Goff Phil: General Debate 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:11786] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I guess therefore that Labour should be flattered by the National Party’s desperate efforts to snuggle up to Labour on defence and foreign policy. The problem is that an Opposition is meant to oppose; an Opposition is meant to project new and alternative ideas and policies. 
How do we explain the National Party’s position over recent months in these areas? I guess Guyon Espiner got it right the other day in his  
North and South  
article. He said that National so clearly perceived its weakness in defence and foreign policy that it wanted to depoliticise those issues. And it is no wonder: National in Government and in Opposition has consistently shown poor judgment—the poor judgment that until recently let Mr Key and many other members of the National Party say they would have committed New Zealand soldiers to the war in Iraq just as Mr Key’s predecessors three decades earlier had committed New Zealand soldiers to a war in Viet Nam. 
Now the National Party is saying it wants us to believe that it is sincere in its support for a nuclear-free New Zealand. The National Party that I have observed over the last 15 years has flip-flipped flip-flopped and flip-flipped on nuclear-free policy every time it thought it was in its interest to be in favour of nuclear ships or not to be in favour of them. We would not know whether National members were being shallow and dishonest then when they said they were against a nuclear-free New Zealand or whether they are being shallow and dishonest now when they say they are in favour of it. 
Then there is the issue of scrapping the air combat wing. Dr Mapp and Mr McCully have said that Labour’s policy would leave New Zealand undefended—undefended and bludging off its mates. Now they admit that Labour had it right all along. I could not help but notice the comment in the paper the other day from a commentator who asked whether the National Party was now prepared to countenance bludging off its mates and leaving New Zealand unprotected or whether it was admitting that its former rhetoric was hysterical nonsense. Were National members being shallow and dishonest when they were against scrapping the air combat wing or are they being shallow and dishonest now that they have totally flip-flopped on their policy? 
Actually I tend to agree with a columnist in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 last weekend who said that the showmen and the shallow men of the National Party have replaced the hollow men of the National Party. I think that that is almost right. It is only almost right; we have the showmen and the shallow men—John Key epitomises that—but we still have the hollow men. They are the hollow men who were prepared to take money in secret from the extremists and the fundamentalists. They were prepared to spend that money with the expectation from those groups that they would deliver for those with privilege and those holding fundamentalist viewpoints. 
The truth of the matter is that there is a vacuum of principle there is a vacuum of policy and there is even an absence of analysis in the National Party itself. It is shallow it is expedient and when its members flip-flop one way we cannot even rely on them not to flip-flop in the opposite direction depending on the expediency of the moment. They flip-flop because no policy is anchored in principle and no policy is anchored in philosophy. These are the ultimate shallow and hollow men of New Zealand politics. 
Let us get a few answers from the National Party to some questions. Can those members really believe in climate change one moment when just a moment ago John Key was saying it was a hoax? Did people believe him then or do people believe him now? How shallow was that policy or how dishonest is the change in those members’ stance? And can we believe that they will not cut superannuation? That National Party of which Lockwood Smith was a member said it would scrap the surtax—“no ifs no buts no maybes”. Those members lied they reversed their policy and they did it again. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr English that he did it again in 1999 as Minister of Finance when he cut superannuation.