Mark Ron: General Debates 
Mark Ron: General Debates 
[Volume:617;Page:12650] 
Well sorry the message was on the back of a 10-year-old speech delivered by Jim Bolger. What astounds me is that the media did not see that when it happened. The message was on the back of New Zealand First policies and speeches that have been made for 14 years by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He started making those comments and expressing those concerns when he was a member of the National Party and he was ignored. This is the very confused bumbling Don Brash who in the words of Jane Clifton came into Parliament and made a right prat of himself yesterday and regretfully made a prat of the whole Opposition because he stands there as the Leader of the Opposition. 
 It was on my mind to stand up and if it was within procedure to move a motion of no confidence in the Leader of the Opposition. This is a man people need to judge very carefully. He says he is opposed to MMP and then in the next breath says he is going to be No. 1 on the National Party list because he sees himself as an MP whose constituency is the whole of New Zealand. 
How can a man who says he is opposed to MMP—that MMP should not exist and does not deliver to this country the type of governance he believes in—then turn round and have any credibility at all when he refuses to stand in a constituency seat and demands and takes No. 1 on the list in his own party? Excuse me but there is a credibility issue there—and excuse me why has that not been discussed in the media and put to Mr Brash when he has been asked on other occasions to front up and answer questions about some of his rather confusing statements? 
Excuse me but Mr Brash has to accept that a lot of what we have seen outside this Chamber today is not so much a demonstration against the foreshore policy but a general expression of angst and dissatisfaction over race relations in this country in respect of the things he is promoting. Yes he is against policies that have race privilege factors to them but this is the same man who said he is happy with the Fisheries Act. Excuse me but the Fisheries Act establishes taiapure and gives customary rights to Maori. This man says he is comfortable with that. 
One of the great statements from Tariana Turia is that she acknowledges the good work done by National: the establishment of kohanga reo the establishment of the Maori health providers and the establishment of education opportunities based on race which were set in place by National. Our very confused Leader of the Opposition sits over there and says he is opposed to that but he has not thought about it and does not quite have a policy on which to go to the future. 
Look at Mr Carter who stood here and made a wonderful speech. Mr Carter and Mr Smith are clearly confused. Mr Carter has actively campaigned against the freedom-to-roam proposition put up by the Government. He does not want people tramping across private property to get to the lakes the rivers the estuaries the streams and the creeks but Nick Smith objects to private property owners stopping access to an estuary by people who have crossed their land. 
Why? Because they are Maori. He gets wonderful coverage all over the country about Maori stopping access to an estuary but no one points out the fact that his colleague David Carter and the National Party have been campaigning for months against freedom to roam against access to private property. Where is the consistency in that? Should we be surprised when Maori out there are saying: “This we don’t understand.” This is targeted at Maori because Maori are the easy vote grab. 
We are in a situation right now where under the National Party it is OK to say that Maori men bash their wives but it is not OK to say that Asians are lousy drivers. There is a serious credibility issue there.