Hughes Darren: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Hughes Darren: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:659;Page:8632] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow on from my friend the chief Government whip who in his maiden speech admitted that he had been an active member of Toastmasters. After that performance I hope he does that for free. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Keep taking the lessons. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Hipkins suggests that he keeps taking the lessons. He is a good man he is good to work with but he always reminds me of a character from the TV programme  
The Office 
 for some reason I am not quite sure why. But I am looking forward to working with him next year. 
I join the Leader of the Opposition in thanking all the agencies of Parliament that we work with every day starting with the Clerk’s Office and all the organisations that come down from that organisation; the travel office member and staff services in particular those who work with the Government and Opposition whips the receptionists and telephonists the buildings people finance people and messengers; the Chamber and gallery staff who are our social workers and carers inside this building and this Chamber the visitors officers library staff security the executive assistants from all the parties who work so hard and of course Bellamy’s. Also on behalf of the Labour Party I acknowledge our staff in Fraser House who worked to support us so much during the year. 
I pay tribute to you Mr Speaker and congratulate you on a very fine year as the Speaker of the House. You are very much enjoying the job and it is a pleasure for us as an Opposition to work with you. You have set out some pretty clear rules as to the way you like things to be followed and the expectations the Opposition can have if we comply with that. I think there is a little bit too much pressure on you Mr Speaker. The tributes to you today have been almost funereal in their praise. In fact one media commentator gave you 10 out of 10. I think that elevating you to perfection at this stage is a little tough on you. It is almost the Barack Obama Nobel Peace Prize for Speakership. You are doing a great job Mr Speaker but we do not expect perfection from you. But it is certainly good to work with you. We acknowledge your deputy the honourable Lindsay Tisch and the Hon Rick Barker and Eric Roy who serve you as Assistant Speakers. I also make special mention of Beryl Bright Trish Wanden and Roland Todd in your office who really are a great help to all parties in Parliament and deserve to be mentioned. 
It has been an extraordinary year for the country. We have been told that we have to tighten our belts and that the way to do this is to get rid of Moroccan cooking classes and if we do this everything will be fine in our country. I am really concerned about the condescending attitude towards adult and community education because if there is anybody who needs a chance in our country in the workforce it can be found through adult and community education. But if there is any member of Parliament who could do with a night course it would be Gerry Brownlee on House management. I think it is really wrong that Anne Tolley wants to lord it over her other front-bench colleagues by that approach. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Bill English has a house management problem too. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: There are many house management problems on the Government side some of them with a capital “H” and others more residential in their nature. But we do need a change in the way in which Parliament is managed. Thirty-eight percent of parliamentary sitting time in the last 12 months has been under urgency. In fact we have had urgency so often since the change of Government happened that Grant Robertson said we should stop calling it urgency and start calling it “normalcy” because it seems to be part of our everyday programme. It has been hard to see what has been so urgent. 
Louise Upston 
: It’s a hard-working Government. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I hear Government backbenchers interjecting procedural experts that they are. I am sure they could advise the House that one-quarter of all bills passed into law this year were Labour Government bills. That was how urgent it was for Parliament to meet in order to progress legislation because it was so important to continue and pass into law those 9 terrible years of a Labour Government. So we had urgency on those matters. 
To be fair to the Government the National Party introduced 59 of its own bills but 60 percent of them had a truncated select committee process. They either did not go to a select committee for the full length of time or the select committee had to meet at the same time as the House was meeting. I say that from a parliamentary point of view that has not been helpful for our Parliament at all. 
Of course those were the bills we got to see. One of the innovations this year was to debate bills no one had ever seen before apart from the Government. That was a very unusual practice that the Government adopted and thankfully it was one that as the year came to an end was not being repeated. Despite the enormous cooperation the Opposition has tried to give the Government—we have tried to help it out along the way—some of the issues to do with constant urgency and bills not being given a fair shake at a select committee are not good for Parliament and I hope that will change next year. We would certainly be in support of that. 
Flags have been in the news a lot this week and it has been a year in which a lot of ideas have been run up the flagpole only to be run back down it again or left at half mast as the political winds have changed constantly around the Government. We saw the Prime Minister in his first full year as Prime Minister achieving his boyhood dream to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. Quite what comes next we are not sure but he will keep on smiling. 
Hon Member 
: Nor is he. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Nor is he but he is relaxed and comfortable about everything. It does not matter what happens: “I’m relaxed about it” he says “I’m comfortable about it.” The only time we consider that he might not be so sure about an issue is when the gasp happens. That is when he says: “I’m relaxed about that I’m comfortable about that—gasp gasp!”. When the gasp is on we know that the Prime Minister has decided there is something that might be a little bit more urgent and which might require his attention. But we are treated to  
The Late Show with David Letterman 
 every day at question time without the applause the humour the comedy or the intellect. Other than that it is exactly like the David Letterman show when the Prime Minister is speaking. 
