Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
[Volume:635;Page:6509] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 In the next week or two the National Party will enter its eighth year in Opposition and still its members have not decided who is to be their leader. This is an extraordinary position to be in and I do not know of another period in New Zealand history when a party thrown into Opposition wallowed for so long with its leadership unresolved. Last time Labour was in Opposition its members resolved their leadership in a little over 3 years. The time before that when National was in Opposition its members resolved their leadership in a little over 3 years. But this Opposition has gone 7 years and in a week or two it will enter its eighth year in Opposition and still there is no progress. The issue is unresolved. 
The National Party’s favourite season of October and November though still not closed has only a couple of weeks to run yet its members still have not budged. They might budge of course in the next fortnight but it seems that the show-pony candidate is now losing his bottle. They might have budged yesterday of course but their leader scuttled back from the other side of the world to be at his caucus and to maintain his position. National members might of course budge early next year—in February or perhaps at Easter—or maybe they will do so before Christmas so that they can then leave time for the splits and divisions that will result in their caucus to heal over the holidays away from the media glare. But the point of the matter is that National members have not budged and they have not shown any sign of doing so. They might of course change leaders on the basis of some future blunder by the current leader or on the basis of a reinvigorated centre-right candidate in the form of Bill English. But right now as National’s eighth year in Opposition gets under way the issue is unresolved. 
The far-right candidate is of course doggedly going nowhere in every respect; the centre-right candidate is not showing his hand; and the show-pony candidate has his bottle slipping away from him for now. The deputy leader of the National Party is listening to this speech with a lovely grin all over his face. The issue is unresolved. This party cannot get there. It cannot amass the numbers for anything. The numbers for Don Brash of course are not there but he stays there anyway. The numbers for John Key might be there but only if he is there and he is not sure so no one else is sure. The numbers for Bill English take the form for most people in the National caucus of being everyone’s second preference which is always helpful if the caucus cannot sort out who its first preference is. 
The National Party is paralysed by its own indecision. Its members hang in suspended animation waiting for something to happen for anything to happen—anything really would do. A poll rise would do a poll fall would do a political event of some sort would do and a walking of the plank—or whatever it is to be—would do. They wait for developments and they wait for a sign; they are paralysed by their own indecision. They wait in the hope that an event or a shift might occur or that somehow the political scene might change—that it might nudge them towards some resolution or other. But right now as was the case last month and the month before that there is no resolution. That is why of course there is no policy in the National Party. There is no coalescing on any platform ever. There is no certainty about where in the political spectrum National might place itself. The reason is that the three candidates for leadership are quite different people—from the far right from the centre-right and a show pony. 
It is not easy if one is the National Party spokesperson on health say or on economic development or foreign affairs to know how to frame the policy where to pitch it whereabouts on the spectrum to place it whether to be timid or radical and how to triangulate the Government or head it off at the pass. These things are difficult to do if members do not know who their leader is or where their party is being led from. 
So there is no policy except tax cuts and even then there is no detail. In health for example National has a 5-point plan with four points on it. The plan has four sentences as if that adds up to something resembling a policy—of course it does not. National cannot sort out its leader so it cannot even sort out its portfolios.