Cullen Michael: Adjournment Sittings of the House 
Cullen Michael: Adjournment Sittings of the House 
[Volume:622;Page:18131] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the House do now adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday 1 February 2005 and that the sitting days in 2005 be as follows:  
February 1 2 3 8 9 10 15 16 and 17;  
March 1 2 3 8 9 10 15 16 17 29 30 and 31;  
April 5 6 7 12 13 and 14;  
May 3 4 5 10 11 12 17 18 19 and 31;  
June 1 2 7 8 9 14 15 16 21 22 and 23;  
July 26 27 and 28;  
August 2 3 4 9 10 and 11.  
I begin by thanking the people who are so important to this place starting particularly with yourself Mr Speaker because if rumour has it true this may well be the last occasion on which you preside over an adjournment debate within the New Zealand House of Representatives. Indeed rumour may further suggest that you may be translated to another place which of course in the place to which you are going has another meaning to what it has in this House. 
That will be capping an extraordinary career that stretches back to 1966 some 38 years in the New Zealand Parliament. You have been here longer than a number of the people in this place have been alive though it is fair to say that some members opposite have never been alive at any stage during those 38 years. 
You have contributed to this place more than the vast majority of people who have ever been here. Your generosity your ability to understand Parliament your ability to allow matters to flow yet to step in when you need to step in and the way in which you know people’s problems and deal with them—not just those in your own party but those across the House—has been appreciated by many people over many years. It is an extraordinarily distinguished career. 
I thank also obviously the Table Office staff the messengers the Hansard writers the security staff the ministerial and parliamentary staff all my colleagues in Parliament and our long-suffering families. In particular I thank my Government colleagues. 
It has been a great but testing year for the Government. We have passed an enormous amount of legislation—by no means a record number of Acts but then we have not passed a Statutes Amendment Bill recently which is the usual way of getting the body count up rather cheaply in that regard. Of course we passed the Income Tax Act which is easily the largest single Act New Zealand has—although much shorter than some of its overseas equivalents I might point out—along with Acts such as the various Acts arising from the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill. We have actually passed the largest number of pages in New Zealand’s legislative history which may come as a surprise to many people given that we have not sat very frequently under urgency compared with the many occasions during the 1980s and early 1990s. 
Regarding the economy we have seen a year in which the New Zealand economy has continued to outperform and surprise with the strength of its growth. As a result we have seen record low unemployment—the lowest for the last 18 years—at some 3.8 percent. The problem for National is that it does not know how to cope with that success. We have seen the Working for Families package which will deliver an average of $100 per week into the pockets of families earning between $25000 and $45000 per year—those families that really struggle to make ends meet within New Zealand at the present time. It has been a great year for the Government. 
I also thank some of the other parties in the House. I thank United Future which has voted against the Government more often than the Greens have. It has differentiated itself on a whole range of issues. But between United Future the Labour Party and the Progressives there is a form of civil union—if I can put it that way—whereby we are bound to each other by certain matters of agreement and agree not to step outside that. Even when the Government rejected amendments on the Income Tax Act 2004 nevertheless United Future stood by its word and voted on an issue of confidence with the Government. That has contributed now to the most stable Government under MMP that we have seen. 
Opposition Members 
: Soft! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: National members say: “Soft!” because they do not have a coalition partner in sight. That is National’s problem. The ACT party is disappearing off the face of the earth and nobody else wants a bar of it. Mr Peters has not wanted a bar of National ever since Mr Carter I think it was was stupid enough to suggest certain matters about a lunch. Ever since then negotiations between those two have never occurred. 
I thank the Greens for their support on a large number of important measures. We relied upon their support to get those measures through Parliament. They have always been reliable to that extent. 
I thank New Zealand First which perhaps is a little bit more difficult on occasion to deal with. But on the foreshore and seabed issue it put New Zealand’s interests first and assisted significantly in terms of the passage of the legislation particularly in terms of some of the content. In that respect I thank the House this week for correcting a minor drafting error in the Foreshore and Seabed Act with absolutely no debate at all except for a small comment from MetiriaTurei. It is nice that we have now handed back to local government the areas that run to reclamation which we had unfortunately nationalised by mistake. The National Party did not pick that up at any stage of the debate on the aquaculture legislation. 
My special big thanks goes to Dr Brash and his deputy Gerry Brownlee. Both Government parties owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr Brash and Mr Brownlee this year. There they sit the Laurel and Hardy of New Zealand politics. Let us just look at them. All Dr Brash needs is the hat and they would be the perfect imitation of Laurel and Hardy. They behave pretty much the same way as they carried on. The National Party now faces the question—and we have seen it during the last 24 hours—of whether Bill English is on the comeback trail. He has made more serious thoughtful speeches in this House within the last couple of weeks than Dr Brash has managed to make all year. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Rubbish! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: His former deputy leader says: “Rubbish!”. That is what I call loyalty! He says that Mr English’s speeches are rubbish. No wonder Mr Sowry is retiring! I say to him that he will have to go quickly before he gets pushed out. That explains how Judy Keall beat him so easily in the past and why he will never face up against “Dazza” Hughes in the future. 
I say to Mr English to remember John Howard. He has been the Australian Prime Minister for 8 years. He was the leader he was tossed out he came back into the Opposition and he won government. I say to Mr English that there are examples there that he might care to think about over the coming few months. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Lazarus. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I would not say Lazarus. I think he is missing the intermediate necessity in terms of Lazarus. 
The second great question that I think is being asked is whether the National Party’s finance team “Don” and “Key” will come together. That is the big question facing the National Party in that respect. Indeed will the National Party’s finance team “Don” and “Key” ever manage to agree on anything in terms of finance going forward? 
Above all what will Don Brash flip-flop on next? What else is left for him to flip-flop on? Could it be support for the Working for Families package? Could it be support for paid parental leave? That has to occur sometime. I suggest to Dr Brash that going into the election and saying that one will remove paid parental leave will not be a great winner. He came in here flushed up as the 10th member of the ACT party. He was going to put backbone into National. He was going to lead it back on the true right road—in every sense of the word “right”. What has he done month after month over the last few months? He has crawled back to some kind of populist position whereby he has abandoned every principle he ever held previously as the Governor of the Reserve Bank. 
Do members remember all those speeches he gave as the Governor of the Reserve Bank? He would abolish the unemployment benefit. We have not heard that one from Dr Brash for a wee while. He would basically abolish any kind of industrial relations law at all. He would cut the top tax rate for the rich. Indeed if one reads Dr Brash’s speeches one sees that the tax rate for the rich would be less than the tax rate for the poor. That flat tax stuff from ACT was wimpy woolly stuff! Dr Brash used to argue that we should not have that. 
So the year that started with great promise is ending in whimpering failure. More and more as the year has gone on National has resembled—I say National; I will not get personal—a kind of eunuch with a bunch of flowers if I can put it that way. It has a great approach but no capacity to follow through when it comes to the crucial moment. That really has been how National has looked right the way through the year. The bunch of flowers came out at Orewa. Everybody said: “What a lovely bunch of flowers you have Dr Brash.” Then they started looking more closely and focusing on the core of Dr Brash. At the end of the day they have presumed that he is not up to it when it comes to being the leader of the country. The flip-flops on nuclear superannuation 4-weeks’ holiday and the civil union legislation have unfolded one by one over the last few weeks. 
We wish Dr Brash a merry Christmas. He will sit there and think about whether that glint in the sun he can see is Mr Brownlee with a knife or Mr English with a knife. Or maybe it is the new young Lochinvar from the west Mr Key who was kind enough to name me politician of the year—which I have to say is a charming thing from one’s opponent in politics.