Hughes Darren: General Debates 
Hughes Darren: General Debates 
[Volume:613;Page:10164] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
I thank the member for his contribution about the leisure time of ordinary Kiwis. I look forward to New Zealand First supporting the Labour-Progressive Government on 4 weeks’ annual leave for ordinary Kiwis so that they can enjoy more time with their families and in their communities.  
It was a great pleasure to pick up the newspaper today—and I will be spending most of my time today talking about the National Party—go to page 2 and see this obituary. There is a photo of four very young men in 1993: Mr English Mr Sowry Dr Smith and Mr Ryall sitting in the Lambton Quay McDonald’s eating a Happy Meal. The only thing that has gone up since those days is the Happy Meal; everything went down for that lot including their opinion-poll rating. I notice that they have not even bothered changing ties. These were the four young men who were going to take the National Party to great heights. When they inherited the party they had 47 percent of the vote. Those four geniuses got together and ate those cholesterol-busting Big Macs and a Fillet of Fish and they drove the National Party down to 20 percent in the polls. Today we saw an obituary for those four and not a moment too soon.  
But what did the National Party do once it had finished killing them off? First it sent Dr Brash off to the National Party board to try to resurrect Mr Williamson—a very good idea I would have thought but that was the only shot in the gun. Then they had to decide who they wanted to put on the front bench so they decided to put Dr Brash there—well he has been here for 1 year. They decided to put Gerry Brownlee there—he has been here for 7 years—and then to put Mr Power who has been here for 4 years in at No. 3. Those three National Party members bring a collective experience of just 12 years in Parliament.  
Then I looked across to the Government which is polling very very highly and I thought: “Well what is the secret to their success?”. Then I saw that Helen Clark Michael Cullen and Jim Anderton between them—the top three in the Government—have 63 years of Parliament and political experience. The only thing the National Party has in common with that figure is that 63 is the same age as its leader. So our three top people have been in Parliament for the same length of time that Don Brash has been alive but the top three people who make up the Opposition in New Zealand have been in Parliament for a total of 12 years—which is about Form 1 so we are going to see intermediate school - style politics from the Opposition.  
In respect of the ACT party I want to just say very briefly that it was nice to hear from Mr Maharey yesterday that the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme is being used effectively when it comes to writing books and that the birth of the  
Little Yellow Duck of Freedom 
 has been used to pay for these books to be written and the taxpayer of course has been very faithful about paying that $110000 subsidy every second Wednesday to Deborah Coddington. The only problem it seems is that even though taxpayers have been keeping up their share of the bargain in terms of writing the book they are having a lot of trouble finding a reliable publisher to take the  
Little Yellow Duck of Freedom 
 out to ordinary homes across the country.  
I actually thought that Gerry Brownlee was a bit rich today in Parliament and a bit mean to Nick Smith. After Mr Brownlee had given us his huffed-up speech Dr Smith rushed in with great theatrics to shake Gerry Brownlee’s hand and as he extended his mitt across the Leader of the Opposition’s bench what did he do? He knocked over a glass of water and the glass splattered and splintered all over the bench. I thought it was a bit mean of Gerry Brownlee to draw blood from Nick Smith twice in a week. I thought that was a terrible way to treat somebody who has been treated pretty appallingly anyway. Nick Smith never got a chance. It is true that Nick Smith is not the most popular member on that side but they elected him deputy 3 weeks ago. What did they do? They did not even give him the chance to put his feet under the table before they got rid of him. Mr Brownlee used the same rough style on him that he used to throw that poor man down the stairs all those years ago. So my only message to Don Brash is: “Keep your hand on the handrail because Gerry Brownlee is coming up to you right down the stairs!”.  
The other very interesting thing this week is that the National Party has announced that it will set up a candidate school to train people to be future National Party MPs. It must be a very serious thing because they have put such political heavyweights on it as Simon Power and Pansy Wong. Having Pansy Wong telling people how to run a political career and the highly marginal member for Rangitikei in charge of that as well is I think a very strange thing to do. But the National Party told us: “Don’t worry. It’s a great idea. The Tories in Britain have done this. The Tories in Britain have great candidate conferences.”  
So they have appointed a principal to this school and he will be Roger McClay. David Carter is going to run a course called “Running Coups That Destroy Our Party”. Gerry Brownlee is going to run a course entitled “Fitting Food into a Busy Schedule”. Phil Heatley is going to write a course entitled “Making the Transition from Intellectual Heavyweight to Opposition Back-bencher” and the brat pack are going to run a combined session called “Bowing out Disgracefully”. Simon Power’s session will be called “How to Get Other People to Talk You Up” and John Key’s will be “How to Cope on a Minimum Wage When You Are an MP”. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.