Gosche Mark: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Gosche Mark: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18334] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I would not blame National Party members for not wanting to take a call. I would not blame them if they were not here at all today. Outside the sun is shining and the people are happy. I watched the parade of New Zealanders going down to the park to enjoy the Rugby Sevens. This country is vibrant. New Zealanders love this country. It is led by a Government that is in tune with New Zealand’s aspirations. 
The National Party is down to its barest rump in the House. Its members cannot even take a call and I would not want to if I were one of them—particularly if I were Roger Sowry. He cannot wait to get out of the place. He is watching the party of which he has been a proud member and deputy leader fall apart. Never would we have accused Roger Sowry and Bill English of mismanaging their caucus in the way the current leadership has. Having received lectures from Roger Sowry about the way business is run I would say that he must be tearing his hair out at the way his current leader is treating the people in his caucus. The National Party will need seats outside the House shortly to demote National Party members to. There is so much dissent within that outfit that soon nobody will want to sit in the front row with Don Brash and Gerry Brownlee. What a shambles! 
We can contrast that with the mood of this country and the vision outlined in the Prime Minister’s statement. I heard some criticism from members in the House in question time over the last couple of days about the ideas of this Government for helping families and for helping women back into the workforce should they wish to go back. I suppose that if people’s minds are stuck in the patterns of 30 years ago as are the National Party’s they would not understand that. 
We have a Working for Families package that will enable more women to go back into the workforce women who are not able to do so at present for financial reasons. We have a package that will give to those families where one parent stays at home to look after the children in their younger years enough money for that choice to be a reality. That is what this Government is all about in its Working for Families package. 
What do we have from the Opposition? I read the hype in the  
New Zealand Herald  
about the big speech in Orewa and the attack on bludgers that was coming. Over the holidays I read the newspapers with scant interest as most New Zealanders did but some of the things I picked up were tales of people who had ripped off other people. People had got small-business people to build massive developments and then were still driving around in their flash cars but had not paid the tradespeople for that work. They were still holidaying in their million-dollar mansions but they used bankruptcy or limited liability company mechanisms to avoid paying those hard-working New Zealand tradespeople for the work they had done. I thought that Don Brash was going to have a real go at the bludgers and I thought: “Good on him! I’m really looking forward to it.” 
But oh dear! What did we get? Did we get an attack on the people who owe millions and millions of dollars and walk away without paying? No. We did not hear a jot about that from Dr Brash—not a thing. He thinks that that is acceptable business behaviour I presume. What we got was an attack on the defenceless people of this country. That is something we would expect from Dr Brash because he has never known anything about average New Zealanders. He has never known how they live how they survive or what their aspirations are. No we got an attack on people who are sick people with disabilities people on the invalids benefit and people who look after children on their own. 
Did we hear from Dr Brash anything about the multimillion-dollar rip-off artists the real bludgers in this country who need to be dealt to? No. We did not hear a thing. He goes after only those people who are without power and without defence and who do not have the big chequebooks that come out at election time to pay for politicians like Dr Brash to survive. 
I want to know from National Party members what their views are on that sort of thing instead of listening to their utter garbage and back-to-the-future policies. National says that if a woman dares to have a child in this country and her partner leaves her—and there are plenty on that side of the House who know what that is about—it will blame the woman blame the child and punish them financially. That is the modern forward-thinking policy that is coming from the National Party! 
I am just waiting to see a National spokesperson who is brave enough to poke his or her head up and say something without first clearing it with the shadowless people up there on the third floor who make National Party policy—because it ain’t their caucus that does it. When will National build big orphanages again? Why does it stop with telling people they have to have their children adopted? Why do they not bring back those whopping great orphanages we used to have when I was a young child growing up in south Auckland. Thank goodness they are gone! But the National Party if it has its way will bring them back. 
There is a very interesting “Weekend Herald Jury” article in the  
Weekend Herald 
. I have been reading this each week as most people probably have. In that article a dozen people are asked what they think about what is going on in the country that week. I have never seen this particular thing so one-sided in all my life. Only one person tried to defend Dr Brash’s views on having children forcibly adopted because their parents do not have the money to bring them up—or so he said. I quote just one comment which I think probably sums up what the average New Zealander thinks of Dr Brash’s view: “Why only adopt the children out when we can export and sell them to the highest bidder for the mass production of organs for donation?”. That is what the general public thinks of Dr Brash and his ideas. 
So what happened? National members turned up for Parliament bushy-tailed and bright only to have their great leader bumble his way through a couple of days and sack Katherine Rich the so-called rising star. What did we get in return for the sacking of Katherine Rich? We got the only woman in New Zealand who is capable of making Jenny Shipley and Ruth Richardson look warm and caring—the member for Clevedon Judith Collins. 
She came to Parliament with a well-established record for making sure we have a very strong gambling industry. That is good for families! She has spent her time roaming the world and looking at the gambling industry at the expense of who knows whom. But that is a good qualification for a spokesperson on welfare because we know what damage gambling does to families in this country—she has been spending a lot of time making sure that the gambling industry is a big and healthy industry! 
As well her time in housing was spent selling off 13000 State houses so that families could not rent them and selling off the mortgages that the bulk of people in New Zealand could once rely on to get their first homes. That is another big star against the name of Judith Collins in terms of her CV for the job of National spokesperson on welfare. 
The National Party is in a shambles and I am really looking forward to the next time we debate industrial relations good management and how to run businesses. I am really looking forward to hearing advice from Dr Brash about how businesses should manage people because he has shown the whole country that he cannot even manage 27 fools who are still there in the National Party. Yet he thinks the country should vote him in to run the whole show. 
Well we have to ask ourselves: what sort of cheek does it take to have a man like that who cannot even manage his own caucus? He cannot even say: “Look this is the policy. I’m going to make a speech on it. What do you think? No it doesn’t match the policy that you’ve spent a year or two writing. Maybe I need to change my thinking.” No he cannot say that. He is right and she is wrong—and she is gone. 
I have to say to Dr Brash that he should enjoy his time in Parliament. He will have a short and very uneventful career but he will be able to collect his pension and go happily off into retirement because who on earth would want to employ somebody who is incapable of getting along with half the world’s population—its women. That would be a real difficulty. He will most definitely have to export himself somewhere else in the world because nobody in their right mind would want a man like that who cannot cope with women in the workforce and who does not understand the basic things that New Zealanders hold dear to their hearts—like their children. That man has no qualifications to lead this country.