Goff Phil: General Debate 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9840] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 The list of things that this Government has got right is legend. There are 347000 new jobs. The unemployment figure is a small fraction of the figure in the legacy left by the failed Government in which Bill English was Minister of Finance. We have a KiwiSaver scheme that is applauded for answering the longstanding problem of lack of saving in this country. We have a Working for Families package that delivers for people at the time they need it most—when they have kids and need help. 
That member can talk all he likes about the prison system today. Sitting opposite me is Nick Smith a former Minister of Corrections. When he was the Minister and when prisoners got out of Paremoremo prison the explanation given was that the boundary fence was not supposed to stop the prisoners escaping but only to slow them down. Then there was the guy who escaped from his security guard when he had a broken leg and was tied to a drip. The security service let him get away and it could not explain that either. That member knows that drug use was six times as much when he was the Minister of Corrections than it is today. He knows that. He knows that the escape rate was 78 percent higher. The member from wherever it is in the Manawatu knows that in his local prison at Linton they used to hand drugs through the window of the cells because there was no fence around the prison. That is how bad it was under the National Government. 
So let us not have Bill English come into this House with all the rubbish he is talking. He Maurice Williamson Tau Henare and Tony Ryall are the failed faces of a failed National Government in the 1990s when this country went backwards. We see the same old tired faces but there are a few faces that we have not seen much of lately. Mr Ryall is kept off TV. Judith Collins is kept off TV. Gerry Brownlee—they try to keep him off TV. These are the faces that the public do not like to see because they are the faces of a National Party that has very little appeal. 
That National Party is essentially the same National Party that was in place at the time the emails were sent on which the book  
The Hollow Men 
 was based. 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: That is right. They are the same people involved in that level of corruption from the party that would have you believe that it stands for the common person but when you read the emails you see that what they actually believe is a different thing again. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: You can try all you like Mr English to repackage yourself. You can do that as often as you like— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: —but we know that what you are saying today is simply what you think you need to say to try to win public support. Yesterday the National Party— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member sees himself as a young member and the face of the future of the Labour Party but he has actually been here a long time—over 20 years on and off. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Get to the point Mr English. 
Hon Bill English 
: He knows he cannot say “you” when he is addressing the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr English. The member will recognise that in his speech. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The fact is that nobody can trust the National Party. Just a little while ago John Key and National members—every one of them—were against the Kyoto Protocol. John Key said in this House that global warming was a hoax. The next minute he was saying that global warming will destroy us and that the Government is not doing enough. What credibility can the National Party speak with when it flip-flops on those basic policies? National members are not to be trusted. They are the same people who disclosed what they would do in the book  
The Hollow Men 
. 
They are the people who would strip interest-free student loans away from students. Do I get a denial? Are they for them or against them? They will not say but Paul Hutchison did. That is the party that will do away with the Working for Families which helps people when they most need help. That is the party that will not commit itself to KiwiSaver. 
There was a great scheme under Norman Kirk that would have made this country a wealthy country and would have created the capital to get the growth and savings we needed as a country—but the Muldoon Government destroyed it. The Key-led National Party is promising to do exactly the same thing which is not in the interests of this country. Notwithstanding the re-imaging that National members are trying to do from what National members are saying privately that is clear. 
John Key is going around the country saying to National Party branches: “Don’t worry too much about what you hear me saying because when I’m in Government I’m going to do something different.” I ask Mr English to deny that. That has been reported back to us time and time again. John Key is saying that what he says publicly is for public consumption but that given the chance he will act for what the National Party has always been—a party that governs for a small minority of people with vested interests and people with wealth. That is what the National Party believes.