English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:674;Page:20477] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I must acknowledge the previous speaker Ruth Dyson. I did not used to think she was a very good health spokesperson until Grant Robertson got on the job. I think Labour should bring back Ruth Dyson because by comparison she was hard-working insightful and she had something positive to offer. But now that the Labour Party is run by student politicians as if it was a students association we know that Ruth Dyson was pretty good. 
I share the member’s concern for those families she mentioned. I wish the Labour Party was because we have seen in this House that there is actually only one thing the Labour Party really cares about: voluntary student membership of student unions. We are used to the Opposition being unfocused lacking in knowledge being irrelevant to what is going on in the world generally and making no impact except on student union membership. When Labour members are focused they are insightful they have a strategy and they are consistent—until it all falls over when they get it wrong even on the one thing they care about. When there are riots in London when our financial markets are all over the place volatile and unpredictable and when New Zealanders are working with the biggest natural disaster in the developed world compared with the size of our economy Labour spent all election year filibustering over the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. That was the only positive contribution Labour made except for the one other thing it really cared about: how Phil Goff could get out of forgetting that he had been briefed about Israeli tourists. On that issue we saw passion we saw persistence and we saw a media strategy. It was all because Labour still wants to act like it is in Government. 
The reason Labour is not relevant to the current debates going on in New Zealand or around the world is that it has not yet apologised for getting it so wrong when it was in Government. This is a political party that thinks Helen Clark will drop out of the sky back into the Prime Minister’s seat any day when the New Zealand electorate wakes up and realises it made a big mistake putting Labour out of office. This is a political party that is still putting out press releases as if it is the Government—for example the spokesman on finance calmly reassured the nation that in the face of market turmoil his decisions would keep us on a steady road back to higher spending more debt bigger Government lower incomes and fewer exports. 
You see that is what New Zealand remembers about the tail end of that Government: it was mired in controversy and scandal. It left office mired in controversy and scandal. Nothing has changed about the attitudes that gave rise to those scandals and nothing has changed about the policy. It is the 2007 Budget all over again as if nothing has changed. The same stuff is wheeled out in the same way by the same kind of politician who does not know much about what is going on in the real world. 
That is why the public supports the John Key - led Government. There is no alternative for a start but actually it is much more positive than that. Through all of that time National has focused on the issues that matter not the voluntary student membership bill—and for the 5 minutes we did we tripped up Labour. The Government has delivered considered and consistent decisions that protect the vulnerable through tough times and lay the building blocks for reversing the economic decline that that party when in Government pushed New Zealand into. The Government is reversing the excesses of rapid credit growth wasteful Government and a shrinking export sector. That is why New Zealand supports the John Key Government