Smith Lockwood:  
Smith Lockwood:  
[Volume:622;Page:17314] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Is that the best Labour could do—that little pathetic effort just now? It was not even funny. I want to know why we have not heard from any Maori members today. Why have we not heard from any Maori members today? Because the latest poll shows that they will be gone. Of the seven Labour Maori members the Television One 
 Marae 
-DigiPoll showed that five of them will be gone. Now I suspect that is why we are not hearing from the Maori members. We heard Dr Cullen gloating and Mr Maharey gloating. But of those Maori members the poll shows that Mr John Tamihere over there may be OK—that is providing the inquiries into what he has been up to are OK—and that Nanaia Mahuta may be OK but the rest of them are gone. 
Now what makes them more grumpy is that Helen’s favourite Shane Jones will be put higher on the list than those other Maori members so those other Maori members are very very grumpy. They are very grumpy because the poll shows that they will be gone. 
It is all very well to have members of this Labour Government today gloating over a good poll result; I accept that it was a good poll result for them. But it was not a good result for its Maori members of course. It was a good poll for the white members of the Labour Party today but not so good for the Maori members. What they should remember is this. Polls go up and polls can go down very fast. Remember one little word—Orewa. Orewa is in my electorate. I was there. I saw what happened and I saw this Labour Government not just flip-flop after Orewa but this Labour Government turned damn somersaults after Orewa. It turned somersaults. It thinks it has conned the public of New Zealand that it will no longer have racially biased legislation. It thinks it has convinced the public of that. Well the public is not stupid. With the foreshore and seabed legislation gone through and as we start to see the claims for iwi reserves or whatever they are going to be on the foreshore the people of New Zealand will see the con job that has been hatched on them. 
The people of New Zealand will get tired of this controlling Government not allowing parents to choose where their children go to school. They will get tired of this Government controlling how much money middle-income earners can earn. They will find that effective marginal tax rates on families and middle-income New Zealand are up around the 80 90 and 95 percent mark. This Government controls the amount of money that middle-income earners in New Zealand will get in their pockets. People will start to see that and get tired of it. They will get tired of this Government taking so much in taxes. 
People in rural New Zealand will get tired of the challenge to their property rights. It has just been revealed to me regarding the big controversy over access across rural land that where the Government has not been prepared to say exactly what the final policy will be it has come out of a meeting in Blenheim in the last couple of weeks that the Prime Minister’s office has been asking people from the Fish and Game Council—an agency funded by State regulation—to write letters to the Prime Minister supporting the outrageous land access issue the Government is pushing. It verges on being corrupt when a State-backed agency is encouraged by the Prime Minister’s office to write letters to the Prime Minister’s office to show huge support for the property rights issue across rural land. 
That will be made public. It was revealed at a public meeting in Blenheim. The Prime Minister is being asked to explain herself right now. That is the kind of thing that New Zealanders will finally grow tired of. They see that when the Labour Prime Minister is in trouble she will not even take accountability for herself. She let the police carry the can for her own speeding offences. That is the measure of our Prime Minister.