Goff Phil: General Debate 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:636;Page:6933] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 That speech was from Gerry Brownlee who has just been dumped as deputy leader. He resents it and he will get his own back. Bill English who was sitting opposite a moment ago was the man who said about his fellow front-bench colleague Judith Collins that she had an unfortunately high estimation of her own ability. They will get on well will they not? Then there is Maurice Williamson on the front bench. What did Maurice say about Bill? He said that Bill did not have anywhere near the excitement the charisma the humour the personality or the talent to be leader. But now Bill English is deputy leader and Mr Williamson is his loyal front-bench colleague! What a gift to the Government for National to put on its front bench seven people who hate each other with bitter intensity. We will see them fall apart. 
There is one old lesson in politics: the person who wants to be leader should never be appointed as deputy. National has put in Bill English as deputy. Bill English said that he supports John Key to the hilt and John Key flinched because he remembered that Bill English had said the same about Jenny Shipley and then the same about Don Brash. So there we have a deputy leader who has already been disloyal and treacherous to two previous leaders. He will do the same to John Key because there is one truth about Bill English: Bill English thinks he should be leader. 
I will take a moment to pay tribute to Don Brash the retiring leader. Don Brash I have to say is a rather sad and solitary figure on the Opposition benches today. The very National member who 2 weeks ago had a cheer group that applauded every word he said now looks at a National Party that is absolutely dismissive of him and his achievements. That is loyalty for you! It is another example of loyalty in the National Party. 
What the National caucus is showing of course in its new line-up of policies and its support for its new leader is its consistency. It has made an absolute flip-flop on just about every policy it went to the last election with. National is trying to be closer to Labour but why would the electorate buy National as a plastic replica when it has the real thing on the Government benches now? 
Let us take nuclear policy for example. John Key said he is in favour of New Zealand staying nuclear-free. That is the latest in a whole series of flip-flops made by this pathetic National Opposition on the nuclear policy. But that caucus by a large majority does not believe in a nuclear-free policy. Labour has the policy as a matter of conviction. National is trying to adopt it because it has been watching the polls so it is about political expediency. This is the same National Party caucus—and it is the same Lockwood Smith over there—that in January last year was begging American congressmen for money to persuade the electorate that it does not really want the country to be nuclear-free. Has Lockwood Smith really changed his opinions? Is he so shallow that he has absolutely reversed his policy? Or does he now have the double standard of pretending he is in favour? National members certainly cannot get away with that. 
Imitation is the highest form of flattery and what the National Party is trying to do now is cuddle up to Labour. National sees Labour as being at the centre of the New Zealand electorate consistently supported by the largest group of people and back after three elections while that party—the once great National Party—has lost three elections running. We are now into the fourth leader of the National Party and the seventh deputy leader since this Labour Government came to power. There have been four leaders and seven deputy leaders in just 6 years. There is Nick Smith. He was the deputy leader once. He lasted a week and then he had to go off and take some leave and we all felt terribly sorry for him about that. 
It was not just Don Brash who was in favour of dumping the nuclear-free policy and it was not just Don Brash who was in favour of getting involved in the war in Iraq. It was the National caucus and it was Nick Smith who was sitting on the front bench then and is sitting on the front bench now. National members blame it on Don Brash but they are all not only “hollow men” but guilty men. 
I have a couple of questions for John Key. He is a nice guy. He made a killing on the money market and I wish him good luck. But where is his experience? Jim Bolger had 14 years before becoming leader and Keith Holyoake had 25.