Brownlee Gerry: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: General Debate[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11790. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister supporting Greater Christchurch Regeneration): That would not be the first time that someone from New Zealand First has stood up and given us a speech in this House about some amazing intrigue that they have managed to uncover somewhere—some sort of double-dealing some sort of slippery activity etc. But here today we have no questions in the House about this matter; just one of its backbenchers standing up and spraying his allegations all over the place trying to besmirch the reputation of the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority which actually may not have any jurisdiction in this case whatsoever. So all I will say is this: put your evidence on the table Mr Fletcher Tabuteau let everybody see it—let everybody see it—and then if there is something in it then clearly the law will take the appropriate course.But the real question here is: how can New Zealand First have the audacity to stand up and claim to be a friend of the farmer? The first point is that it fails to recognise that it is now the main Opposition party. Labour and the Greens with their little deal last week where they are one and the same—Greens-Labour or Labour-Greens; spit it out and either way it is the same thing and they are finished. New Zealand First is now the most prominent Opposition party in the House and it claims to like farmers but will not vote for and does not support the best trade deal that New Zealand could ever get for our primary product. See there is a party that actually believes in insular New Zealand—that a tiny little locked door surrounded by a Donald Trump wall would be a much nicer place to live where everybody could be so much more prosperous if we just traded with one another. If we could take our 60 million sheep and just sort of sell them to one another over and over again we could all be wealthy. It is the sort of protectionist rubbish that Winston Peters has been on about for years the sort of protectionist rubbish that got us into trouble and that led to the reforms of the 1980s and the sort of protectionist rubbish that New Zealand voters will continue to reject because today they are a lot smarter than your average New Zealand First backbencher.I think that one of things that has really surprised me in the last couple of days has been the complete turn-round in attitudes over the way in which the House seating plan works here in Parliament. Post the election we had New Zealand First saying that it was the third-biggest party in the House and therefore it should sit on the cross benches—that is over there where the Greens are. The Greens legitimately as the second-biggest Opposition party should have been where New Zealand First is now. But the Greens Party put its foot down and said that there is no way that it wanted to sit so close to Labour because it had a memorandum of understanding with National and therefore it had to take these seats over here. Now of course we have got the coming together the holding of the hands the big embrace and the great race for what will be electoral oblivion for both of them and those parties are not prepared to sit next to each other. Not only have they ended the marriage they have also signed the terms for the divorce on election day. I want to know why New Zealand First is not claiming its right to sit in the cross benches as it properly should being the main party—Richard Prosser: I’d like to sit over there where you are. You’re just keeping the seat warm Gerry.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well it is not a good thing to break the speech to acknowledge an interjection but Mr Prosser just said that he wants to sit over here. Well one day Mr Prosser when you are an old man and you come back as a tourist they might let you sit on one of these seats. But it will not be happening by virtue of the ballot box I can assure the member of that. I could go on about that but taunting the Opposition is never a fair or reasonable thing.I just want to say that I am absolutely stunned that in the House today when we had the announcement this morning of a $20 billion plan for the future of the New Zealand Defence Force that same party that is now obviously the most prominent Opposition party had no question on the matter in the House—most disappointing. What is fair to say is that over the next long period of years the New Zealand Defence Force will be able to plan properly the way in which it acquires the equipment it needs and the way in which it structures its force to be able to deliver in the best interests of New Zealand security.The one thing that surprised me today was the Labour Opposition asking the question: “Is it affordable?”. Well it is 1.1 percent of our GDP which is pretty good relative to other nations. Yes there will be plenty of people in here who want to say “Spend more.” but it is pretty good going.