Williamson Maurice: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliamson Maurice: General Debate[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10023. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): I want to just explore a little political axiom with the House today and it is literally about how the public vote. I think that the New Zealand public are to be congratulated because they vote on the things that matter and they decide when it is time for a change.Let me just give you a little example of a simple indicator that almost sort of passed me by for many years. I stopped at the Ōhākea weigh station once when I was transport Minister and one of the policemen there said: “I don’t know why you pay all those officials at Treasury to measure the GDP.” I said “Why is that?” and he said: “Come inside.” I went inside and he had a big piece of tracing paper. On the plane was the amount of tonnage of trucks that passed through the weigh station by the day and he put the tracing paper on top it which was the New Zealand GDP and it was an exact copy. He said: “I can tell you every day that I work here whether the economy is going good or sluggish or dropping and I’ll know that the grocery store down the road will be getting fewer people buying stuff and so on.” It is that simple. It is that simple. He said: “You just need my piece of tracing paper and I could phone you every day with the latest value of the New Zealand GDP.”—and he was right.Why I brought that up is because the voting public is like that as well. They vote on one major thing. If they had 487 votes when they went into a polling booth they would say “I like National on this I think the Greens have got a better idea on that and I think something or other.” or whatever. But they get only one vote and so they have to accumulate all of their views about the nation into that one party vote as to who is best to run the place. While the economy is actually functioning well they will stick with the tried and true always. I know.I have been in an Opposition party on a number of occasions trying to ping the Government off and you cannot do it while the economy is running smoothly and while it is going well. But the moment it turns to custard and the public think it is your fault—because they do give you excuses. They do allow a global financial crisis to impact as has happened. They do allow the biggest sort of disaster in terms of the Canterbury earthquakes to at least affect whether the economy is going smoothly. But in general right now the public are showing through polling after polling—and I do not care whether you go with Colmar Brunton or any of the other polls you want to look at. It is quite clear from that view that the public are comfortable with the economic management of this country.All the issues that flow on from that—like whether my kids are getting a good education or whether my job is secure or whether my interest rates may go up—are all secondary to whether the place is being managed well economically. I would say that the message to the Opposition is that the one thing you have got to stop doing because it is not going help you is having a double standard—a double standard like attacking us for allowing foreigners to buy land when in fact foreigners bought twice as much land when those members were in Government.Hon David Parker: They’re talking about forestry.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: That can only—I am not allowed the “h” word so I can only use the “double standard” word but those members sold twice as much land to foreigners as we did and when they go on TV saying that it is evil that has no credibility whatsoever.When Labour members get up and say that it is wrong to be selling State assets as they did when they opposed our mixed-ownership model the public just said: “But didn’t they sell more of our assets than you’ve ever sold?”. I mean we were babes in the woods compared with what Labour sold. So it is that double standard which will not win you a single vote—Hon Annette King: You’d know about that.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: —“Mr and Mrs Labour”. It will not win you a single vote while you know that you did it and in fact you did it on steroids. Those members know and they did it on steroids.Similarly with the flag referendum what I think will not give Labour members a single jot in the polls is that they actually had a policy of holding a referendum to see whether we would change our flag and as soon as they realised they could maybe get a bit of political influence to try to smack at the PM they said: “Oh it’s all wrong and it’s all evil and it’s all disgusting and it’s all disgraceful.” But the public do not see it like that. The public say “Well hang on. Hang on isn’t this again one of the double standards?”—and I have got a list of the double standards. I am not going to get anywhere near enough time but I tell you what you could go for 3 hours on things that Labour did when it was in Government.Labour said—oh look there is a better one. Let us go with trade. Trade is one on my list but I have got only a short time. Labour members negotiated some fantastic trade agreements—well done; good on them—and now when we get the opportunity to bring 11 other countries into the Trans-Pacific Partnership because those members are so scared of their politics they go against it. Well they are wrong. They are totally wrong. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is one of the best things that has ever happened to this country.