Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
[Volume:625;Page:20679] 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 It is plain that the National Party and the ACT party have descended to the gutter together hand in hand in their attempt to take the electorate’s mind off the lack of leadership and lack of policy that National represents and off the lack of leadership and lack of political future that the ACT party represents. There has been quite disgraceful behaviour and it is not clear whether it was a private treaty—an uncivil union—between Judith Collins and Rodney Hide or whether the National Party secretly agreed with the idea of the two of them joining forces in the most disgusting behaviour I have ever seen in this House in the nearly 15 years I have been here. 
The ACT party will not be here after the election and the behaviour of the current leader will have been the main contributor to that. So to that extent ACT is utterly irrelevant. However National’s descent into the gutter is of more concern because National is attempting to cover up its lack of leadership and its lack of policy. 
It is hard to imagine a more unsuitable person to be a Prime Minister of this country than Dr Don Brash. If Don Brash had been the Prime Minister of New Zealand at the time we would have had troops in Iraq as part of the coalition called upon by the United States without UN backing for that invasion. That is where New Zealand would have been. It would have been a case of follow the leader—Don Brash following leaders George Bush and John Howard. That of course is entirely predictable from someone like Dr Brash. 
What was totally unpredictable though was his reaction to the foot-and-mouth scare we have had over the last few days. He said that he would not have issued a public statement on the fact that a threat had been made. He would have kept it a secret and he thinks that it makes a difference that it was probably a hoax. He said that we should have tried harder as a Government to find out whether there was any truth to the allegations and to say absolutely nothing in the meantime. How does that member think that our trading partners would have reacted to that sort of behaviour? 
I know that some people have already referred to a  
Timaru Herald 
 editorial but I want to quote another section from it. It states: “How to make certain there is no truth in the allegations without public co-operation generated through an open release of information is not clear. Just as it is not clear what damage has been done through the Government’s tell-all approach. Surely it was far more dangerous to keep the affair under wraps and run the risk of embarrassing leaks. What would our trading partners have thought of us then? Probably that we had something to hide. While there was even the smallest doubt that the release of foot-and-mouth might be true then it had to be treated with the utmost care—including having the public both at home and abroad onside with what the New Zealand authorities were doing. All evidence shows that this was achieved.” 
I want to put on record my congratulations to the Hon Jim Sutton and to a Cabinet led by the best Prime Minister this country has ever seen a Cabinet that takes hard issues like that one and makes principled decisions on them that have the support of the general public. That party over there would have hidden the potential risk to our country if Don Brash had been the leader. Fortunately he will not be leader for very long. 
The National Party has no leadership and no policy. No wonder even high-profile potential list candidates are falling like flies. Te Maire Tau and Judith Ablett-Kerr were both being touted as being very high-profile people to join the National Party list although we have been told that Judith Collins has spiked Judith Ablett-Kerr’s chances because Judith Collins could not stand the competition from her. 
We know that that is not correct. The real reason is that even with a promise of being No. 5 and No. 6 on the list respectively they could work out the odds of their not being elected to Parliament at all. There was no guarantee that they would be elected and neither wanted to risk giving up their work and their standing in the community to be part of a humiliating defeat which is what National has destined itself for. They wanted an easy ride into Cabinet not an easy ride on to a seat on the Opposition front bench—if they were lucky. 
Don Brash has not got what it takes. The sooner he steps down the better.