Key John: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Key John: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:636;Page:7218] 
JOHN KEY (Leader—National) 
: 
 That was Michael Cullen’s “I’m 10 percent behind in the polls” speech. Frankly all it proved is that Michael Cullen needs a holiday and in 18 months he will get a permanent one. Do not worry about that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Give us a new one John! 
JOHN KEY 
: Trevor should go back to his stadium. 
Madam Speaker I begin by wishing you a very merry Christmas. I also express my gratitude to those who keep Parliament running: you Madam Speaker; the Deputy Speaker Clem Simich; the Assistant Speakers Ann Hartley and Ross Robertson; the Clerk of the House David McGee; his staff; the select committee personnel; our friends at Bellamy’s; the Hansard writers; the security and parliamentary travel staff; of course the VIP drivers who may well save me buying a third Navman in 6 weeks; my colleagues and our long-suffering families; and of course the messengers. 
I say to the messengers that they have served me well in the last 12 months but I have one message that I will deliver myself. I will not be asking you to deliver it Madam Speaker. It is to the Government and the message is a pretty simple one: “Enjoy it fellas because you are on borrowed time.” That is for sure. As we saw from Michael Cullen’s speech their days are numbered. They are a Walkman Government in an iPod world. They are dinosaurs that is what they are. They are gone. That member does not know what an iPod is that is the problem. He should plug it into his ears; it would be better than listening to Helen Clark trust me. This was a Government of leak and spin smoke and mirrors and truths and half-truths. The standards were so low the only instruction from the Prime Minister to her MPs was “Don’t get arrested.” and Taito Phillip Field could not even stick to that one! That was the situation. 
In 2006 we saw something we had not seen for a long time—Labour’s calculating self-serving acts were even worse than the harshest critics ever thought possible. Labour members got caught red-handed with their hands in the till for $800000 and they have spent the entire year refusing to pay the money back. That is what they did. They spent $800000 and they are refusing to pay it back. The Government came up with a whole lot of excuses. The first of them from the Prime Minister was that they had done it twice before so why could they not have another go! That was a good one. The second one was that it was not electioneering which for the record is defined as soliciting a vote. Now if giving out a pledge card and saying to people “Follow these policies and vote for me” is not soliciting a vote I do not know what is. But the best of the excuses came when Helen Clark told the country that the referee had changed the rules after the game had finished. I hate to tell her but the referee in this case was none other than the co - New Zealander of the year Auditor-General Kevin Brady who wrote to her months before the game even started and tried to come and see her to explain the rules exactly. But she was too busy parading overseas in “UN Idol”. That is what she was doing. 
So the Labour Government did what a Labour Government always does. Out came the personal attacks. No one was safe not even APN the owners of the  
New Zealand Herald 
. They were not safe. Dr Cullen was dispatched to tell the  
New Zealand Herald 
 in no uncertain terms that if it did not stop writing the truth about that rort it would have a tax liability bigger than his surplus. Oh Dr Cullen does not like it. He should not worry. We can give it on this side of the House as well as take it I tell him. Anyway it is not surprising. What we found out in October is that Mike Williams went to the Labour Party conference and said that Labour was bankrupt. The next week Helen Clark came out and said that she had discovered a new-found interest in State-funded elections. There is a convenient thing. Well we have a little tip for the Prime Minister. When she comes back to the House next year and tells us about the merits of State-funded elections she should spare us the spin on this side of the House because taxpayers are sick of paying for things that Labour Governments waste their money on and they sure as hell do not want to pay money to bail out a Labour Government that is bankrupt. 
What else happened in 2006? It will be remembered for one thing: the case of Taito Phillip Field. On this side of the House we have “Bob the Builder”. On Labour’s side of the House there is “Taito the Tiler”. The only difference is that on this side of the House we pay market rates for what we get done. So what did Helen Clark do? It was pretty normal right? She called an inquiry spent half a million bucks parked him on the back bench and told Labour he would be brought back—she has done it dozens of times before. He knew the track. The only problem was that the Ingram report was so bad and left so many unanswered questions that she could never bring him back so the police were called in. It was all very interesting. We had months of negative headlines so what happened? The Prime Minister said that they had better find a diversion so she wandered down to the seventh floor got her trusty colleague Trevor Mallard and told him to give Auckland 2 weeks to decide whether it wanted a billion-dollar waterfront stadium. But poor old Trevor could not even manage to get through week one before we had his style of Heineken diplomacy when he told Aucklanders they were visionless and by week two it was gone. 
Anyway it was not all that bad because it proved one thing—that Trevor’s career path has now been successfully marked out. He will never be Minister of Finance. We know that one. Mind you he did not have quite as bad a year as Steve Maharey who got sacked as the tertiary education Minister and is now the only living New Zealander who believes that when one’s portfolio gets given to Dr Cullen it is because it is running so well. Michael should not worry; it is a compliment. I say to him that we see the best in everyone son so do not worry about that. He might as well enjoy the next few months. 
It was a kind of interesting year was it not? Hospital waiting lists were wazoo. Another Budget—Michael Cullen’s night—was sunk by a lack of tax cuts. The Prime Minister went green but forgot to mention that we have emission targets rising faster than Kyoto no-shows Australia and the US. She forgot to tell the country that 85 percent of her new electricity generation is from burning coal and gas and that we are chopping down trees faster than we are planting them. Then she went off to the Labour Party conference and said that the country was going carbon neutral! Her only minor problem was that she forgot to tell David Parker before he did his press conference on Monday. That was a minor issue. Anyway do not worry we treat that statement with the same contempt as we do her ambition to get us in the top half of the OECD. Neither of those will happen. 
Anyway enough of the tired old Labour members; they are yesterday’s news so to speak. The future does not lie with them; the future lies with the National Party. If I do say so myself with my leadership and that of my deputy Bill English and my incredibly talented team that is where the future lies. The best years of our country and of our party are in front of us not behind us. 
Darren Hughes 
: Oh that’s another David Cameron line! 
JOHN KEY 
: Darren should not worry he will grow up one day and be a big boy; it is all right. He will get out of nappies—it eventually happens to most of us. Let us take a moment to celebrate some fine New Zealanders who did some wonderful things. We like to look at the best side of things in life. We want to celebrate the entrepreneurs the creative New Zealanders: Sam Morgan; the fine men and women of 42 Below who made something work on the world stage and did fantastically well; our sportsmen and sportswomen; and the All Blacks who had a great year as they defended the Tri-Nations and the Bledisloe Cup won everything in Europe and are on their way to winning the Rugby World Cup in 2007. Let us not forget the Black Ferns who had a great year and won their third successive Women’s Rugby World Cup; the stories of heroism like that of Hayden Roulston the cyclist who was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening career-ending condition but battled his way back; triumphs over adversity like that of Jamie Philip and Robert Atua-Toki who were on a benefit decided that they did not want any more handouts from Labour and set up a great business of mobile pizza-making; and everyday New Zealanders like Louis Salt who has been driving so long for the Cancer Society of New Zealand. There are so many more I could name. 
I end by saying that the National Party is in cracking shape. National members are ready willing and able to serve the country. We have no doubt that we have the team we have the policies and we have the commitment. If I do say so myself it is all going so well that it is almost a shame to take a holiday. Merry Christmas. 
Debate interrupted.