Cosgrove Clayton: General Debate 
Cosgrove Clayton: General Debate 
[Volume:643;Page:13298] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 This is a day of anniversaries of course and my colleague mentioned that it was on this day a year ago—and we will wait for the applause every time it comes—when John Key became leader of the National Party. It is also a very prophetic anniversary because on this day a year ago Gerry Brownlee got dumped. We know that. And it is the anniversary almost to the day 8 years ago of when the Labour Government inherited an economic graveyard from the National Government—small businesses on their knees and 8 percent unemployment compared with 3.5 percent today. It was 8 years ago when the Labour Government inherited industrial archaeology from the National Government and it was a year ago when John Key started to be slashed open by his own words. What do we now know about John Key? Let us see whether the National backbench applaud on this one. We now know that John Key supports the sale of State-owned enterprises. Where is the applause? Are they supporting this? Oh no—there is silence from the backbench. Why do we know John Key supports the sale of State-owned enterprises? Well I was given the privilege of being Acting Minister of Finance for a couple of days and we slashed open Bill English when he admitted that he was in favour of selling State-owned enterprises—now National Party policy of course—and of giving away a controlling interest. Do National backbench members now applaud that? Oh no of course they do not. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Stop telling lies. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: And the bellows blow in the front row over there from Gerry Brownlee. We know a year on that John Key supports cutting the pension. We know why. Again it is because Bill English when I had a crack at him opened up and said that the pension was too generous for our elderly folks. Do the National backbench members—the sort of battery hens at the back—applaud that one? No they do not of course because they know a year on from their great leader’s pontifications that they cannot go back to the sticks to their constituencies and tell the punters that Bill English and John Key support the selling of State-owned enterprises the cutting of the pension and—the other playing out of the course—the funding of independent private schools. They know that back in the real world in communities no one supports that. So they stood up and the bellows blew and they applauded a year on yet they remain amazingly silent do they not when it comes to actually analysing the lack of policies articulated by John Key and Bill English. 
Bill English you know was so grateful when he was rolled by John Key because then somebody else had to be responsible and inherit the mess that was—and still is—the National Party. The contradictions remain of course. Mr Brownlee notes that no one applauds those policies articulated by John Key and Bill English—no one applauds. National members think of course that they can sleepwalk through “me too” the Government on anything that is popular and slide through under the cover of darkness on the eve of an election and no one will stop and analyse their policies. 
Lockwood Smith ironically got up today and said that he supported families. Those members over there say that they support families and a year on John Key says that he supports families. But they are so supportive of families that they are against supporting families through the Working for Families tax credits. We have 350000 Kiwi families mums and dads some of whom are constituents of National members who get $110 a week on average of their money back. National members are so supportive of families but they do not support them in practice. That is the legacy a year on from the foreign-exchange trader who made a lot of money and a lot of friends trading down the New Zealand dollar on the junk-bond market. That is a fact. It is a legitimate occupation I am told in the financial transaction world and no one over there including the great blunderbuss in the front row disputes that. I was talking about Mr Henare not Mr Brownlee. That is the situation a year on. That is the legacy of John Key 
Colin James has summed it up. We are now moving into an election year and the rubber is hitting the road. Now we will see whether the great man has any substance. “The war is over in Iraq.” “We are for super.” and “We are against super.”—the contradictions are everywhere. But no one on the National backbench is applauding the policies that John Key articulates. They know that in the real world in communities it ain’t a starter. Those policies have been rejected.