English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:12440] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. What is going on in the Labour Party? What is going on? The big deadly dastardly attack fizzled out like Steve Maharey facing a hard decision. What has happened to the Labour Party? I will tell members what is going on. The deadline for candidate nominations was put back by the Labour Party to early November. Half the front bench are trying to watch the polls to decide whether to stand again. That is why they are preoccupied. At the same time a Cabinet reshuffle is going on. How can Helen Clark reshuffle the Labour Cabinet when half the front bench cannot decide whether to stand again? 
I will make some recommendations about who should stand again. I think Pete Hodgson showed himself today to be ably qualified to be a leading member of the Labour Government. He is the man who said we should not waste a dollar of taxpayers’ money paying rent to private landlords and that it should all go on services. It is just that he forget to tell us that one of the most recent openings he went to was a breast-screening unit at Palmerston North Hospital that is owned by the private sector. The district health board pays rent to the landlord—whoever that is. The Minister opened the breast-screening unit. He should stay. We want Pete Hodgson to stay. 
Then we have Steve Maharey. He is the man who said we will die in a ditch over private money in public services. If he stays then he will get the choice of which ditch to die in and on which side of the road. He was trying to curry favour in a last desperate effort to get the left wing of the Labour Party to tell him he had a future. It was killed off today when we found out that there are a number of exceptions to Labour’s position. That is why we need Trevor Mallard to stay because he is the guy who seems to know the policy. He said we can sell assets. That is the first thing. Steve Maharey will die in a ditch over it but Trevor says we can do it. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Every cloud has a silver lining. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Every cloud has a silver lining. Here are the exceptions: we can sell it if it is a spin-off a joint venture or a farm. In fact they are selling so many farms that Michael Cullen told us last week that we need a system to stop them selling sensitive farms. Labour has just brought that in and paid Landcorp $50 million to stop them doing it. Then Trevor said they can sell it if it is a building but Steve Maharey said we will die in a ditch over school buildings. Pete Hodgson said if we rent a building it is bad and that we would never do that but Mallard says we can. 
 Then he came up with another new beauty—non-core assets. Helen Clark is trying to decide which one of them is not a core asset. Well Michael Cullen has become a core liability. Steve Maharey is certainly a current liability. Trevor Mallard we never know about; he is a contingent liability every single day because one does not know what he is going to come up with. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: He’s a non-current asset. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No the Minister of Justice is the non-current asset. He will find himself on the select committee sorting out the Electoral Finance Bill. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: He’s below the line. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: He is below the line. Then we have the non-trading assets. We can sell a building a non-core asset a non-trading asset a spin-off a joint venture and a farm; and that is just what we heard today. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: But we can’t sell assets. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We cannot sell assets. So what happened about Labour’s vicious attack on National from 2 weeks ago? Where has it gone? I do not know; it has just disappeared. Then we have Dr Cullen and he is just as consistent as Trevor Mallard. Dr Cullen has ruled out big tax cuts; he has ruled out small tax cuts; he has ruled out rate tax cuts; he has ruled out a change to thresholds which might bring tax cuts; he has ruled out tax cuts when the economy is growng fast; he has ruled out tax cuts when the economy is slowing down; he has ruled out tax cuts when there is a big surplus and he has ruled out tax cuts when there is a bigger surplus but now he is promising tax cuts in election year.