Hodgson Pete: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hodgson Pete: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1088] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 If that is one of the most effective Oppositions we have ever seen how come Don Brash the visionary was not able to be with us in the House today? How come Dr Brash the bold planner could not be with us in the House today? 
Eric Roy 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member on his feet knows he must not refer to people who are absent from the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is quite correct. Of course Dr Brash is not absent from the House. He is right here. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: How come Don Brash the far-sighted Dr Brash the sensible Dr Brash the reasonable or even Dr Brash the mildly interesting was not able to be with us in the House today? His speech was taken on advice. He spoke on matters he was told to speak on. He did not speak on matters he wanted to speak on. He did not even make a speech that would be made by a half-decent Leader of the Opposition at the opening of Parliament following the Prime Minister’s speech setting out the Government’s programme for the year. It was a wasted opportunity. Instead Dr Brash decided to attack—and attack does not suit Dr Brash. He does not feel angry or dismayed; he just said he was angry and dismayed. His speech did not come from the heart. Actually it did not come from the head either. His speech came from his advisers again. Dr Brash does not do angry any more than Gerry Brownlee does gymnastics. 
So an opportunity to set the agenda again was lost. An opportunity to lay out a programme or even a programme towards a programme was lost. An opportunity to say what National stands for if it stands for anything these days was forgone—lost. All we saw was a man accepting advice from the shadows that he has to get angry or if he does not his caucus will get him. “Get angry” I say to Dr Brash “because if you don’t your caucus will get you.” That is the advice. So Dr Brash who does not do angry tried to get angry but we saw again that he does not do it. Sooner or later of course his caucus will get him. The denials the slip-ups and the calls for calm will continue and when it gets desperately terminal members of his caucus will have votes of confidence which will run for a while. But the reason we know they will get Dr Brash is that Dr Brash cannot count. When Dr Brash was giving his boring uninteresting derisory response to a visionary statement from the Prime Minister he said that he headed the largest caucus National has ever seen. Well tell that to Rob Muldoon. He headed a caucus of 55 compared with 48 in this one. Tell that to Jim Bolger who had 67 in his caucus for 3 years compared with 48 in this one. So Dr Brash cannot count. The lesson in politics is that if one cannot count one will not stay in politics. 
Dr Brash needs 25 votes every day every week. Twenty-four will not do because with that number he has to use his own casting vote to stay in office and that is not good. Then there was the interesting slip-up when Dr Brash referred to the “health-scare” sector. What happened was that in the last election Dr Brash and his party promised tax cuts that would have totalled $3.9 billion per annum in the third year and all of us knew that National would get that money only by slashing the big-ticket items such as health education and law and order. Even now National members say it is not true and even now they say that money can be spent more than once. It cannot be. It is the one or the other I say to Dr Brash. It can either be given back to people in tax cuts or be taken off people in improved services. It is one way or another. The money can be spent but once. Dr Brash lost the election and now we will be able to make further progress in making our health and education sectors and law and order as well stronger and better. 
Labour formed a Government. New Zealand’s health system is no longer under threat because the Government has been formed by Labour. Instead we will continue to build our already good system into a better one. We will continue to have an already responsive system become more responsive an already high-quality system become higher quality and an already cost-effective system become more cost effective. That is what will happen under this Government. But Dr Brash spent much of his speech talking about Labour’s election expenses and National’s deputy leader for the moment did the same thing when he made his remarks in the speech before mine. 
The fact is that the Electoral Commission has referred the matter of Labour’s election expenses to the police for investigation. Dr Brash may live to regret that he wasted so much of his valuable time and this valuable opportunity on that matter because the expenditure of the Exclusive Brethren church has also been referred to the police for investigation. That group is the secretive exclusive non-voting group that came clean on television during the third week of the election campaign and said that it was responsible for pamphleting the country with blue pro-National anti-Labour anti-Green pamphlets and much besides. Members may remember that this is the same Exclusive Brethren group that Dr Brash did not meet did not know about and did not encourage. Do members remember the sequence? At the beginning of the week Paul Holmes asked him who was dealing the nasty pamphlets and Dr Brash said: “I don’t know actually Paul.” That was on the fifth. On the seventh Gerry Brownlee said on  
Morning Report 
: “Oh there’s no relationship with the Exclusive Brethren church. We are not aware that they were coming out and have had nothing to do with it.” That is what they said then. But the following day on a radio programme called 95B FM—it might be one Dr Brash thought no one listened to—Dr Brash said: “I knew they were going to issue some pamphlets attacking the Government and I said: ‘That’s tremendous.’ ” 
So this is a man who flip-flopped. In fact in the public domain many people said that the Leader of the Opposition was lying. Many people said that in the public arena— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Point of order— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I know exactly what the member is going to say and I ask the member to withdraw. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: —but I could not possibly repeat it in the House and I withdraw and apologise accordingly. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has withdrawn and apologised. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes but there is a tone there and I think it would be appropriate if you were able to say to the Minister of Health to talk a little about health.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Minister has withdrawn and apologised. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Now the deputy leader of the National Party having himself spent the whole of his speech on election expenses and having smiled—or pretended to smile—the whole time that Dr Brash spent on election expenses during his speech wants me to talk about health. He does not want rebuttal and does not want to be told about the Exclusive Brethren. I wonder what would happen when the police are investigating the issues around the Exclusive Brethren if they ask to see Dr Brash’s emails. What would happen then? What would happen if Winston Peters releases some of those? 
Dr Don Brash 
: I’m happy to put them out. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Dr Brash is happy to put them out. That is good. The police may choose—or not—to investigate and I am delighted that Dr Brash will cooperate but he might live to regret his decision for a second reason. The National Party itself has had its broadcasting expenses referred to the police for investigation. One would think that this was a once-only event involving only the Labour Party which has for the third time in a row used the same money for the same purpose and for the first time has had its issues referred to the police. But the National Party has had its expenses referred to the police too. Dr Brash is shaking his head. The National Party is under investigation. This is an issue around GST on the broadcasting expenditure—all $100000 of the GST. Let us hear what the National Party members had to say about the fact that it failed to add GST to its broadcasting expenditure. They said: “We forgot.” It does not matter that every form that one fills in for those returns has “GST inclusive” written all over it; that does not matter. It does not matter that the National Party did not forget in the last election. They got it right in the last election. They got it right in the election before. They did not forget then. Oh no! And I do not think any party has ever forgotten to add GST in its broadcasting returns— 
Darren Hughes 
: He was the Governor of the Reserve Bank. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Governor of the Reserve Bank forgot to add GST. The McGillicuddy Serious Partyremembered. The National Party headed by a former Governor of the Reserve Bank forgot. They said: “We’re sorry!”. And then they said: “We didn’t mean to.” To which I would say: “Yeah right!”. We have a leader of the National Party spending all of his time attacking the Labour Government on expenses when his party and his Exclusive Brethren mates are in front of the cops and are under investigation as well. That is a wasted opportunity a lost shot by Dr Brash who has no vision and no chance. He has absolutely nothing. He is a dead man walking holding a place while those below him work out who is going to take it.