Key John: General Debate 
Key John: General Debate 
[Volume:630;Page:2503] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 That was a tired speech from a tired Minister in a tired Government. I know why she is tired. It is because she did what every other Labour Minister did on Sunday morning. Last Sunday was a little different from most other Sundays because Labour Ministers got up knowing that the  
Listener 
 was coming out on sale. So Labour Ministers set their alarms for 7 a.m. as they were just not quite sure who Helen Clark was going to finger. The word had gone out that there was a message for one of the front bench. Annette King knew that she had gone from the all-important health portfolio to police and she knew she could be the one to be mentioned by Helen Clark. I hear from the Rongotai dairy owner who sold her a copy at 7.01 a.m. that the look on her face was one of relief as she got back into her self-drive ministerial car knowing that Michael Cullen was the one to be fingered. 
I feel a little sympathy for Michael Cullen. He has spent 30 years slaving away in the shadow of Helen Clark. It is a shadow that is cast from some very far-flung parts of the range as she traverses the Earth at all-important functions like some inter-parliamentary faith conference—as opposed to the Commonwealth Games which she did not have time to pop over to. For 30 years Michael Cullen has stood behind her loyally supporting her. How was he treated last Sunday when the  
Listener 
 came out? He was treated with a kick in the teeth. He must have choked on his chewing gum when he woke up to read that article. Helen Clark who described herself as a close friend and colleague of Michael Cullen for 30 years was there in print musing about his imminent departure. 
 No wonder Michael Cullen was a little miffed. This is a man who is not usually short of a comment yet 2 days went by before Michael Cullen could find anything to say. That is because he had to oversee a very unusual situation. It was a macabre kind of scene—something like  
The Godfather 
 with Helen Clark playing her new role as “The Godmother” as a sort of real-life female version of Marlon Brando. Was she really trying to tell the trusted deputy Michael Cullen that he now sleeps with the fishes? Is that what she was trying to tell him through the pages of the  
Listener 
 magazine? Was she trying to tell him that he was about to have a horse’s head delivered to his parliamentary bed? That is what he thought was coming. Poor old Michael Cullen—after 30 years. Of course the next day she played it out beautifully on screen. What did she say? She said: “I am going to encourage him to stay.” That sounded really convincing. She said that even though he is in his early 60s and even though he is engrossed with what he will do next she will encourage him to stay. 
Michael Cullen went to the seventh floor and did what any self-respecting Minister of Finance would do after he has been treated like that—he sulked for 24 hours. He said to Mike Jaspers: “You get out there and tell them I’ve got nothing to say. No comment. I don’t have anything to say about a woman I’ve loyally supported for 30 years and she’s come out in the  
Listener 
 and kicked me in the guts.” One has to ask why Helen in her new modern-day role as a female Marlon Brando made that comment. There are two options. The first option is that she knew from Michael Cullen that he was off. She would only confirm one Budget. [ 
Interruption 
] Let us get the facts right I say to Mrs King. She said: “One budget—I can’t see any further than that.” Or she was trying to send him a message just like the message she sent to Dover Samuels Jill Pettis Georgina Beyer George Hawkins— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: “The Godmother”! 
JOHN KEY 
: —exactly—Russell Fairbrother and Marian Hobbs and the list goes on. They are all gone. Poor old Michael Cullen! He has got the DVD and the video at home. He knows what it is like when the ninth floor plays it out against the seventh floor and does it through the force of the State. Michael Cullen deserves a lot better than that. 
In Budget 2005—and we all accept on this side of the House that it was an absolute and unmitigated disaster—Michael Cullen said something that I thought was very interesting. He said that Budgets do not win elections but they can lose them. Well when he delivers one like that he can lose it all right. There was Helen Clark smarting from the fact that she had the unloseable election the second term snatched from within her grasp— 
Darren Hughes 
: Third term. 
JOHN KEY 
: She was within millimetres of her third term when it was snatched from her grasp because Michael Cullen could not deliver a Budget—and she kicked him in the guts.