Brownlee Gerry: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Broadcasting 
Brownlee Gerry: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Broadcasting 
[Volume:658;Page:7186] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Associate Minister for the Rugby World Cup) 
: 
 What does someone do if he is the Leader of the Opposition has been out of the country for 3 weeks has not been on TV has his whole caucus rioting and running around with  
Hansards 
 stuck in their back pockets and doing the numbers and then has to come into the House and make a big impression because there has been a poll in the weekend that says “Sorry son it’s over”? Well apparently picking on the Rugby World Cup— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You made an intervention on the Leader of the Opposition in respect of relevance. I invite you to consider the content of the 40 seconds or 1 minute of this speech and tell me how it was relevant. I invite you to intervene. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Speaker will be the sole judge of that. I might point out that it was in fact the Leader of the Opposition who sought to have the debate. So if anything there is a greater responsibility there. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The Leader of the Opposition was not prepared to come to the House today and talk about what this country is doing about the $250 million a week it is borrowing to hold up the lifestyle in this country. He was not prepared to talk about what we are doing to grow the economy in this country. He was not prepared to talk about what we are doing about the violent crime that we have to stop in this country. He was not prepared to talk about any of those issues. He is worried that all New Zealanders will now be able to see the Rugby World Cup free to air. This is a huge success for this Government and there is no other way of looking at it. 
We have made sure that every New Zealander will be able to view all 48 matches of the Rugby World Cup free to air with the major matches playing across three television channels. Maori Television has shown that it is a serious player in the broadcasting arena and I would have thought that Parekura Horomia might be celebrating that. But instead he is running around buying into Phil Goff’s silly nonsense which is designed only to have him standing up in the House today pretending that he is still the leader of a viable party. It is unbelievable. 
This House has a programme this afternoon that will cause us to take urgency to move it on. This programme comprises serious issues that affect the lives of New Zealanders day by day. This utter nonsense from Mr Goff makes a complete mockery of the idea of having a reasonable Opposition that goes out to test a Government. I cannot believe the Leader of the Opposition. He has been away from the country for 3 weeks having gone on this jaunt around the world telling everybody what his job is and upon coming back here and seeing what a mess his party is and how low he is rating in the opinion polls he has decided that we should have a snap debate about why New Zealanders should be able to see the Rugby World Cup free of charge on their television sets. It is unbelievable. 
I do not intend to take the allotted time because it is a waste of time. I simply say that this is a good result for the Government. It is a tragic day for the Opposition when the best thing it can talk about with all that is happening in this country and all the difficulties and challenges we face is its concern about what happened last week. That is typical!