Okeroa Mahara: General Debates 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Okeroa Mahara: General Debates 
[Sitting date: 15 October 2003. Volume:612;Page:9193. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MAHARA OKEROA (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 As a suppressed member of the Labour benches I take this opportunity to share with the House some very illumining insights. I want to thank the honourable member Gerry Brownlee for the offer of a demonstration but he can be assured that members on this side of the House will have to decline it on the basis of the observation that the honourable member’s navel is lost. It is lost in the unfathomable depths of over-indulgence. 
We wait patiently on this side of the House for a kind of metamorphosis because we were promised that the Leader of the Opposition would somehow change into a decisive confident leader. 
Simon Power 
: How suppressed is this member? 
MAHARA OKEROA 
: No I am not suppressed. But we are waiting. The poll by Colmar Brunton Research Ltd for that member on the question of preferred Prime Minister goes like this from the months of May to October: 7 percent 7 percent 6 percent 9 percent 7 percent and 7 percent. Translated that is 7 7 6 9 7 7. If anyone wanted to put that into a spin it would be called flat-lining; I call it a telephone number. Furthermore National under Bill English has failed miserably—absolutely miserably—to capitalise on anything that has happened in this House in recent months. I consider that politically to be simply appalling. Let us take as the honourable member mentioned the Supreme Court Bill. That is a fact. It has passed; it is finished; it is there. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It’s a disgrace. 
MAHARA OKEROA 
: No it is not a disgrace. It shows us very very clearly without any cross-party political support that that member would never be able to get traction even if he were a tractor—and I tell the member he is. I noted as we went through the consultation hui on the foreshore and seabed that we were graced in some way with the presence of several members of the National Party. But they really failed to get up and tell people exactly what they would have done if they were in power. They sat there and masqueraded in the sense— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It may be the fault of the sound system but I am afraid that in the way my ears heard those words it was a most unparliamentary reference and I would ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
MAHARA OKEROA 
: Masquerading is a perfectly acceptable term I suggest to that member. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to continue please. 
MAHARA OKEROA 
: If I can concentrate for 5 minutes on one or two issues I have to say that the foreshore and seabed issue was a magnificent chance for that party to try to get traction with the electorate. But it was a dismal failure. We are witnessing today a gradual diminishing of the vote—and it now sits at 21 percent. I therefore have to ask myself what has happened to the once-proud National Party and its whakapapa of political leadership. We have Holland. Someone else has referred to Holyoake. We have Marshall Muldoon Bolger—and Bill English. As advice to Bill English all I can give is that common old phrase: “Beam me up Scotty.” 
Mark Peck as an electorate MP in the bottom half of the South Island has spent precious time addressing the issues of at least 143 people and families who wanted to visit and talk with Bill English. Mark Peck has given them that service which otherwise would have been non-existent. I congratulate Mark Peck because those people were unable to see their own MP for whatever reason. Maybe the reason is that he does not have an office in Balclutha. I see that the honourable member Maurice Williamson has departed from the Chamber—unfortunately. I think his view is outstanding. He says— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I have a couple of points. First we try to be as indulgent as we can in recognising that a back-bench Labour member does not get an opportunity to speak very often in this Parliament but the issue of Mark Peck and industrial relations matters relating to his office should not be brought up in this House. Further the reference to the absence of a member is also unparliamentary and the member even though he has not spoken often in his 4 years at Parliament should know that rule. I suggest he does not bring up the industrial relations matter concerning Mark Peck’s office. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Certainly the absence of members cannot be referred to. The other matter is not a point of order. 
MAHARA OKEROA 
: The honourable member Maurice Williamson made a very telling comment which was: “I don’t believe that Bill is perceived by either the rest of the team or by the general public as leadership material. I don’t think Bill English has anywhere near the excitement the charisma the humour the personality the talent” and so on. I think that is very telling. Not only is his party not even the natural party of Opposition any more it is now obvious that he is not even the natural Leader of the Opposition. I have just one word of advice that I want to share with honourable members opposite. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: This has been the longest 5 minutes of my life. 
MAHARA OKEROA 
: I know that the honourable member’s life is not very long but still! The dictionary is the only place where the word “success” comes before “work”.