Swain Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Swain Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7363] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 The speech from the previous speaker Tim Groser was extraordinarily disappointing but right at the start it made a very very similar point to the one I am about to make. Yesterday we had two contrasting speeches. The first one was from the Prime Minister the leader of the Labour Party. She had some vision and some ability to address the real issues and provide a pathway for New Zealand. We also had the co-leader of the National Party John Key. His speech was shallow flippant and sounded like an after-dinner speech at a foreign exchange gathering. That is what it sounded like—an after-dinner speech a speaker brought in for entertainment. Unfortunately it was very much like Tim Groser’s speech—whinge whine grizzle groan. There was not one new idea one new thought or one new policy. There was no vision. The problem is that the public of New Zealand see through it—that is what the polls are saying. 
The Labour Prime Minister made quite clear the need for long-term strategies not just for a sustainable economy but for a sustainable society environment culture and way of life. I said before that she addressed the real issues—things like climate change. She talked about a range of the initiatives that the Government not only was doing but also was about to do. 
Mr Key on the other hand—one of the hollow men—had no new ideas no new vision and no new policies. The only thing I remember about his speech was his talking again about tax cuts. I got that. That is what I heard—again. But there was no vision about where New Zealand needs to go—as if somehow tax cuts are the vision the policy and the principle. Whatever one wants to do in New Zealand tax cuts are the answer. Of course that idea is dreary lacks vision and is why people are marking National down. 
Then of course Mr Key found a few poor people in New Zealand which was a bit of a surprise to him. But the reality is that he did not join up the dots. He did not go on to talk about market rents which his party supports benefit cuts which his party introduced or the Employment Contracts Act which his party endorsed. Those are the issues that create an underclass. Those are things that the Labour Government has overturned in order to try to build an inclusive society. 
Then Mr Key touched on the issue of climate change. The difficulty John Key has—a difficulty he will find he has now that he is under scrutiny and the honeymoon is over—is that people will watch what he says. In 2005 he said about climate change: “This is a complete and utter hoax if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem.” That was said in 2005. In 2005 he said that climate change was not really a problem that he did not really understand it and that we would pour billions and billions of dollars into it when we were not sure whether there was really a problem. 
In 2006 however he said: “I firmly believe in climate change and always have.” This is the problem the leader will get himself into—making things up on the hoof and then backtracking when the pressure goes on. We were going to have as I remember National Party and industry - supported school lunches. What happened to those? I think they have gone by the wayside. That lasted only about a week I think. This one climate change is the kind of thing that will receive scrutiny and he will be found out. 
Mr Key the leader is one of the hollow men. Those who have read the book gained a very interesting insight into the way the National Party works. For me two key issues came from that book. The first one was that shadowy faceless people were buying and selling policies. It was the most extraordinary thing I have seen. These faceless people in the shadows who were not members of Parliament most of whom had never stood for election and who were not prepared to come out and nail their colours to the mast in an undemocratic fashion were telling key people in the National Party what they should be doing. They said that if National did something they would help fund it. They were buying and selling policies. There is a word for that action. It was practised in a number of countries including Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and it should not be allowed to happen. 
The Hollow Men  
suddenly exposed the rotten things that were going on in the National Party. If it had not been for the issue of the Exclusive Brethren then National may well have got over the line and many of those things that were being suggested would have come to pass. It was rotten and people saw through it. Thank goodness voters acted at the last election and we are now not suffering many of the things that those faceless hollow men were prepared to do to New Zealand. 
The second thing that comes to my mind when I think about that book is the word “deceit”. What those people were telling the National Party to do—and what the National Party was prepared to do—was to say one thing prior to the election knowing that it would do exactly the opposite afterwards. New Zealand has moved on from that. New Zealand will not tolerate that any more. New Zealand has had a gutsful of that. But the National Party was prepared to do it. 
There is no greater example of that than in the whole question of asset sales. Did we hear the National Party come out and say that it believed in asset sales because that was part of its policy plank? No we did not. We heard slip and slide. We heard: “We will not sell New Zealand Post in our first term.” We knew by that that in the second term it would be a goner. National said: “Well we are going to sell a few things like a few farms.” The public knew that the National Party really had only three policy positions which were being pushed by the faceless people in the shadows outside this place. Those were tax cuts asset sales and cuts in public spending particularly in health and education. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I remind members that interjections are certainly acceptable but that absolute constant barracking like the member is doing is not. The member will desist. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It was clear that the National Party was running two agendas. It was running the agenda of telling people before the election what they wanted to hear and the agenda of the hollow men which was to do after the election the exact opposite. The point is that luckily the public saw through it. That is the good thing. The great thing about democracy is that people will not stand for people outside of this place trying to run what happens inside it. 
Of course if it had not been for that election the National Party would have dragged New Zealand backwards. The National Party if it ever gets another chance—and mercifully it is not likely to happen in my lifetime—will drag us back to asset sales the Employment Contracts Act benefit cuts tax cuts for the rich intolerance and the pitting of New Zealander against New Zealander. 
 That is the true recipe of the National Party.  
The Hollow Men 
 exposed that National members were prepared to try to waffle and weasel their way through an election campaign not remembering things and making things up as they went and that after the election the real National agenda driven by people outside of this place was to go back to the 1980s and 1990s. 
Mercifully a Labour-led Government came into office in 1999 and reversed many of those trends. It built an inclusive society by changing things like the Employment Contracts Act by building a skilled workforce by putting more Kiwis into work by supporting firms breaking into offshore markets and by looking at things like telecommunications reform KiwiSaver and paid parental leave. The Labour-led Government has done endless things but the point is that the job is not finished. The contrast will be a Labour-led Government under Helen Clark leading us forward with a vision about where New Zealand should go or a National Party dragging us back to the 1980s and 1990s which is what it wants to do. The public decided. They said they wanted to go forward with Labour not backwards with National.