Then of course we have Bill English. As Phil Goff said Bill English is kind of like the gift that keeps on giving—or in his case the gift that keeps on taking as Mr Goff said—all through the year. All through the year Bill English was a reminder of how good he had been in 2002 when we on this side of the House used to call him “Secret Agent Bill English” who was sent by the Labour Party into the National Party to destroy it from within. In the 2002 election he showed his political expertise in that particular regard. We thought he had finished with that but this year he was back doing as much possible damage to himself and to the Government as he possibly could. He ends the year as a shadow of himself but we are so glad about one thing: he is still in his job. 
The worst thing that could have happened for the Opposition would be if Steven Joyce had taken over as Minister of Finance. We are so glad that Bill English is clinging on connecting the seatbelt in the self-drive ministerial car as tight as it will go to make sure that he cannot be moved out of it. An interesting point about his speech this afternoon was how proud Government members are that the lobbyists like them. Can anyone be more poll-driven than that? He said that it was a Government for corporate lobbyists and that the lobbyists loved it when they came to see the Government because they got treated with respect and the Government did everything they said. It is apparently an enormous honour for the Government that whenever a lobbyist comes in it happens to roll over. 
Did members note the bitterness as Bill English recounted his own time in Opposition? Those memories are seared on his mind. They drive what he does every day and it is no wonder that every day at question time we watch him more than anyone else because when the Prime Minister is answering questions he is busy whispering him the information and when the Minister of Education is not so much answering a question as attempting to make a contribution to the House he is whispering the answers into her ear as well. I should say about the Hon Anne Tolley that we think she is the best Minister in the Government. We hope she becomes Prime Minister and National Party leader. We think that would be a very good thing indeed! She has our full support in that. 
The limited vision with which Bill English has addressed the House this year as Minister of Finance has been shameful. He has tried to misrepresent and distort the record of the previous Labour Government. The truth is that man inherited a strong economy. He inherited low debt he inherited low unemployment and he inherited a set of accounts that were better than any other country all around the world. This party opposite campaigned on closing the gap with Australia. It has certainly made a difference to the gap with Australia. There are more people in work in Australia and fewer unemployed in that country than there are in our country now and that is the record that that National Government has. 
National cut KiwiSaver and cut the Superannuation Fund this year. Those members are only interested in a 3-year electoral cycle; they are not interested in the long-term future of this country. That National Government asked us to believe that Jonathan Coleman Wayne Mapp Pansy Wong Phil Heatley and Kate Wilkinson are among the top 20 politicians in New Zealand. We are asked to believe that they are the brains trust in the Cabinet who are able to drive our country. The only expression I have seen on Kate Wilkinson’s face this week has been one of pained inquisition. She cannot decide whether to put folate into the Christmas cakes. We look forward to finding out about that. Tony Ryall of course has entertained us with his shirt and tie combo. No wonder he needed the Diplomatic Protection Squad to look after him when he was Acting Prime Minister of New Zealand. Goodness knows how much it is costing to follow acting Prime Ministers around New Zealand! I do not know how dangerous this country is but for all those years Michael Cullen never needed the Diplomatic Protection Squad behind him but when No. 5 is the Acting Prime Minister half the police squad flies to Tauranga to look after him. 
We are looking forward to hearing what Maurice Williamson has got to do. Maurice is used to talking in capital letters all the time. Now he only has one little letter an “h” to worry about before Christmas. I hope the Maori Party read the Foreshore and Seabed Act  
Hansard 
 over Christmas. I hope those members read the third reading speeches. The problem with the Foreshore and Seabed Act is that it was opposed by the Maori Party because it did not think it gave Maori enough rights and it was opposed by National because it thought it gave Maori too many rights. So with all the great aroha that is going on between the two parties I wonder whether they will resolve that issue next year. I think it will be very difficult for them to do that. I hope the Maori Party take cognisance of this particular point. Dr Sharples mentioned unity and also Hone Harawira. It is not so much kotahitanga as “koruatanga” I would have thought in that particular respect with that particular party. 
I have to mention the Opposition’s gratefulness that we have had the chance to meet Aaron Gilmore this year. We are just absolutely amazed at the brilliance of the man. He has a 28-page CV and he is suing Al Gore because Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet. The only question on our mind is how that man got beaten by Paul Quinn for a higher list space.