Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
Brownlee Gerry: General Debate 
[Volume:636;Page:6932] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 Once again on a Wednesday afternoon Labour members have not been talking about their policies; they have been resorting to the age-old argument that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Today suddenly Mr Hager according to Labour members is a writer of biblical belief. He is the man who just a short while ago was described by them as a complete idiot for writing a book called the  
Seeds of Distrust 
. It is a book that the Prime Minister said was absolute fiction a complete mistruth and she said that Mr Hager was not to be believed. But today Labour members have come in here and talked about “St Nicky Hager” and his tome on which anyone could swear as if it were a bible and presented it as though there were even a skerrick of fact in it when there is not. 
When did the Labour Party decide to take $300000 worth of anonymous donations? When did the Labour Party decide that it was OK to take $500000 from a Sydney-based businessman who has no discernible assets at all but has enough to be able to give the Labour Party $500000? When did Labour members decide that it was OK to put their hands deep into the pockets of taxpayers and rip out $850000 to fund their election campaign? Well they did it progressively over a period of time while they have deluded themselves that they are the great party of the people. They will see a great party between themselves and the people in not too long. John Key and the new National Party leadership team—deputy Bill English and the rest of the troops—will knock Labour over in the 2008 election because that crowd is completely bereft of any vision whatsoever. 
I want to demonstrate that by saying that the sort of delusion Labour members have presented around their own pure state as far as election spending is concerned and the reference to the fictional book by Mr Hager is seen also in the way in which they have dealt with climate change in this country over a period of years. Government members might say that the National Party has changed its position but no the National Party has been taking time to see where this thing goes. It is abundantly clear that Labour members do not believe one iota of their rhetoric. If they did why would we have seen such a huge expansion of thermal electricity generation in this country? Why would we have seen such a massive expansion of carbon dioxide emission in this country? And why would we have seen a constant change in their position on how these matters might be dealt with? 
I was fascinated a few months ago to get an invitation from Minister of Energy Parker and Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues Tizard to the New Zealand premiere of the film by Al Gore. They said that it was an absolutely magnificent film a documentary of monumental proportion and a statement of truth and fact and that we have to do something about the situation. 
But have Labour members done anything in response to what they claim to believe? No they have actually said: “Well sorry Al. We are going to talk about it but in the next short while we are going to commission more coal-fired generation. We have told one of our State-owned enterprises: ‘Go ahead import a couple of million tonnes of coal in the next 12 months and burn it.’ We do not want any hydroelectricity because we would rather see the atmosphere polluted as long as the snails have a nice place to live.” That is the sort of strange logic that we see applied from the Labour Party. 
But I think that most fascinating today was the fact that Labour members did not find any basis on which to make any attack on the new arrangements the National Party has put in place in the last couple of weeks. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Ha ha! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: There is my friend Mr Goff over there—and I say that sincerely. He is a nice chap. He does not have quite enough oomph behind him to do the job on Helen Clark. Back in 1989 this man was running little soirees at his lifestyle block some 100 miles distant from his electorate inviting various members of the Labour caucus to come and share a sausage over the barbecue. Mind true to his socialist roots it was a “bring your own sausage” barbecue.