Connell Brian: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Connell Brian: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:615;Page:10936] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker Simich as this is the first call I have taken this year I belatedly wish you the compliments of the season. May I say that I have admired the way you grace this Chamber with your presence and I admire the way you administer your functions in such a fair-handed style. 
I support Don Brash’s motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister’s statement and by extrapolation no confidence in the Prime Minister herself and no confidence in this Government. The Prime Minister’s speech was full of platitudes and slogans—[ 
Interruption 
] At least we are getting a reaction now! It was full of platitudes and it had no depth no strategies and no vision. It was thin it was bland and it had no meat. It was the political equivalent of tofu. This Prime Minister has no sense of what it takes to remain in touch with mainstream New Zealanders. Her instincts are deserting her. The very instincts that enabled her to get into the role she has now are deserting her when she needs them most. 
This Government is a house of cards. Once we destabilise the Prime Minister—and that is happening—this Government will come down and it will leave awful rubble in this Chamber. The consequences are very clear. This Government will lose the next election and I say: “Bring it on!”. Next week next month or next year—I do not care. The Nats are back. We are on a roll. I say to the members opposite: “Thanks for keeping the seats warm. Thanks for the memories. Now scurry off back to your offices and start cleaning them out to make room for the next Government.” Boy it is hurting them is it not? It is hurting them big time. One has only to witness John Tamihere’s disgusting performance last night. In his eyes all Kiwis are equal but some are more equal than others. His outburst was pathetic. His leadership aspirations disappeared in the course of one speech. He was emotional and he was not detached because a few of his sacred cows were being threatened. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He was hysterical. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: He was hysterical. Boy we cannot tell the truth about Maori in this country can we without the politically correct brigade standing up and starting to yell scream and lose all sense of proportion. So do members know what he did? Ironically he played the cheapest card in the pack. He played the race card. Suddenly all the Nats were rednecks. Instead of having a calm rational debate about legitimate issues he started name-calling and casting insults. And when Gerry Brownlee gave it back he did not like it did he? He was the first to cry foul then. The Prime Minister in a rather pathetic way I have to say tried to suggest that Don Brash’s speech was divisive. When we boil it down he was simply saying that all Kiwis should be treated on the basis of their needs and not race. And here is the rub: most Kiwis agree with him. That is what hurts the crowd over there. At the same time that John Tamihere was mouthing off the  
Holmes 
 programme 
fielded 34075 calls 30667 of which—and for that dim-witted crowd over there I point out that that is 90 percent—said that Don Brash was right and the Government was wrong and the Government did not like it. 
Then Phil Goff got to his feet and chimed in trying desperately to distract the debate away from the Government’s failed race relations policies. He attacked the Nats on their supposed nuclear policy. He argued that 80 percent of New Zealanders do not want to change our nuclear policy so how dare the National Party raise the issue for debate! How dare National try to inform New Zealanders about the cost of this policy! His figures are rubbish but let us allow for the sake of argument that they are right. If that is the case the hypocrisy of the argument is not lost on me. Was he not the very Minister who despite a referendum organised by Norm Withers in which 93 percent of Kiwis said they wanted tougher sentencing laws said: “Too bad!” and just thumbed his nose at them? Is it any wonder that when Phil Goff walks in the streets of urban New Zealand the words “Soft Goff soft Goff” are echoed everywhere? 
As for Winston Peters’ pathetic attack on the Nats I have this to say: if he keeps cuddling up to the Prime Minister the way he is he will be exposed for the charlatan he is. Let him just keep on going. He is arguing both sides of the argument because he just does not know where to stand on it anymore. Do members know why? It is because he knows that the Nats are right and he is simply upset that he has been upstaged. His narrow policies—all three of them—are myopic at best and his anti-Asian migration stance is doing more harm to the reputation of New Zealand than this Government has ever done in two terms of Government—and boy coming from me that is really saying something! Mr Peters says the Nats are the B team and I say to him that his views are at best subjective. I can say one inescapable fact—at least we have a team and I think it is a pretty good team. In fact it is a team that will lead the next Government of New Zealand. This team is on 32 percent in the polls and is going through the roof. Mr Peters’ crowd is on 8 percent and is going out the back door as fast as it possibly can. 
What will the Nats do that the Prime Minister’s paper failed to address? We will do a number of things. The first thing we will do is grow this economy at a rate faster than it is being grown at the moment. We pat ourselves on the back because having had the best economic conditions for decades we achieve 4 percent growth and think we have done really well. I have worked and lived in economies where 5 percent was the minimum and people were getting pessimistic. I have worked in economies where it was 10 percent and we were cooking on gas. Why is it that New Zealanders condition themselves to accept 4 percent growth? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It was 6 percent under Mrs Shipley. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: It was 6 percent under Mrs Shipley and it will be higher under Don Brash. Mark my words. Why is it that we can take a hiding from Australia in rugby and suddenly have a national day of mourning while we analyse what took place but we say that it is just our luck that at the moment economically the average worker in Australia could be $175 to $200 better off? We do not accept that over on this side of the House. We have better aspirations for our country than that. What we are to do is start growing our economy faster and we are to start doing that in rural New Zealand because that is the powerhouse. And what is this stupid Minister of Education’s answer to that? What is Trevor Mallard saying? He is saying: “I’m going to close down rural schools. I’m going to close down rural schools and hurt rural New Zealand just where it hurts most.” Truancy juvenile crime dole bludgers—they are not the issues for rural New Zealand. They are urban problems. Do members know why? It is because parents get involved. Parents are interested. They are the types of things that rural New Zealand values. We reap as we sow and the way that this Minister of Education is sowing at the moment we will have a very poor harvest. I have a better vision for this country than he is leading us with. The holy grail of economies of scale is what he is pursuing and the great desperation and pity about it all is that he has no idea what it means. Someone pointed it out to him in a book and the trouble is that it will kill this country.