Prosser RichardRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): There has been a lot said in this debate about John Key's legacy and what it will be and I think that in itself is quite telling: that people have to discuss and debate and decide what John Key's legacy as Prime Minister of this country for 8 years will be. It is strange because there is nothing that stands out over those 8 years that will be a legacy for John Key as Prime Minister. Great Prime Ministers are remembered in history. John Key will not be remembered in history. He does not have a legacy. He does not have any great thing that he has done and I challenge any member on that side of the House—or this come to that—to name two great things that John Key has done in his 8 years as Prime Minister that will go down in history and that will leave him as a household name the likes of Savage the likes of Holyoake. He is not a man of that ilk.We have been criticised in this corner of the House for being perhaps less gracious than some other speakers in noting the departure of a man who has spent 8 years in the top job. I think the response has been appropriate. In 2008 when John Key came to power I voted for him. I was not a member of New Zealand First in those days. I had sat through the Helen Clark years and been so tragically disappointed that having grown up as a Social Crediter I changed my allegiance to National because I felt it offered hope. I listened to John Key on the hustings and I listened to what National was saying and I thought it offered a great change and a great hope for New Zealand for the future for me and for my kids. I was so sorely disappointed with what was delivered that I joined New Zealand First and here I am. Because there is a party in this House that says the things that the National Party of old used to say and it is New Zealand First. There is a great leader in this House who will be remembered through history and that is Winston Peters.Hon Members: Ha ha!RICHARD PROSSER: You may laugh now but change is sweeping the world. We have seen great upsets. In Canada the Liberal Party went from being a third party to being a majority Government. In the UK Brexit triumphed. In the United States Trump has triumphed. And at every turn they have confounded the pundits and confounded the pollsters. It has been the real people who have spoken up and spoken out. In the election coming next year that is what will happen in New Zealand and John Key knows it. He has seen the writing on the wall. He has seen the juggernaut approaching. He has seen the size of the dead rat that he would have to swallow and he cannot stand that size and he is not going to do it.He is a trader first and foremost. The man is a trader. He knows when to buy; he knows when to sell. He knows that for him this is the time to sell; this is the time to get out. He is cutting and running while it is a good time for him. You can say anything you like. Members on the other side can say anything they like about it being a strategic decision. They can say that he is leaving a party in good shape. At the end of the day he is leaving the party and he is leaving it 2 weeks out from the Christmas break. He is leaving it effectively 6 months of campaigning with a new leader coming into an election when its popularity has peaked when it is on the slide and when the chickens are going to come home to roost.We know this in New Zealand First because we talk to the people. The Rt Hon Winston Peters fills halls up and down this country—220 in Tauhei last night. We had 300 in Rangiora 350 in Levin and 220 in Gore. You never hear about that in the mainstream media but you know when you are there and you hear about it from people who were there and you read about it on social media. That is what people are saying around the country right now. That is the undercurrent that is flowing through. It is what happened in the UK it is what happened in the US it is what happened in Canada it is what happened with the election in Australia and it is going to happen here. John Key—credit where it is due—is no fool. He can see what is going to happen and he is getting out while the going is good.Every political career comes to an end one way or another. Most of them end in ignominy. To be able to choose the time that you go is perhaps a credit to the man but it cannot be said that he is leaving his party in the best of state. He should have announced a year ago that he was not going to complete a fourth term. He could have led his party into an election and told the people and told his party that he was going to pull out a year or a year and a half or 2 years into another term if he won. That would have been a more honest thing to do but no. Instead after 8 years of lots of horse-trading and very little else lots of noise and nothing to show in the way of a tangible achievement he has decided this is the time to cut and run this is the time to hit the silk and he is bailing. He is getting out. He will go off to Hawaii and play golf with Obama and they can talk about the old days when they used to be in power.I suppose in a year or so's time he will pick up a knighthood and that will be the end of it. But I will say this again: great Prime Ministers are recorded in the annals of history. Their names will be known for a long time. Love her or hate her in 10 years' time in 20 years' time people will still be talking about Helen Clark. In 50 years' time they will still be talking about Rob Muldoon. A hundred years from now people studying history will learn about the Rt Hon Winston Peters. But 5 years from now people will be saying John who?" because he is a grey man because he is a lightweight because he has had a nice long hold of the tiller while the sea has been calm. Do not quote the global financial crisis. It did not affect New Zealand or Australia. Our backs were not exposed to that. He has had no real challenges and he has achieved nothing. His legacy will be that he will be forgotten.He does not even have the flag change because nobody wanted that. He could not see through that campaign at the beginning to see that that was going to be the result. The clever thing for a good political operator with a good brain and a good political sense of nous to have done would be to recognise that that campaign was doomed to failure early on in the piece and pull the pin. That would have shown some grace. That would have shown the people that he was listening but no. He pushed on with it. He pushed on with it regardless of the fact that it was never going to succeed. He spent $26 million of taxpayers' money on it that could have been much better spent on hip operations or fixing the roads or schools or any one of a number of other things but $26 million to a multimillionaire money trader is just chicken feed particularly when it is somebody else's and when you have a vanity project that you want for your legacy. Well that will be his legacy: the fact that nothing happened and nothing changed.Next year things are going to change. The tide of change that is sweeping the world will sweep through New Zealand. They can scoff on that side of the House. They can scoff and they do scoff because they are not in touch with the real people. They are not in touch with heartland New Zealand. We are. New Zealand First is and we will be the alternative. We will go into the 2017 campaign New Zealand First part of a three-way race standing on our own behind the Rt Hon Winston Peters and I think a lot of people all around—the pundits the pollsters people on that side of the House and even people around us—are in for a great surprise.They could take the message now. They could heed the warning. But the indication is that they are not going to; the indication is that things are going to unfold here exactly the same as they unfolded around the rest of the world because the people who are currently in charge are every bit as out of touch here as they were over there. We will see change come and I am afraid to say that John Key's legacy will be that he is forgotten as a man who as Prime Minister for 8 years achieved nothing changed nothing and will not be remembered for anything. Thank you."