Mackey Moana: General Debate 
Mackey Moana: General Debate 
[Volume:649;Page:18025] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Has it not been an interesting day in the House today? Have we not seen the classic Crosby/Textor diversion plan in the House today? What is that plan? It is to hide the divisions and create a diversion. Have we not seen that rolled out today? 
Why did we not hear about the privatisation of our school buildings from National’s education spokesperson? Let me read what Maurice Williamson said about it on  
Agenda 
. He said: “… in Victoria there’s a whole raft of schools now being billed as PPPs they’re still state schools in terms of the teachers … but the entire cost of maintaining the buildings and doing all the facilities management is now farmed off to someone who is much better”—people who are much better than our principals. He said: “… I don’t know very many Principals who are good at taking care of their buildings budget.” Well I know a lot of school principals who are very good at taking care of their buildings budgets. They care about the facilities in their schools. They want complete control of the facilities in their schools. 
Why did we hear none of that from National’s spokesperson on education? Like all the other spokespeople she has gone to ground on the issues that matter one of which is the privatisation of our State school system. Let me say that again—the privatisation of our State school system. We do not have to look very far around the world to find out that when these kinds of arrangements are introduced we go very quickly from privatisation and private investment being encouraged to being required. It is the schools in the East Coast electorate that would miss out under that kind of arrangement. 
But I have to say that National Party members were very very sensitive today. Why would they not be? They are completely in the closet. They are not allowed to say what they truly believe. They are not allowed to tell us their deepest darkest political philosophies. Why? Because they think the New Zealand public do not like it. They cannot admit to their true beliefs. Voters and the New Zealand public should be very very concerned about a National Government. We have seen examples of this such as asset sales. Bill English said that National will sell Kiwibank eventually. Then he went to ground and we heard no more from him. On KiwiSaver Kate Wilkinson and Shane Ardern both said that the employer contribution for our workers will go. All of a sudden there was a backtrack: “No we’re not going to do that.” Those members have gone to ground. 
John Key told us that Working for Families was communism by stealth. Either he has rapidly changed his opinion of communism or he is simply trying to lead the electorate to believe that after the election National will keep a programme that we know it despises and cannot wait to get rid of. When Labour announced the interest-free student loans policy do members know what the National Party members said? They said it was corrupt. They said it was an election bribe and it was corrupt. What has happened since? Apparently now it is National’s policy. Once again we are meant to believe that this policy will stay under a National Government should it ever get hold of the Treasury benches. 
John Key said that the Kyoto Protocol and climate change was a hoax and that he was suspicious of the whole phenomenon of climate change. Where are we now? We have done another 180-degree turn. Now we are the true believers in climate change. Of course the National Party has opposed every single meaningful piece of policy that has come into this House to deal with climate change but we are meant to believe that should National ever win an election it will uphold New Zealand’s involvement in Kyoto and follow through on the policies that this Government has put in place. 
Then there was the most recent example of infrastructure and tolling. Maurice Williamson went on the  
Agenda 
 programme and said what he believed. We all know that Maurice always says what he believes. He believes that tolling is a good idea. He thinks that $5 per trip is fair. What happened? The party whose members today have been screaming at the Government about free speech because they think they should be allowed to not comply with Standing Orders unlike the rest of us would not let Maurice Williamson National’s spokesperson on this issue speak on  
Nine to Noon 
. He was pulled off that programme within minutes of doing the interview on  
Agenda 
 and replaced by Bill English. This is the party whose members stood up today and purported to be the absolute defenders of free speech. But the fact is they only want to defend the free speech that suits them; as for the rest of it they want to shut it down. The sad thing about that is most of the speech they want to shut down comes from within their own caucus. 
That is a problem when a caucus is so divided. That is why we have seen the classic Crosby/Textor diversion coming out today in the House. When one has a division create a diversion—create another issue so that we do not have to talk about the real issues facing New Zealanders. John Key said that he promises to resign if he breaks any of his election promises. Well we have heard that before. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. My understanding is that that stuff is sub judice. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: That is a frivolous point of order. Sit down. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: John Key says that he will promise to resign if he breaks any of his election promises. Where have we heard that before? 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.