Maharey Steve: General Debate 
Maharey Steve: General Debate 
[Volume:636;Page:6931] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I begin with the Government’s congratulations to the new leadership team in the National Party. Mr John Key is a man who one day hopefully will live in his own electorate as well as occupy the Opposition benches in the House. We see Mr Bill English who has returned to a leadership position. The overall configuration of people has changed. Mrs Goudie has made it through to the very very back benches. A kind of dizzying kaleidoscope of change has gone on. We on this side of the House just wait for the next lot of changes in the National Party because it is most entertaining to be able to see them every week. 
Of course Mr John Key has said to us that he wants to make a fresh start. Unfortunately for Mr John Key I have this book here; I want to read out the title of the book. It is called  
The Hollow Men: A study in the politics of deception.  
That is the problem for Mr John Key. While that book is around there will be all sorts of problems. 
I have to say first of all that the book is highly entertaining. For example Bill English thinks Judith Collins is incompetent. We have known that for a long time but it is very good to know that National knows it as well. We also know that Bill English thinks most people in National—Katherine Rich for example—were promoted far too fast and that is why they are unable to accomplish anything in the party. We learn that Mr Murray McCully has lost three elections in a row and still has the job of being the strategic person in the National Party. Frankly we will have to stop paying the National Party to have Murray in that job because it is getting embarrassing—one election after another. 
But as entertaining as the book is there is a serious point that the National Party has to deal with. What this book actually shows is not all the entertainment not all the gaffes not all the pratfalls and not all the disunity; it shows that the National Party is run by people who are not elected and who are not even members of the National Party. Those people are a group of extraordinarily well-off New Zealanders who have extreme policies that they want introduced and over a period of two decades they have made and broken leader after leader. That is why this book is important. It tells us that for two decades the National Party has been run by a shadowy group of people who do not bother to get elected or join the National Party but who ask the party to deliver for them. 
That is what Dr Brash was doing. He was delivering for those people. He was on their side. He was doing their bidding. He was in their camp. He was part of a very small group of rich people who wanted to run this country for their own interest. And Mr Key can say what he likes he can change policies he can flip-flop he can adopt every Labour policy in sight—it is all too easy to watch these changes—but he will have to tell New Zealanders that he knows that two-decade period of being controlled by a shadowy small group of people is over. 
Any textbook we read on politics will tell us that when a Government serves the interests of a small group of rich business people it is called fascism. They may not wear jackboots any more—they may wear suits—and they may like to think they are better than the rest of the country but it is still fascism when a small group of people is allowed to take over the party the National Party likes to believe it is and then put that group’s policies into place. 
The next election will be fought on one word: trust. Until John Key brings those people out of the shadows and dispenses them into the dustbin of history he will not be trusted. The comparison will be between the National Party with its hidden backers and the Labour Party which has said what it will do and has done it for three elections—soon to be four. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The entire tenor of this speech has been contrary to the Standing Orders. I refer you to Speaker’s ruling 48/5: “A member may suggest that a party was given advice from outside but not instructions or directions.” and to Speaker’s ruling 49/1: “It is ‘contrary to our practice to say that a political party in this House is or members of it are under the direction instruction … or domination of an outside body.’ ” I suggest that the member needs to be brought into line fast. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank Mr Finlayson for raising that. Mr Maharey may continue. I did not take it that he was talking about direction from outside but influence—yes that is fine. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I will just reinforce the point to Mr Finlayson that at the next election the one word that will matter is trust. The National Party as long as this book is here and as long as the National Party does not deal with it cannot be trusted.