Fairbrother Russell: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFairbrother Russell: General Debate[Sitting date: 22 August 2007. Volume:641;Page:11368. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour):That member Christopher Finlayson is the man who styles himself as the Attorney-General in waiting—waiting being the operative word. That man will be waiting when Charles Chauvel becomes the Attorney-General. That man will be waiting when Charles Chauvel turns 50. That man will never make Attorney-General because he will never be on the Treasury benches. That man will leave this House as frustrated and bitter as he entered it. But what that man does represent is the moneyed right. He is the man who aspires to be Attorney-General who featured in the bookThe Hollow Men and who held high-priced fund-raising dinners so that the wealthy right wing in this country could buy their way into power. He is the man who criticises our Attorney-General claiming a lack of independence. The facts speak for themselves.Let us have a look at the credibility issue. This is not an attack on John Key. He does not need an attack from me; he attacks himself every time he opens his mouth. This is an attack on his credibility.This is a debate. The debate was set off by a lacklustre speech made by the Leader of the Opposition John Key. The only thing he told the House was that he is presently ahead in the polls. He dwelled upon that as though it were a matter of great moment of State.The reply to that was led by our Minister of Health Pete Hodgson. He brought facts and figures into the debate. He outlined the inconsistency of statutory declarations bythe Leader of the Opposition. That man who wants to be Attorney-General knows how important statutory declarations are. If we trifle with them we are committing a serious moral offence at least and perhaps a serious legal offence. Pete Hodgson outlined chapter and verse the impossibility for all those statutory declarations to be honest to be straightforward and to be taken at face value. And we have a motive for them to be misleading. At the time those declarations were made John Key was standing for the first time in the seat of Helensville. He was styling himself as a man of the people of that electorate. Of course it is quite clear now that he had no intention of delivering on his promise that he would live in the area. The statutory declarations outlined by Pete Hodgson today show quite clearly the total lack of credibility that man has.But John Key has a remedy. At any time during the speech made by the Minister of Health or after—or even now—he could stand in this House and invoke Standing Order 133(g) to interrupt the debate and make a personal statement to clarify the position. His credibility having been put on the line in this House this afternoon in this debate has not been restored by him. Why? Because he cannot advance a statement that will repair the damage of those inconsistent statutory declarations. Therefore as we stand in the House right now the debating speech of Pete Hodgson has to be taken as accurate and accepted by the Leader of the Opposition. It has to tell us that he filed conflicting statutory declarations when he should have been consistent forthright and honest.What does that tell us about the man who comes here and gives a lacklustre speech gloating that he is ahead in the polls at this moment? It tells us that he is a very good marketer. What is a marketer? A marketer is someone who creates a need in someone’s mind when that person does not want the product for which the need is created. What is the product they are creating? They are creating a myth of beneficence. I sat on a select committee this morning with some of the members sitting on the other side of the House and those members must really have been churning in their stomachs at the evidence we heard.My friend Mr Gosche spoke about an underclass. The underclass in this country are not the people whom John Key wants to highlight. The underclass in this country is truly a category of people who are marginalised by a system that fails to recognise their personal needs and their view of the world. I hate to use that term “underclass” but it is the only term by which we can describe people who are marginalised and discriminated against in such a way.This is the world of the disabled. [Interruption] The member can interrupt about the disabled; he certainly can. He wants to forget them just as he wants to forget about his party’s promise to go to Iraq. He wants to forget about the disabled and he certainly will if he ever gets to the Treasury benches. The world of the disabled is a very very marginalised and sad world. Their complaint of course is that the money available to the disability sector is not getting to them. But they should wait until we have tax cuts and wait until we have members on the other side of the Chamber on the Treasury benches. Then there will be no money for the marginalised and discriminated against disabled sector.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.