Jones Dail: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
Jones Dail: Adjournment — Sittings of the House 
[Volume:614;Page:10762] 
The purport of this motion is to adjourn the House until 2 p.m. on Tuesday 10 February and to set the sitting days for next year. 
Dail Jones 
: What a bunch of pikers! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: “What a bunch of pikers!” the member says. Goodness me! One of the things I look forward to tonight is the ritual whereby the Opposition will move an amendment to bring the House back on something like Tuesday 27 January. Those are still pretty much gentlemen’s hours from their perspective because Cabinet will have started on 20 January. Opposition members will sit there hoping like hell that the Government votes against it and that they do not have to come back earlier. Their theme song this year has definitely been: “I really want to get out of this place if it is the last thing I ever do.” They are The Animals over there singing that old song. 
This is an Opposition that has shown no appetite for Parliament for months and months and no appetite even for politics. This has been a disastrous year for them. Before I get on to that a little bit further let me do the honours as is appropriate for me as Leader of the House. I begin by thanking you Mr Speaker for your enormous goodwill humour and tolerance—particularly of the Opposition—during this year. You have had to put up with some pretty extraordinary attacks from people like Mr McCully who is an expert in the ethics of parliamentary politics as we all know and a man who keeps a solid supply of daggers in the cupboard ready to stick into the back of any National Party leader who shows any sign of hesitating along the way. 
To the Clerk of the House and his staff; to the select committee staff; to the messengers none of whom have been shot so far this year; to the security officers; to the telephone operators; to the Bellamy’s staff; to the secretaries; to the ministerial staff including the one in my office who released the notice of the meeting tomorrow at 2 o’clock; to the researchers; to the Fletcher Construction staff; to the Travel Office and staff who have been kept particularly busy all year by a number of members opposite who have been travelling the country to no purpose at all; to the VIP Office and staff who kept Ministers moving to a great deal of purpose; to the Bills Office staff who kept the bills going this year; to the Cabinet Office and staff; to the Hansard staff; to the minutes staff; to the police at the gate who have had to deal with rather stupid tractor drivers; to the whips offices including the musterer’s office amongst the Greens—I am not quite sure what they have in favour of sheep which are an important species; that has never been quite clear to me in that respect but never mind—to all those people I give my heartfelt thanks if they have made this place work during the year. 
 We passed during this year the second largest number of bills passed under an MMP Parliament—some 127 I think it is. Indeed I think what has happened this year is that we are spending less time debating things on which we actually agree and more time debating things on which we do not agree which is a sensible allocation of parliamentary time and probably necessary under MMP. I do not know what this year will have been for the National Party in terms of the Chinese calendar—probably the year of the rat or something like that. 
Hon Member 
: Going to the dogs! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes—the year of going to the dogs. [ 
Interruption 
]The year of the what? I defer to Pansy Wong. 
Pansy Wong 
: The goat. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes it has been has it not? It has been the year of the goat. I thank Pansy Wong for that very helpful comment because this is the year in which the National Party made a generational change—upwards. For the first time in our history its members decided to bypass the generation in its 40s and go to those in their 60s. No wonder Dr Brash holds as his primary policy that the age for New Zealand superannuation should be raised. He wants no suggestion that he should be retiring from this place; instead he wants to carry on as leader despite his advancing years. That is an Opposition that has sat there glumly day by day. That is a Leader of the Opposition who cannot look the Prime Minister in the eyes when he asks a question; a deputy leader of the National Party whose only contribution now is to raise points of order that are nearly always declined; and a front bench that is there largely either because its members voted for the coup or because they are seen as young and hopefully will emerge as future leaders some time in the next decade or two. 
That is a National Party that has not come up with a single policy statement during the entire year. [ 
Interruption 
] The member came out with a sort of exhausted movement towards a policy statement at one point but apart from that there has not been a single policy statement. What is the National Party policy on the beaches—the foreshore and seabed? It does not have a clue. Tomorrow if we agree of course we are releasing screeds of it—so fast indeed that Gerry Brownlee will need a speed reader to finish it by midnight tomorrow night—in terms of policy. What was the National Party’s response to today’s transport package? Mr what’s-his-name Ryall known as “Mrs Mac” on this side of the House said he was against it and Mr Williamson who is still in the phase of naive honesty—from having been on the outer for a period—said he was for it. There we have the National Party policy for today on that. Tomorrow on the foreshore and seabed issue we will have Georgina te Heuheu saying that the Government is taking rights away from Maori and we will have Dr Brash saying that the Government is giving far too much to Maori and that they should not be getting anything at all. 
All National Party members have been able to do all year is make a lot of noise which is why Gerry Brownlee is No. 2 in the National Party. He can make more noise with less content than any other member of the House except maybe Rodney Hide on a very very bad day. I am told that Bill English is studying closely the life of John Howard. Bill English has discovered that John Howard was the leader of the Liberal Party in Australia in his 40s and he got shoved aside and replaced by a show pony - type in Andrew Peacock who was thought to appeal to the business community rather better than John Howard did. Then Andrew Peacock got shoved aside by someone else called John Hewson. Then funnily enough after about 10 years John Howard in his 50s came back to be leader of the Liberal Party. Bill English is sitting there saying: “This time I will bide my time. This time I won’t go when Tony Ryall tells me it’s the time to move. This time I’m going to wait until it’s appropriate.” Meanwhile Lockwood Smith—[ 
Interruption 
] The gallery? They are all out getting tanked in the marquee as most members opposite were until a few minutes ago. That is where they were. 
We know that Dr Brash is a leader of the National Party whose term in office will be somewhere between 0-2 years. He is aiming for that—0-2—again in his life. He may stagger through to the election. If he does the National Party will get done like a bunch of turkeys in the next election. If he does not somebody else will take over in the meantime. The National Party will look for somebody very young like Simon Power or even Katherine Rich who forgot to ask about Dunstan Hospital before it got its grant. Then having done that it will move back to Bill English who will take over again as leader at some point in the future. That party opposite is in terminal decline. Meanwhile the ACT party is working out who will be next to get into legal trouble. Donna Awatere Huata has already got into it with them. Deborah Coddington has that slight problem about debts in the family. There are one or two others we have our sights on with some interesting facts that may come up in the new year. That is a very interesting party over there. New Zealand First has one person who stands out but unfortunately—[ 
Interruption 
] Ron Mark! We must pass on that news to Winston Peters. Ron Mark thinks he is the one outstanding member of New Zealand First. The problem with New Zealand First members is that they only come alive at 10 o’clock at night and by 7 o’clock in the morning their peak has passed. Nobody has told Winston Peters yet that politics occurs during daylight hours in New Zealand by and large. If one is to succeed one has to get up at 7 o’clock in the morning and go to bed at 10 or 11 o’clock or midnight. 
We look forward to the reaction of members opposite to the seabed and foreshore announcement. It will be another disaster for the National Party. Nobody will believe a word of what National members say. National is a party headed for oblivion—and it is a question of who replaces it: New Zealand First or United Future. My money is on United Future. If one has God and the hunters and shooters on one’s side—a private army and the intervention of the Almighty—one cannot possibly go wrong.