Sepuloni Carmel: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: General Debate[Sitting date: 01 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2809. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to say that today is a clear indication that the Government has lost its way. It has been so on message the whole time that it has been in Government but now Government members are all over the place. You can see they are in disarray. We can see they are disarray and they are in disarray because Northland was the beginning of the end for the National Government.I want to start by actually congratulating the awesome candidate we had in Northland and that was Willow-Jean Prime. She did a fabulous job. Despite whatever that side of the House might say we are very proud of our candidate Willow-Jean Prime and we are looking forward to seeing her in here in 2017. I do not know whether the National Government can say the same about the candidate that it put up in Northland. I am not sure whether National is looking forward to seeing him run again or even being in the House in 2017 2020 or any other time moving forward.Northland was the beginning of the end for the National Government. Northland showed very clearly that the regions have had enough of being taken advantage of. They knew when National went in there promising them 10 bridges and all of these other things that actually they had been neglected for a very long time. Here was the pork-barrel politics being rolled out by the National Government. They did not appreciate it and National lost because of it.What we are seeing here today from that side of the House are really the five stages of grief. Because we like to support our parliamentary colleagues I thought that in order to be able to assist with the counselling of that side of the House I would look up the five stages of grief. What we are seeing is that all of them are at different stages of that kind of grief model. We have got the first stage being denial and isolation. And we hear the denial and isolation—Hon Nicky Wagner: Tony Ryall did this speech.CARMEL SEPULONI: —screaming out from Nicky Wagner over there denying the fact that National has done anything wrong denying the fact that the regions have given up on the National Party. Nicky Wagner is clearly still in the denial phase.The second phase of the stages of grief is anger and we saw that very clearly today with Simon Bridges screaming at Phil Goff—screaming because he is struggling with the realisation that he has been tainted by the 10 bridges. He is struggling with the realisation that he has been made to look like a fool by his leader and his National Government. So Simon Bridges is clearly going through the stage of anger.The third stage of grief is the stage of bargaining. I have heard many of the National Party MPs talking so nicely off the record about Winston Peters and his win. It is very interesting. We are starting to wonder whether the bargaining is actually beginning between National and New Zealand First—well an attempt at bargaining by National as it tries to woo Winston Peters and New Zealand First knowing full well that National no longer has the numbers to push through things like its Resource Management Act reforms.The fourth stage of grief and we have seen a lot of this today—I think it is really the stage where a lot of the National MPs are at—is that stage of depression. We have been watching from this side of the House as they bow their heads in depression looking very sad sitting there quietly unsure of what to say no longer able to even laugh at the Prime Minister’s failed attempts at jokes. Many on that side of the House are clearly going through the stage of depression.The last stage of grief that we hope we can assist the National Government with getting to is the stage of acceptance—the fifth stage of grief. That side of the House needs to accept that Northland was the beginning of the end that the regions have lost faith in the National Government and that in 2017 New Zealand will be voting them out. Thank you very much.