Banks John: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Banks John: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8028. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 This is the question is it not? What does the Labour Party stand for? What does the modern Labour Party stand for? The Labour Party stands against jobs. The Labour Party stands against investment. The Labour Party stands against progress. The Labour Party stands against a convention centre in Auckland. The Labour Party looks a gift-horse in the mouth. But the Labour Mayor of Auckland stands for jobs investment growth and the Skycity convention centre. The Labour Party spokesman for Auckland the Labour Party mayor says this is a good idea. He cannot quite bring himself to say that publicly but that is the code we get from the town hall. 
The new hands-on Labour Party over there—this is what it does—keeps its hands off the jobs it keeps its hands off investment and it keeps its hands off sensible policy but it wants its hands on the levers of power. That is what it desperately wants. It wants its hands on the levers of power. The reason I am here Mr Speaker—and congratulations on your first week in the job—is to keep the dispirited the deluded and the bewildered on that side of the House. I am here to keep these people—the dispirited the deluded and the bewildered—on that side of the House. 
Look how dispirited these turkeys are today as they look forward to an early Christmas. Look how dispirited they are. The fastest growing branch in the Labour Party is the United Nations branch. It is the fastest growing branch. As the cruise ship goes out of Auckland Harbour you can see the Labour rats jumping into the tide and swimming north towards New York—swimming north towards New York. 
Anyway we will not be losing any members of the ACT Party caucus—we will not be losing any members of the ACT Party caucus. We stand our ground we stand for progress we stand for investment we stand for jobs and we stand behind John Key and his leadership of this country. Look Labour members voted three times to get their present leader into the place of leadership and he is sitting there like a possum caught in the lights of “Hone” Carter’s Holden going up the Brynderwyns. That is how he looks every day. The truth is that Labour is missing in action on the big issues. 
The Labour Party has never been more unfit to govern this country in its history. Labour is not serious about getting young people homeownership. What is the result? What has it done? It has promised 10000 houses—10000 chicken coops—to be funded by the next finance Minister a Green member of Parliament who says we should print money to build 10000 chicken coops for the chickens that follow the Labour Party and Green Party around the traps. What is the result? Tens of thousands of New Zealanders are out of work because the Labour Party believes in pricing young people off the market. 
This Labour Party—and I have been around a lot of Labour parties—should hang its head in shame. It does not even have a front-bencher in the House. That is how serious the Labour Party takes these debates. There is not anything about the Labour— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I believe it is outside the Standing Orders to refer to the absence of members of the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is absolutely true. The member will refrain from referring to the absence of any member. 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: I ask people listening carefully on their crystal sets in the few Labour constituencies that are left across Aotearoa to ask this question: is there anything about the modern Labour Party and its leadership and is there anything about the Greens—the old fogies and young dudes—that is going to give hope to this country? Is there anything that they believe in and are prepared to bring to this House that will give hope to this country? That is why John Key and the National Party coalition—John Key’s National and the ACT Party sponsored by the people of Epsom—remain well ahead in the polls. We stand against the Labour Party ever getting its hands on the levers of power.