Power Simon: General Debate 
Power Simon: General Debate 
[Volume:642;Page:11789] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 That member was the Hon Rick Barker who was making his last desperate bid to remain in Cabinet following the reshuffle that is to come for the Labour Government. How do we know that the lobbying for the reshuffle has begun? We know that because when Helen Clark was out of the country at APEC David Cunliffe was driving into service stations in the dead of night and filling up liquefied petroleum gas tanks for Phil Goff’s barbecue. He was too scared to do that while the Prime Minister was in the country but he will be right there with Phil Goff if the time comes. We know that the reshuffle is already creating all sorts of lobbying in the corridors amongst the Labour MPs. We know that they are desperate to have their last dying days in Cabinet if they can. I thought it would be a useful use of my time in this debate to help out some of those Labour MPs by making some predictions from this side of the House as to what is going to happen in the reshuffle. 
We know that after a prison overspend the Graham Burton tragedy and the death of young Liam Ashley Damien O’Connor is gone. We do know that he was smart enough on advice from the right-wing faction of the Labour caucus to offer his resignation to the Prime Minister by text from Hong Kong to ensure that it placed her in a tricky position in respect of removing him from Cabinet overall. That will be interesting to watch. Mark Burton too is gone. He is a Minister who was too slow to recognise that he was being set up as the front person on the Electoral Finance Bill to give the leadership around Helen Clark enough excuse to shift him on. He has effectively paved his own way to the exit door; he did not see that one coming down the road. Rick Barker whom we have just heard from has lost his seat and his swagger. He used to walk into the debating chamber full of confidence. He is a broken sad man now. 
What do all three of those Ministers have in common? They are all from the justice sector: the Minister for Courts the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Corrections. It is a land of opportunity for people like Parekura Horomia who has decided that keeping a low profile will help him to slip through the reshuffle unnoticed and retain his current position. 
Pete Hodgson knows that he is gone from the health portfolio. He is the only Minister of Health who while patients are lying on trolleys in corridors at North Shore Hospital has time to go around digging up non-existent dirt on John Key. It makes us realise just how smart Paul Swain and Marian Hobbs were after all. They saw it all coming from well down the road and decided they would get out of Cabinet. We know the situation is becoming vicious inside the Labour caucus at the moment. We know that the lobbying is frantic. But members should not rely on my word; they should rely on the words of that helpful fellow Mike Moore. He was helpful enough to say recently: “This politics of personal destruction is fearful. Why is Labour so good at it? Because we practise on each other.” That is exactly what is occurring right now in the back corridors of the Labour caucus. Mike Moore described the banning of advertising in election year as sinister and even gave his old friend Phil Goff a bit of a nudge when he said: “Even the normally sensible Phil Goff has joined the chorus hoping to ingratiate himself with left-wing MPs for later.” 
Where does the talent lie? Who is coming in in this Cabinet reshuffle? Well it might have been Clayton Cosgrove before his old mate Mike Moore decided to make his comments in the media. We know that Maryan Street may not be told to wait for just one more adjournment as she has been told all year long. It is the same with Shane Jones. His philosophy is to say nothing and get promoted and it seems to be working for him today. I have some advice for my colleague and friend Darren Hughes. I say he should concentrate on winning Otaki and not worry about the Cabinet reshuffle. He should concentrate on that. 
The real question though is: will the Prime Minister deal to the front bench or will we keep seeing on TV the sad tired faces that represent the defeated few? Can the Prime Minister afford to mix it with the factions and upset those along the front bench who represent the faces that the public have had a gutsful of? But deep talent lurks further back in Labour. We have noticed Harry Duynhoven’s frenetic activity during question time recently. He has taken more points of order than Michael Cullen over the last three or four days. He is obviously mastering his skills in the House in order to be ready for a shift up along with the likes of Dave Hereora Mita Ririnui Martin Gallagher and Moana Mackey.