Hughes Darren: General Debates 
Hughes Darren: General Debates 
[Volume:613;Page:9729] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 The member should ask one of his colleagues about that. It is a pleasure to follow Simon Power who at age 35 is already yesterday’s man. Simon Power has twice turned down the deputy leadership of the National Party and National will not come knocking a third time. Other members like John Key will be lining up to take that place. Simon Power thinks he has the deputy leadership coming to him but he has turned it down once too often. 
This weekend the Labour Party goes into its annual conference in Christchurch and what a story this re-elected Labour-led Government has to tell. Our party will be talking in Christchurch about leadership and partnership. It will be talking about growth and innovation about fairness and security about opportunity for all about strong public services and about building a confident nation. We have a story to tell that the National Party can only dream of because it is in chaos everywhere with not a vote to count. 
We have seen an extraordinary change in the leadership of the National Party and we saw an extraordinary display during the general debate today. The election for the leadership was an oops election. It was “oops” because National members could not believe as a caucus what they had done when they had finished—nor can the country believe it any more than those members do. The brat pack walked into the caucus room with 20 votes in the bag but only 12 turned up in its favour. The brat pack members all betrayed and backstabbed one another and as they sit together in this Chamber they are trying to work out whom they can trust and whom they should not trust. It seems there were 52 positions on the leadership which was a shame when there were only 26 votes. The only person who was upfront about his support was Maurice Williamson and he was not even allowed to vote. 
But 14 votes do not make a happy family and National members are now about as united as the Spice Girls having elected “Ice Spice” to be their leader. Once again the National Party has panicked about its leadership change as it did when it changed from Bolger to Shipley from Shipley to Bill English and now from Bill English to Dr Brash. If it were an episode of  
The Simpsons 
 we would be calling Dr Brash “Monty Burns” the wealthy geriatric who runs a nuclear power plant while haplessly plotting the overthrow of the world. How fitting it is that Dr Brash is surrounded by other characters from  
The Simpsons. 
 I note that Gerry Brownlee is doing a very good impersonation of “‘Sideshow’ Bob Terwilliger”. It is very good that “Ned Flanders” in the form of Bill English has been allowed to stay on the front bench. 
But what have we seen so far? We have seen a policy of asset sales and a policy of tax cuts for the rich. For people earning less than $38000—[ 
Interruption 
] Dr Mapp says that $38000 is not much money. He is right about that but in the constituency that I represent 65 percent of people earn less than $20000. 
John Key 
: Do something about it then. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: We are but we will not make those people work 5 years longer and make them retire at 70 while giving no tax cuts except to National’s rich mates. That is not a policy prescription that we sign up to. How rich it is of National members particularly the list member Katherine Rich to say that the Government should do more about the Department of Child Youth and Family Services when the National Party wants to give tax cuts of $774 a week to New Zealanders who earn half a million dollars. Then they cry crocodile tears about not having strong public services. That party has a record—absolutely! 
Dr Brash said he wanted to work with the devil to change the Government. I know that the ACT party is unpopular but I am not sure even we think that Rodney Hide or Richard Prebble is the devil. The ACT party was not offended by that of course because yesterday we saw a fawning Mr Shirley and a sycophantic Ms Coddington get up and pour praise on Dr Brash while National members sat there like stunned mullets wondering whether they had done the right thing. 
Mr Power said in his speech how proud he was of Dr Brash. It is a pity he did not vote for him though. Simon Power said Dr Brash is going to be a great leader but he did not even vote for him. It is just ridiculous. That is what was happening when Mr Power was speaking. We have read all sorts of comments about Dr Brash. One of the things he said in the paper when he was asked about his personal friendships was this: “I have found in recent years that I have allowed my close friendships to atrophy”. Atrophy! This is a man who is so right wing he has even restructured his social life. He made his mates redundant and told them not to come around on Monday—and they think he is a great Kiwi friend! But oh no this guy is going to be fantastic out on the campaign trail! 
Apparently the answer to Mr English’s leadership was simply to promote Mr Carter. Members of the brat pack will be delighted to know that all they had to do was to elevate somebody called David Carter and they could have ruled the National Party for years. 
The other interesting thing has been the role of Mr McCully. I have always found Mr McCully to be a very fascinating character. National Party members revere him. Mr Power looks on him as an older brother and they joke around. National members revere Mr McCully as some sort of great strategist and I cannot understand that. Mr McCully’s strategies saw National with 47 percent of the vote in 1990 and 20 percent of the vote in 2002. Kevin Roberts a peak-performing unit was a strategy that went nowhere. Putting in Bill English as leader was a strategy that went nowhere. Organising the countercoup with the brat pack to keep Mr English in the job was another strategy that went nowhere. Yet National Party members say Mr McCully is their strategist—their man—and he is ace. 
It is John Key who is laughing all the way to the bank. He is another first-termer who is going places but he could not wait to get into the  
Dominion Post  
today. In the first feature on John Key on page A15 he said what a centrist he was and that he was far more in touch with middle New Zealand than Dr Brash. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.