Twyford Phil: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2584. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū):The last few weeks have been very very revealing. What the Northland by-election has exposed is a classically arrogant third-term National Government that is mired in scandal is desperate to hold on to power and is frantically trying to cover up its own shortcomings—in this particular instance the Northland by-election and its chronic neglect of regional New Zealand over many many years. It has basically been like watching a slow-motion train wreck. I do not know what will be the most enduring image of the campaign. On the one hand it might be Simon Bridges Steven Joyce the hapless Mark Osborne and a large black pig trying to erect a National Party hoarding—a photograph that appeared on the front page of the Northern Advocate—and on the other hand it might be the poor candidate Mark Osborne who had been advised not to go into the studio for the Q+A interview with his eyes darting nervously from side to side and Steven Joyce clearly there behind the camera holding up cue cards telling him what to say.So what did National do? It panicked. It panicked after one media opinion poll showed it was likely to lose this by-election. Steven Joyce panicked and he threw $70 million of taxpayers’ money at 10 Northland bridges that the Northland Regional Council had not even been asking for in its regional transport plan. In fact only three of the 10 bridges were even mentioned and of those three only two of them got the lowest possible priority rating. They were not a priority for Northland. But this National Government has never seen a political problem that could not be solved by throwing truckloads of taxpayers’ money at it. And for this Minister of Transport Simon Bridges his reputation has been one of the great casualties of this by-election campaign because he will never ever have any financial credibility or credibility as a transport Minister in this Parliament again. Simon Bridges’ bridges—his reputation has been permanently tarnished. The hapless candidate Mark Osborne could not even name the bridges even though he can see one of them from his front window. He claims it was his idea to think of the bridges in the first place and yet he could not even name them.Matthew Hooton who is not exactly a firebrand socialist has said that the pork-barrel politics practised by this National Government are the worst since the National Government of Sir Robert Muldoon in the 1970s and 1980s. This is the by-election of pork and it will hang around the necks of Steven Joyce Simon Bridges and all the other maestros who have been involved in running the campaign. I have a question: is the pork-barrel politics a sign of how desperate and how panicky this National Government is about losing the by-election this Saturday or is it an indicator of how casual the Government is with taxpayers’ money and of how willing it is to spend it willy-nilly in the pursuit of power and in buying votes? Or is it both of those things? I suggest it is the third.Not only have we seen bribery but we have also seen bullying. And poor Shane Reti who was sent out by Steven Joyce and Simon Bridges to tell the people of Pipiwai in Northland who are simply campaigning to get their dusty roads sealed—a reasonable enough request—he was sent there to bully and intimidate the people of Pipiwai. It is all over the media. He was sent there to tell them that they should keep quiet and that they should keep their heads down for the duration of this by-election otherwise they would get nothing. That is the National Party in this by-election—bullying intimidation pork-barrel politics. He told the people of Pipiwai that he had taken their roads plan to Cabinet and he was forced to retract that statement. The Minister exposed that for the lie that it is.It is not the pork. It is not the years of neglect. It is not the dusty roads the blackmail the bullying and the lying. The thing that really sticks in the craw of the people of Northland is that they were kept in the dark by this National Party about Mike Sabin and the police investigation.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member knows that that is not a subject that will be raised in this House.PHIL TWYFORD: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to point out in relation to that that 3 News published—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not care what 3 News has done. I have made it quite clear and the Standing Orders are quite clear that that matter will not be discussed in this House. That concludes the member’s speech anyway.