English Bill: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6362. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 Well I have not yet met the housing Minister Craig Heatley but I am looking forward to meeting the leader of the Labour Party Ian Shearer! At least he might get listened to by his front bench when he gives a speech. It is absolutely clear that even if Charles Chauvel was here yesterday he should have been at the barbecue with the Davids who were not here because he did not start listening until the 4th minute of the speech. No doubt half of that caucus are sitting there thinking it is almost the second or third to last general debate speech that the current leader of the Labour Party will give. 
Yesterday they were away plotting. What else would David Parker David Cunliffe and Grant Robertson be doing if they were not in the House on a Tuesday? [ 
Interruption 
] Well Grant Robertson was probably on Skype—I will give you that—from New York or wherever he was. I will tell you what they were talking about: the same things that New Zealand’s union leadership is talking about in the Koru lounge and that is who it is going to be to follow on from David Shearer. 
The Labour Party should do what it did with Helen Clark. Helen Clark was polling very poorly making no impact on politics and Labour stuck with her. In fact it stuck with her for 2½ years until the 1996 election campaign when she finally came through to show her political capacities in that campaign. She still lost the election polling only 28 percent but Labour kept backing her. That is when the Labour Party used to understand middle New Zealand because it knew that in the long run it had a leader who could take it to victory. This Labour Party does not understand middle New Zealand and that is why Labour members are looking to jump ship. The rats are leaving the ship because David Shearer does not look like he has beaten the Government this year. In just a matter of a few months since he has been the leader they are ready to slit his throat stab him in the back and throw him to the wolves. But that is the easy bit. The hard bit is deciding who would replace him. My advice is that that fight will be so divisive that they should stick with David Shearer like they did with Helen Clark because he has not all of the same qualities but some of the same qualities. 
I would say that he alone of those on the front bench of Labour has an instinct for middle New Zealand. There are other people there who do not like the Hon David Cunliffe who has said publicly—and I think this is honest—in the  
Listener 
: “I think I am sincere.” I think I am sincere! Well ask anybody who has listened to this man—he is not sincere. He has perfected the art as Mike Moore said—when you can fake sincerity you have really got them. But at least David Cunliffe recognises his inner troubles—and this is not an inner struggle that David Shearer has—when he says that he has to keep reminding himself that it is not about him every day: “Every day I look in the mirror and I tell myself it is not about me.” Well the leadership of what used to one of New Zealand’s fine political parties cannot be about an ego that big. 
Hon Annette King 
: Bill knows a lot about leadership! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do know. I have been there. I know what it feels like. I know how David Shearer feels today when he can hear them baying for his blood knowing he is going to be cut down. It is just a matter of when because this is the Labour Party at its best. The discipline it had under Helen Clark is gone; now it is egos now it is each man for himself and now Labour members spend a lot more time talking about themselves than they do—