Chadwick Steve: General Debate 
Chadwick Steve: General Debate 
[Volume:620;Page:15482] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I do not think we all need to shout to get the message through. The right wing is in absolute turmoil yet again. It has no leadership no policy and definitely no commitment whereas we are providing strong and stable leadership and building a strong and confident nation. The Leader of the Opposition is intent on pulling this country down here and overseas. He is already giving up and so he should. It is a sign of absolute desperation when the Leader of the Opposition goes to Australia to bad-mouth New Zealand and New Zealanders hate it. That will bounce back woefully on the Opposition in the election. The country feels it. 
Not only does that leader lack leadership but his own members get things wrong. We have had Dr Brash saying he would abolish New Zealand’s nuclear-free status Bill English getting it wrong on literacy and Sandra Goudie saying there was conflict between the Kiwi Income Property Trust and Maori over the Resource Management Act up in Coromandel. I was in Coromandel on Friday. The people there loathed that the member for Coromandel had discredited Hauraki Plains College. They loathed that. Sandra Goudie has caused irreparable damage up there. It has ripped the National caucus apart. Dragging that college through the mud was an appalling thing to do. It really was. 
There is not even a “Brash attack” going on now. He has puttered out completely. He creeps around this House like the phantom of politics—the “ghost who walks” or slinks. Outside the House he fronts up quite a bit but it is always to his own little colonial tea-party club. He cannot front up in the House. We all cringe when the Leader of the Opposition comes into the House. Even the  
Sunday Star-Times  
has noticed it. That newspaper has reported that he is in real trouble. It gave his performance on Tuesday two out of 10 and said that he was inert to the point of barely showing a pulse. The newspaper gave him seven out of 10 for Wednesday’s performance. That was quite good but it reported that our Dr Cullen was overseas on that day so Dr Brash had a bit of a crack at it. The next day he got four out of 10. It said he fails to make inroads and that Mr Prebble is better at making inroads in the House. I say he is absolutely hopeless at that. 
I want to explore Dr Brash’s leadership on health and his attitude towards Dr Lynda Scott. The health sector cannot believe that the Leader of the Opposition got rid of Lynda Scott in his reshuffle. Dr Brash cannot explain his own reshuffle. He is totally confused and cannot even work out how to make sense of the ranking of the people on the front bench. Lynda Scott knows about health. The health sector knows that he dumped Lynda Scott because she could not get health made a high priority for National when it goes into the elections next year. That was an appalling decision. It shows us that behind his benign chipmunk smile is a set of vicious teeth. It is a set of teeth that Dr Brash will sink into anybody in his own party when he feels he needs to. He lost confidence in Dr Lynda Scott. He did not like her challenge—I admire her; of course health should be a high priority—so he replaced her with Judith Collins who knows nothing about the health sector. The health sector knows that. Managers and clinicians know that fact already. They know he did not consider it a high priority. They know he has put Judith Collins in and they are most embarrassed about it. 
All the Nats I know in health say that was an appalling decision. Why would he get rid of two doctors and put a lawyer in as the health spokesperson? Even the two doctors are fighting. Dr Paul Hutchison went to Queenstown and made up what he would do in regionalising district health boards. Judith Collins has already said that she refutes this as it is not National Party policy. They are fighting—where is the leadership? 
The National Party has no understanding of how the health sector works but the health sector remembers the horrible reforms of the 1990s. All it is asking for is that the sector be consolidated. This will be a technical blunder of the highest order in the elections next year. The sector does not want to go back to being driven by economics. It remembers that well and the National Party will fall flat on its face. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.