Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7487] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 For the uninitiated who are listening to this on radio I say that the last speaker was one Nathan Guy who harks from a province near here. I was very interested in his speech. I know he is a new member but he asked what his role is. He was challenged by members on this side of the House to provide one policy in his speech. He was not equal to that challenge; he had not one policy not half a policy—he said it was not National’s role. What is the role of an Opposition? Well apart from Opposition members sitting on their backsides and claiming 120 grand a year the role of Opposition members is yes to oppose. That is the natural role of an Opposition. One would have thought that after 7½—nigh on 8—years in Opposition Nathan Guy who is part of the new world order with a few of the other “newies” who have come in on that side of the House would be told to get up and put out an agenda and a policy. 
Michael Cullen used a very interesting phrase. I will give Nathan Guy a little history lesson. In American politics every candidate for leadership goes through a particular phase. Michael Cullen used the term for it; it is called the “where is the beef?” moment or “where is the substance?” or “where is the policy?”. National members can go with the “slick willy” routine. They can paint John Key with as many coats of varnish as they want but at some time he will come to that American political moment when he has to come up with the beef. He will run out of stunts like the one at Waitangi where he used a young Maori girl. I have never in my life seen such a blatant use of a young person in politics. As Shane Jones said in his address the kaumatua nailed him and told him not to bring a pet up there. He got nailed at Waitangi on that. Then there was the so-called food in schools stunt. He got unzipped slit open and stitched back up again because he tried to pull a fast one not only on that principal and that school but on our communities. 
John Key of course is a person who thinks in transactions. He was a foreign-exchange dealer: a man who made his pile as a junk bond dealer trading down the Kiwi dollar. He thinks in transactions. As Michael Cullen said when John Key was asked what his position as a 19-year-old was on the 1981 Springbok Tour he thought about it as a transaction. He thought that if he said he was for it he would maybe brass off a historic group in the community; if he said he was agin it he would probably alienate a few others; but if he told the truth and said what he believed—if he knew what he believed—then he might show some leadership. He copped out and took both plan A and plan B. He could not even answer when asked the simple question—and I am not moralising here as a not-very-good Catholic myself—of whether he believed in God; he thought in transactions. He could not quite—after four attempts—give a straight answer. 
Mr English says he is hand in glove with Mr Key and I believe him. Mr Key is the glove puppet and we all know where Mr English’s hand resides. It resides right in that glove puppet. We know who writes the speeches. I say that the Prime Minister—unlike the Opposition—set out an agenda. She reminded this Opposition that we have the second-lowest unemployment in the OECD and that we have created 330000 jobs as a nation. I ask people to ask what National did when they were in power for nigh on a decade. We re-created recrystallised and backed our young people with apprenticeships after National had destroyed apprenticeships. Lockwood Smith gets up in Parliament and says he is proud of the fact that he did over and destroyed the Apprenticeship Act. 
We backed our young people. We backed our elderly folk with a sustainable policy. The Opposition hates that word “sustainable” because it cuts to the quick of the shallowness and the hollowness of every member on that side who cannot in every speech in this debate come up with one policy idea. They lambaste us for talking about sustainability. They lambaste us for saying what we believe and that we are going to promote policies and ideas that will protect our environment. In doing that we do a simple thing: we protect our communities we protect our social fabric and we protect our natural and public environment. 
They lambaste us for putting a policy agenda on the table in our third term in office. But when challenged would the hollow men the hollowed-out crew over there give us one answer one idea or one thought? Even if they cannot give us a policy can they give just a thought to say they had an idea they wanted to kick around with the communities? Not one of them will front up. They are great superstars with their wonderful careers in the private sector. They are great intellects who wandered into Parliament. They are the disappointed men who were lawyers and trade ambassadors on the outside and now of course they sit languishing over there not quite realising their dreams and their ambitions. 
There is intellect over there somewhere. They hide it well but it may be there. I challenge them. They have had a Prime Minister’s statement setting an agenda and setting a number of policies: what we are going to do in the transport area how we are going to take apprenticeships to the next level and how we are going to sort out things close to my heart—energy efficiency and health and safety within housing. They have all our ideas and unlike Nathan Guy we are not afraid to put them out there. We believe we actually get paid to propose and to challenge our communities with policies and ideas. 
I say to Nathan Guy that if he wants to know how to earn his pay he should go back to wherever he came from go out and do a clinic occasionally speak to more than his little inner circle of the silk suit - wearing brigade and ask the communities what they think. Maybe he should go out and apologise for what he did in the last election when he made jokes about climate change and laughed about sustainability. Maybe he can go back to where he comes from and answer the challenge of why for 9 years National members have denied there is a problem in the environment. For 9 years they said it was a joke—it was smoke and mirrors. The man who walks in now was the proponent of that and now they have had a road to Damascus experience. Suddenly they believe it—but only because it is politically palatable. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member’s time has expired. The question is that Heather Roy’s amendment be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question that all the words after the word “That” be omitted and the following substituted: “this House has no confidence in the Government which is in denial about the real issues confronting New Zealanders keeping families dependent on government and stands between our people and prosperity.”