Blue Jackie: General Debate 
Blue Jackie: General Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16161] 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 What an extraordinary couple of weeks and an extraordinary couple of days we have had all set against the background of a winter that can be best described as one of discontent. There have been 1700 job losses in the last couple of months. Business confidence is at an all-time low. People are leaving New Zealand in droves for Australia. Food prices are up petrol prices are up and interest rates are up. And what has this Government done? Well this Government seems to have given up. Just 5 months out from an election it feels that it is in trouble and is losing its nerve. 
We have a Government that is imploding and disintegrating in front of us. There is not just a bit of rearranging of the deck chairs; there is full-scale chaos in the Labour ranks. This Government is on the ropes. It has lost its nerve and just given up. This Government has had more prima facie cases credited to it than any other Government in living memory. This Government has had to fire or demote an unprecedented number of Cabinet Ministers. 
This Government brought us a State-funded pledge card in 2005. This Government brought in the Electoral Finance Act which is vile despicable legislation that is designed to get Labour re-elected no matter what. This Government will bring in tax cuts only in an election year. What a surprise! This Government is without morals or principles. It will do anything and everything to get re-elected. It is a desperate Government that has run out of ideas and is running out of time. It is out of touch with the people of New Zealand. It has decided to give up. This Government faced with an economy that is failing and discontent in its own ranks is throwing in the towel. 
Let us talk about the extraordinary behaviour of Phil Goff. Here we have a disciplined career politician of some 25 years who gave an extraordinary interview on Alt TV. What was he thinking? Did he think that no one would be watching? Was it intentional? Was it deliberate? Was it a lapse of judgment? Well that is the question on everyone’s lips and certainly it has been in all the major newspapers. The New Zealand Press Association said recently: “Phil Goff utters the ‘d’ word”. Articles in the  
New Zealand Herald  
recently were headed: “Goff turns clobbering machine on” and “Goff’s gaffe—blunder or power play?”. A recent  
Press 
 headline states: “Helen Clark v Phil Goff: is Labour cracking?”. [ 
Interruption 
] Those members do not like it. The  
Timaru Herald 
 talks about Labour speculation and a headline in the  
Dominion Post  
states: “Phil Goff drops leadership denials”. 
The inside information I am hearing is that it was intentional. Phil Goff is not the sort of person to have a lapse of judgment. It was deliberate positioning. The MP for Mt Roskill has been grooming himself for the No. 1 job for many many years. In fact this started in 1999 at Phil Goff’s barbecue when he first fired it up. Other members of Parliament joined him to discuss leadership. He has not retracted the comments he made on the Alt TV interview. He has been qualifying the comments by saying: “There is no question about leadership at this moment.” Well we all know what “at this moment” means. That is code for “It is going to happen—not just now but it will happen.” The Alt TV interview by Phil Goff was deliberate positioning. He was letting his supporters know that he is in the game. You know Phil Goff knows about timing. Timing is everything and he knows his time will come. 
Then we had the extraordinary case of Mary Anne Thompson and the Immigration Service. What a strange story has been emerging! [ 
Interruption 
] Government members do not like it; they are squirming on the other benches. We have seen Cabinet Ministers ducking and diving taking no responsibility and denying any knowledge of the mess that has happened. They have had lapses of memory and they have been blaming officials. I want to know why there was no action in December last year when both Minister Cosgrove and Minister Cunliffe were briefed about the serious concerns in the Immigration Service. Why did they not act immediately to rectify the situation? 
Today my colleague Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith revealed that he has had 27 written questions signed off by the previous Minister of Immigration confirming that there has been fraud and corruption in the Immigration Service. He has also had 16 written questions signed off by the current Minister of Immigration. That is absolutely astonishing and astounding. It seems amazing that they are denying any knowledge of the Mary Anne Thompson case and the fact that she helped to bring her family members into New Zealand under the strangest of situations and the only reason there is an inquiry now is that they got caught out. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.