerleaders ever to have walked along the Kapiti coast. That is how bold and brave they were. 
On Sunday this week the people of Kapiti were meant to find out where the expressway will be going. The New Zealand Transport Agency spent $22000 on inviting people from all around the region to come and see the plans. As we heard in question time yesterday and today Steven Joyce the Harry Potter equivalent of Lord Voldemort in this Government discovered that this issue would be coming up before the by-election and he decided— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Harry Potter saves the day. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: If only Tau Henare had gone to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry he might be in a better state than he is in. But he would join any old organisation which is why he is sitting over there on the National benches at the present time. As soon as Steven Joyce found out that this issue was coming up too close to the Mana by-election he cancelled the consultation. On 2 November the Government cancelled the consultation due to take place on 7 November until after the Mana by-election. 
Do members not think that the National MPs for the area would be outraged at this disenfranchisement of the people of Kapiti? Do they not think the National MPs would be waving around pieces of paper saying that it was not good enough and that there comes a time when MPs have to put their community before their party so they were breaking ranks with their Government in order to make sure that their people had a say before the by-election? But can members guess what? There was not a word not a complaint not a criticism and not a demand for a new series of dates. The National MPs sat there boldly saying absolutely nothing. They are lambs in Parliament and lambs in the electorate. It is absolutely unbelievable. Now we know that these plans will remain secret because the Government is scared to release them to the Mana electorate. It is a disgrace. Government members should be upfront with the public about the situation. They should go back to Labour’s policy at the last election which they said they were in favour of as well.