Swain Paul: General Debate 
Swain Paul: General Debate 
[Volume:640;Page:10699] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 That was Wayne Mapp and in a former lifetime he was the PC eradicator—do members remember? I must say I am rather saddened to see the demise of the PC eradicator. Maybe he had finished all of his work! But I would like to ask somebody—anybody—to name one “PC” that the PC eradicator eradicated. I ask for just one “PC”. I cannot hear of one “PC” so presumably the member’s work was not just finished he never even started it and the National Party realised that it was really along the lines of the  
Ministry of Silly Walks 
. Maybe it realised that ultimately there was never going to be a “Minister of PC Eradication” and that it had better drop that silly idea while it had the chance. 
I want to pick up on an issue raised by my colleague Damien O’Connor concerning what the National Party stands for. 
Darren Hughes 
: It will be short. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It will be a very short speech. I say right from the start given the debate this week that it is the role of the Opposition to attack the Government. There is no question about that. I remember that the Labour Party had 9 very long years doing that—indeed 9 very fruitless years. That is why we always want to be in Government and why the National Party is the Opposition. I can say that National is a much better Opposition than we ever were and that is why it will be in Opposition much longer than we ever were. 
My experience is that an Opposition should attack the Government but I warn the Opposition not to attack the State Services Commission. I think that is a very very dangerous and slippery road to go down. My experience of being a Minister for 6 years is that that organisation is very professional very objective and very neutral. At some stage the National Party hopes to have something to do with the State Services Commission. God only hope not in my lifetime! National will rue the day that it attacks the neutrality of the State Services Commission. I advise National to keep its aim focused on the Government not on that organisation. 
One of the things we ask ourselves is what the National Party stands for and what it would do if it ever became the Government. In the old days we knew what the National Party stood for. I talk of Holyoake Marshall and so on. We may not have liked those National Party members but at least they had principle and philosophy and we knew they would do something different from the Labour Party when they got into power. The problem with this National Party is that no one knows what its members stand for. They used to stand for things but no one knows what they are now. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Tax cuts. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes it is kind of like Labour with a few tax cuts and I will talk about that in a minute. At one stage National members were violently opposed to the nuclear-free policy and now they agree with it. They were opposed to the Cullen superannuation fund and now they support it. They were opposed to income-related rents. Indeed I used to be the Labour spokesperson on housing and they were violently opposed to income-related rents. They said it was unfair and that sort of thing. Now they support it. They were opposed to Kyoto and now they support it. They say they always supported it! This is all very odd. 
The problem with National Party members is that they are prepared to say anything to anyone and that is the difficulty. New Zealand is such a small country that eventually if a party says one thing to one crowd and says something completely different to another the matter will eventually get out. So one can never get away with it. My advice to National members is to say something when they have worked out what it is that they believe in. 
But National is promising to spend more and it is promising that to everyone. It says it will give massive tax cuts. But no one believes that can all be done. In fact  
The Hollow Men 
 says not to state exactly what one is going to do but to wait until afterwards and then do it. It says that is a much better strategy. By our calculations National would be giving about $5 billion in tax cuts but where will that money come from? What would it cut in order to do that? I ask members opposite whether they would cut spending in health. Do I hear any answer? No I do not.