Mackey Moana: General Debate 
Mackey Moana: General Debate 
[Volume:621;Page:16325] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 The Hon Bill English who has just resumed his seat got the complete wrong end of the stick like the rest of his party. They believe that we should be convicting people before they have a trial. However it must be said that the Hon Bill English certainly leaves his leader Dr Don Brash in the dark when it comes to speeches in this House. 
I think that the Hon Bill English must be secretly smiling over some of the headlines we have seen lately. The  
New Zealand Herald  
stated: “Brash blunder over help for ACT”. The  
Sunday Star-Times 
 stated: “Do nothing National delays peak”. Other headlines state: “Brash in troubled waters” “Bumbling Brash loses plot” and “Home or away Brash is losing”. I think that in secret Bill English is planning his return. He has had time to regroup and he is coming back. 
The National Party is used to being overshadowed. It is certainly not the first time that it has been overshadowed. It has been overshadowed by New Zealand First for a long time since it decided to adopt all New Zealand First’s policies and take them as its own. But the reality is that New Zealand First deals with law and order and treaty issues much better than the National Party ever has or ever will. Why? It is because the National Party has no credibility on those issues. The Hon Phil Goff had to fix and toughen up “Tough on Sentencing” Tony Ryall’s sentencing and parole laws. Why? Under Tony Ryall’s sentencing law there was automatic release—[ 
Interruption 
] Members opposite do not like it because they know that if they ever get back into Government they will not do anything else. It would be just like the last time when they promised they would get tough on crime. Did they do it? No. It is typical of the National Party members. They promise promise get into Government and do nothing. 
Under Tony Ryall’s sentencing laws release was automatic at two-thirds of a sentence. Under the laws of this Labour Government put in place by the Hon Phil Goff a criminal can be kept in jail until the last day of his or her sentence. Under Tony Ryall’s law preventive detention was available only on a person’s second offence. A criminal got the first one free under National and they defended that. Under this Government preventive detention is available for the worst criminals on the first crime. 
On treaty issues the National Party made such a hash of the Lake Taupo deal that all the local tourism operators there now do not know whether they are coming or going because they do not know who owns the airspace above the lake. Yet those National members have the gall to stand in this House and criticise the work that this Government is doing on the Rotorua lakes deal with Te Arawa. They have the absolute gall to stand up and criticise what this Government is doing in ensuring that the water column and the airspace remain in the hands of the Government. 
But that is the key point about the National Party. There is no consistency because there can be no consistency where there are no principles. We in the Labour Government have always said that the National Party has no principles because the only thing it cares about is power and getting it. That is the only thing National members have ever cared about and it is the only thing they will continue to care about. National members snuggle up to the ACT party which I have been informed today in a public session of a select committee confirmed that it has no problem with foreign ownership of the foreshore and the seabed—no problem at all. Well that is probably something that New Zealanders need to know. 
Darren Hughes 
: The 1 percent party! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: The 1 percent party but New Zealanders need to know that ACT National and Dr Brash are completely politically in sync. They agree with each other. This explains why all the political casualties from Dr Don Brash are from his own party. Lynda Scott and Roger Sowry are heading for the hills. And then there is poor Dr Paul Hutchison. It says something about a party when it chooses a lawyer rather than a doctor as its health spokesperson. Clem Simich was shafted by his own party and now Mr Peachey who has been selected as the Tamaki candidate has to read headlines in the paper where Dr Brash states: “At this point if ACT was sitting on 4.9 percent who knows we might do a deal.” He says that they might do a deal in Tamaki or in Epsom. That leads me to Richard Worth. He is in the same boat as Mr Peachey and Clem Simich—at the whim of a deal done by his own leader to sacrifice him for the ACT party. 
Of course the biggest casualty was the Hon Bill English. He was rolled as leader after months of denying that that would happen. Dr Brash thought he was ineffective and that he was not doing the job properly. He said: “I confess to being guilty of being critical of my predecessor because although I was No. 3 in his caucus I didn’t have much substantive contact with Bill and I was critical of that.” Well now he knows the harsh reality. Now he knows that it is not all peaches and cream being leader of a major party.