Mallard Trevor: General Debates 
Mallard Trevor: General Debates 
[Volume:611;Page:8122] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I would like to talk today about four or five things. I would like to talk about meetings outside the building. I would like to talk about what is causing Bill English’s headache. I want to talk about Chicken Licken. He was the one who kept on saying that the sky was falling in and kept on running away. I want to talk about the Brownlee-Peters deal. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The deal between Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters. I want to talk about the $50 a week cut to superannuation for married couples. And if I have time I want to get on to Rodney Hide and inappropriate income but that might have to wait for another time. I want to ask which National Party members are not having meetings outside the building? 
Darren Hughes 
: Who with? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: They are either with groups within their own party or outside it. I stumbled across one yesterday. Someone else stumbled across another one last night. Three National Party members were plotting at lunchtime. They were hidden away in the Back-bencher Pub and Cafe. 
Darren Hughes 
: Who were they? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Mr Power Mr Brownlee but most important Murray McCully. Something is clearly going on there and the new team is forming. But what did we get to counteract that last night? There seem to be two deals going down: Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters and Mr Prebble and Mr English. What I want to ask is: which deal will be the winning deal? Will Mr Brownlee’s invitation to Mr Peters to lead the National Party be the one that wins or will they convince Richard Prebble to go to the party that he has never been a member of—the National Party—and lead it because they are looking for some leadership over there? 
We could ask Mr Prebble whether the possibility of working more closely with the National Party was raised with him last night. He is not denying it because we know that that was what they were up to. But what happened today? Bill English had a headache. Forty percent of National Party supporters say that he is the biggest obstacle to National’s re-election. 
Simon Power 
: That’s not right. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: That is absolutely right. Forty percent of the people who were polled who identify themselves as National supporters said that Bill English was the biggest obstacle to National’s re-election. [ 
Interruption 
] They say it is 50 percent now. I agree that the poll is a week or two old so Simon Power says it might be up to 50 percent. Is that the cause of Bill English’s headache or was it the dinner last night? I tend to say that having dinner with Richard Prebble would cause a headache for me but for Bill English it could have been something else. 
I was going to draw some parallels between Bill English and Chicken Licken— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: But of course I will not Mr Speaker. I could not do that. As kids we were all told about the people who said that the sky would fall in and who kept on running away. 
John Key 
: Kentucky Fried Chicken. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: There was too much of that in my past that is for sure. I bet it was not Kentucky Fried Chicken with Richard Prebble and Bill English last night— [ 
Interruption 
] Well that might be Mr Brownlee’s approach. What I want the next National Party speaker to tell us is why National wants to cut the married couple’s pension by $50 a week. It has refused to sign up— 
John Key 
: That party would cut it by $200 a week. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: John Key—from the right—says he wants it cut by $200 a week. That is the approach from the rich boy from Auckland but where is Bill English?