Bridges Simon: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBridges Simon: General Debate[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9643. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): What Kiwis know Mr Parker—that Mr Parker clearly does not know—is that if it sounds too good to be true well it is. What is very clear and what we know about what the Labour Party is saying and the Greens are saying when it comes to power prices is that there will not be another bean in generation in this country under their policy. If there is it will be from taxpayers not consumers as it should be. They will undermine investment. We have seen very clearly the business community in this country rebel in horror at what it has heard from Labour and the Greens. So I say this to Mr Parker: why does he not just offer a couple of the easiest words to say in the dictionary—just say sorry? Just say sorry.He says: “Well it is not Albanian policy.”—he says that it is not Albanian policy. Well let me give him a list of countries or states where the single buyer model is currently used: Poland—I have nothing against Poland; my wife is half Polish and that is very nice—Ukraine Honduras Indonesia Pakistan Mongolia Thailand Morocco and much of Latin America. Well I have got nothing against those fine countries at all but what is—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are doing our best to follow this speech but there must be something wrong with the sound system. I cannot understand a word he is saying.Mr SPEAKER: Well I can certainly understand what he is saying but there is some difficulty in hearing it because of the noise coming from the Opposition benches.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: For the respected elder gentleman I will talk more slowly. What is very clear in this House recently—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Your voice is breaking Simon.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Mr Cosgrove I am going to speak about your good city. What is very clear is that there has very recently been a power list in Canterbury. A power list has come out and we know that the Prime Minister is No. 1. That is understandable. Gerry Brownlee made I think No. 2 or 3. I did not see Mr Cosgrove’s name on it but that is OK. Look Lianne Dalziel I think did make it. That is all good. Well I wonder if the Green Party had a power list who would be on that power list. Who would be—Hon Trevor Mallard: “Cougar Bait”.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I do not know whether there are cougars; I think they were looking for a panther down on the river at one stage Mr Mallard. But if the Green Party did a power list who would be on that list? Well Nos 1 2 and 3 would be one and the same I think: “Hey Clint” take a bow. “Hey Clint” would be running that party. And he does not just dictate the media lines for the Green Party; he is clearly running the numbers the strategy and everything else in the meetings that I have been at. So that is all good for Clint. But I say this to the Green Party: why is it trying to orchestrate democracy from the outside? If Clint is so good why does he not stand for Parliament?While we are speaking about orchestrating democracy here is what we know about the Green Party: it spent around—wait for it—$400000 of taxpayers’ money on the asset sales petition. Well not even the Labour Party would do that. Not even the Labour—Hon Annette King: What about the million you spent on adverts on television?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Not even Annette King in her worst vote-buying days would spend $400000 on an asset sales—Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is not acceptable for a member to accuse another member of vote buying.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Speaking to the point of order I said that she did not.Mr SPEAKER: That is right. This is the general debate. It is a robust debate. Would the member please continue with his speech.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I say to the member Annette King to stop being so precious sweetheart because I do not think that you would vote-buy. But what I am saying clearly is that $400000 was spent by the Green Party on an asset sales petition. What else did those members do when they did that? Well we know that 26.9 percent of their 400000-odd signatures—26.9 percent—did not count.Hon Trevor Mallard: They weren’t on the roll.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That leaves 292000; 107000 were wrong. So how did they do that? Well if Mr Mallard is going to take a call he can tell me. Did they sign up children? Is that what they did? Did they sign up people two three four or five times? I would like to know how a population the size of Tauranga or Otago was signed up on this petition.