Clark David: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: General Debate[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3471. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): What a difference 1 year makes—what a difference. Public-private partnerships or“PPP” used to mean something different to the National Party. It was the holy grail of Government intervention. Think Skycity gambling deals. Think Novopay streamlining. But they were just a glimpse of a promised future holy land. When Government partners with the private sector anything is possible—just ask the Inland Revenue Department. But do not get me wrong. Labour is not averse to partnering with the private sector. We have done it before and we will do it again. You just will not see the same kind of excited dribbling every time the term is raised. But what a difference a year makes. In the National Party “PPP” has taken on quite a different meaning. Members around the House have probably heard National Party backbenchers breathlessly whispering about “PPPs” in the corridors and in the select committees. The National Party’s “PPPs” are on every backbencher’s list right now. Because of the National Party’s usual excitement about privatising gains and socialising losses I gave these hushed “PPP” whispers little breach at first but they persisted—they have persisted.What is this new “PPP” the National backbenchers are so obsessed with? What is this buzz around the beehive? I consider it must be some scandal so I gave it some thought. Could it be a new scandal around Pansy Wong about which we do not yet know after she used her parliamentary funding for her husband’s private business trips—“TPPP” or travelling with partner for private profit perhaps? It seemed unlikely. Could it be a new scandal around Richard Worth—something about text messaging? Rumours about piquant private pictures abound. Or was it a new revelation about Phil Heatley and the publicly funded pinot payout? Still more rumours were doing the rounds. “PPPs” were everywhere I looked—the National Party is full of gossip and backstabbing these days; I can hear it coming from opposite now—but I easily dismissed the next two rumours. That Aaron Gilmore was a pathetic piss-prick was hardly news. Private purchases using public funds seemed to fit the National Party mantra but Claudette “Credit Card” Hauiti did not seem to have the head to be at the centre of so much recklessness so I dismissed that straight away.Then it dawned on me: maybe it was a reference to the Statler and Waldorf of the National Party backbenchers. There they are over there. Perhaps their coup planning was about to have its pay day. Maurice Williamson the police-phoning politician might be involved. Maybe the “PPP” whispers related instead to the ascension of his bench mate the original “PPP”—the private business Poo-Bah of Peking—but still I was not sure. What I found out though after extensive research is this. Not everyone at home will know it yet but I can disclose to the public watching this debate today that when the National Party members talk about “PPPs” they are in fact talking about post-ponytail polling. In the National caucus they have seen the “PPPs”—the post-ponytail polls—and I can see it by looking across the House. They are lining up across the House to replace John Key. His credibility has been dented once too often. The teflon is gone.I hear them crying out that Judith would be better. It is coming from across the House. Around the House they know that the internal squabbles eloquently captured in every movement of Judith Collins’ nubile eyebrows is costing them. They know that the public of New Zealand is losing trust in the empty promises of the Government and they recognise a Government that has lost touch that looks tired and that looks arrogant. This is a Government riven by internal divisions—a Government that has broken its economic promise of a surplus. It is a Government that is now hosing down its promise to deliver wage rises to workers. It is a Government that is failing.Now its focus has fallen on the internal “PPP”. What a difference 1 year makes. Running into the last election we saw a Government wading through a quagmire of scandals. The dirty politics revelations showed that John Key’s office was intimately involved in smear campaigns and treachery. But John Key stood to one side and said: “It has nothing to do with me. I couldn’t possibly know what was happening in my office. I have no responsibility for it.” That is what he said then. He said that there is nothing to see here. But all of this has changed. Since the election the dirty politics revelations have proved themselves correct. The tactics—