Maharey Steve: General Debate 
Maharey Steve: General Debate 
[Volume:624;Page:19051] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 It is always good to indulge in a little nostalgia at the beginning of these debates as we watch the waning days of the ACT party and its leader. ACT is at 1.7 percent in the polls and consistently polls at under 2 percent. It will not be here in Parliament after the next election. I say to the member that when he is out there enjoying the fruits of being independent from the House again he will notice that New Zealanders all over the country—290000 of those families around the country—will be enjoying money from the Working for Families package. He will be able to sit back and say what a good thing that is. 
A solemn responsibility of the Government is to keep the Opposition honest. It is something we want to do today. I will concentrate my comments on that very honest saying “A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” which is what we should be seeing from members of the Opposition. The job of the Opposition is to focus on opposing the Government and proposing alternatives to the Government’s actions that people can weigh up and judge. But the Opposition is just not doing its job and it cannot do it. The National Party cannot do it because I am afraid its senior strategist and spinner Mr “Muzzer” Murray McCully as he is known affectionately on the Government side of the House tells us that there is a crisis in the National caucus room and if unity is not restored and the divisions are not pasted over National can never expect to be the Government. I just want to make sure members understand that the Government is not making those statements. We are saying that the Opposition itself is saying that. Its key strategist and spinner is saying himself that National cannot win the election. 
We know that one of the problems Mr Murray McCully has is that he has spent his time on getting rid of Katherine Rich. That is why he has been unable to come to Parliament for quite some time. She was a tad angry with him for getting rid of her and then spreading rumours about her that undermined her. We know he has only been able to return because that has now been settled. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I do not want to stop the flow of that member but it is not appropriate for him to start referring to a person’s absence from the Chamber for any aspect of the proceedings and therefore I suggest to him that coming back to his point may be a good idea—although quite frankly just what that is no one would know. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I want to make it clear Madam Deputy Speaker because you may have been distracted during the change-over that the member was not referring to the member’s current absence from the Chamber which would have been out of order. It is in order to say that members have not been attending Parliament. That is a matter of record and it is very clear from the records that Mr McCully has not been attending. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Before Mr Brownlee speaks to his point of order I want to make it perfectly clear that while points of order are being heard there will be silence. That applies to all members on both sides of the Chamber. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I apologise for barracking at one point when Mr Mallard was speaking to the point of order but when the point of order procedure is used to breach Standing Orders it probably does invite the sort of response that he got. The point Mr Mallard wants to make is nothing to do with the situation that we face. It is simply a matter of the Chair insisting that Mr Maharey stop referring to the absence of members. There is no register of attendance in the House. Mr Mallard knows that. There is no day-register taken. [ 
Interruption 
] No there is no such thing as a day-register and there has not been for quite some time. Perhaps it would be a good thing if we brought it back; I suspect it would be more embarrassing for the Government than for anybody else. However the reference Mr Maharey was making was unparliamentary and if he cannot withdraw and apologise for his silly comments he should at least desist from making them. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I say to Mr Mallard that that is a final warning against interjecting during points of order. I have made that point very clearly. It is a convention—and only a convention—that members do not refer to the absence of MPs from the House. The spirit of that convention has been that they refrain from all comment on members’ absences at any time. There is also no register of attendance. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The point I am making is that the Opposition is unable to operate as an Opposition and Mr Murray McCully’s getting rid of Katherine Rich seemed to do nothing to her demeanour. I have never seen Katherine Rich look so radiant. She looks like a person who knows that her day will come after the next election when the reshuffle comes and she is back on the front bench—perhaps leading the National Party. 
Then there is Maurice Williamson. We are reliably informed that Maurice Williamson was asked to step down from the Pakuranga electorate in order to make way for John Banks who would then run for the ACT party. Maurice Williamson we are reliably told said the person who suggested that should do something that is anatomically impossible and said he wants to stay on as the MP for that area. It is like a soap opera.ACT meanwhile took offence at that and we have seen a series of attacks on the National Party by the ACT party ever since. I thought the extreme right was supposed to hang together. If those members keep this up they will hang individually. 
Then we have Mr Gerry Brownlee. He does not think the National and ACT parties can make it. We know that; he knows that. He has had his shoes off so that he can count on his fingers and toes. He has counted the numbers and they do not add up. So we understand he went off to New Zealand First and asked whether it would be National’s working coalition partner. Unfortunately for Gerry Brownlee Don Brash had already ruled out working with New Zealand First. But of course because Gerry Brownlee is one of the four or five leaders within the National Party he did not feel the need to consult with the other three or four leaders before he went off to talk to Mr Winston Peters. Mr Peters of course is the only leader of New Zealand First so he knew that he had been talked to by Don Brash and he was able to tell Gerry Brownlee that that would not work and New Zealand First would not be able to do it. Mr Peters told Gerry Brownlee that New Zealand First would rather go with a winner—the Labour Party—if that is what we have after the next election. 
And of course that leads us to the last piece of evidence: the Don Brash biography. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I do not want you to reply in respect of this point of order that it is a debating point because it is not a debating point. What the member is saying at the moment he is just making up as he goes along. There is not a shred of truth in the last allegation he made—that we have somehow given a commitment to of all things the New Zealand Labour Party tired and bereft of any new ideas as it is. That is not right. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member knows that that is a debating point. There is a robust debate taking place. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The last straw for the National Party was the Brash biography. It must have been hard to write the blurb on the back. The blurb tells us excitingly that the story runs from the dance floors of 1960s Peru. But if we look through the book we find only a single line about the dance floors of Peru in the 1960s where Mr Brash tells us he was lost on the Latin beats—he could not handle the Latin beats. He goes on to tell us in the book that he froze corned beef sliced it and heated it up over peas while feeling lonely in his own flat. He tells us that he loves his pyjamas so much that he still wears to bed the ones his mother gave him and resembles someone from  
Steptoe And Son 
. It is no wonder the National Party feels that it is completely and utterly lost.