Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:12446] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 What a delight it is to finally hear from Maurice Williamson the invisible National spokesman on information and communications technology. How many press releases has that member issued in the last year? Not one! How many good ideas has that member contributed to the broadband debate in the last year? Not one! How many supporters does he have in the sector? It is the same answer. 
But if Maurice Williamson’s problem is that he is invisible John Key has the opposite problem. It was once said of our former colleague Michael Laws that in his last unsuccessful race for member of Parliament he made one mistake: he ran a long campaign and the public got to know him! The same is true of John Key; he is flouncing around like an ageing fiancé who has had one too many first dates. He is starting to look a tad jaded. Bill English knows that which is why in the House today he could not help himself—he could not get the bush out of his tail he could not keep the grin off his face. Poor old John! 
John Key’s dilemma is an old one: to tell or not to tell. He tried not telling for so long. He was an expert at turning up at the Hero Parade in a pink T-shirt and at turning up at Waitangi with a “rent a poor person” under his arm saying nothing but being full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. The trouble was that the press was on to him. Here are a few samples. An article from 3 August stated: “His focus is blurry.” and “He says there will be more policy later.” An article in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 from 8 August stated: “Key needs to be braver on policies.” and “None of [his] ideas are exactly new or inspiring …”. An article from 8 August stated: “… the inconsistent statements and shift in positions have been on the rise.” and “… National and its leader were a long way off magnificent.” 
So John Key changed tack. He started to let out what he really thought and that was just marvellous—“Marvellous!” as John Campbell would say. What did National do? It said it would send troops to Iraq then it said it would not then it said it never would have. Well which version of John Key’s thinking is the public supposed to believe? National said it would sell State assets then it said that it would not. Then it said that it would as long as Labour did not or that it would if its members thought of it first. What version of National’s State-owned enterprises policy are we to believe? 
National will make people pay for the healthcare they have already paid for; it will take the ceiling off general practitioner charges. That will keep a few of National’s rich mates in the health system happy but it will prove to be a turning point of the 2008 campaign. It will keep National where it deserves to be for the good of New Zealand which is on the Opposition benches for another 3 short years until it gets another try at fooling the public that it has changed. 
But the public knows better; the public knows that the “Hollow Men” are still in charge. The public remembers that John Key was the right-wing candidate that Bill English was the centrist candidate and that the right wing won. The right wing of the National Party has so much money it can hire the very best spin doctors to pretend that it is not what it is. The trouble is that the public knows that it is what it is so one statement about flogging the family silver or market-based healthcare brings it all rushing back like a hangover—the 1990s when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and when ordinary Kiwi families missed out. It has taken us a decade to claw our way back to a society that we can be half proud of now. 
The problem is not that we can never countenance a National Government but that New Zealand cannot afford a 10-year experiment of going backwards. We cannot afford another mistake like the 1990s. For the good of our economy and for the good of our society and community we must face the future—and that means facing the future with an inclusive progressive and social democratic Government led by Labour. That is what New Zealanders have voted for the last three times and that is what they will vote for again. They will vote for building coalitions with other parties in the House showing real leadership and using the power of the State for good. They will vote for active progressive Government not market-based Government—we have had enough of that. It has been tried and it has failed. The press is on to National and I think that some of the most recent comments are very instructive.