Goff Phil: General Debates 
Goff Phil: General Debates 
[Volume:619;Page:15029] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 We really know the National Party is in trouble when the Hon Nick Smith National’s one-time deputy leader leads off the general debate. He must be the same Hon Nick Smith who featured in the latest  
North and South 
 and who described himself as having been “screwed” by his colleagues. Nick Smith was asked by the interviewer how it felt to have been “dorked” by Don Brash and he described in intimate detail the treachery of his colleagues. 
National is a party that is in desperate trouble. It is in so much trouble that some members are walking right out of Parliament. Roger Sowry and Lynda Scott promising young middle-of-the-road members of the National Party are walking away from a once-great party that is on its way out. Then we have the disappointed humiliated and angry Simon Power the only whip ever to have sat on the front bench of a political party in this Parliament. The once-promising Simon Power is on his way down. Then there is Wayne Mapp who has been demoted time and time again. 
I have some advice for Don Brash: he should watch his back. John Key is counting the numbers and why would he not? The public are providing the numbers. In every monthly poll for the last 6 months Don Brash has registered diminishing confidence with the New Zealand electorate. Every month over the last 6 months the National Party has gone down in the polls—down 9 percent since February this year. Is that any wonder when we get headlines like “Bumbling Brash loses the plot” which was in the  
Otago Daily Times 
 last weekend? But we do not have to go as far back in history as last weekend. John Armstrong wrote a comment in the  
New Zealand Herald  
today under the headline “Home or away Brash is losing”. The National Party has a real dilemma. If it does not put Don Brash in the House people say it is because he cannot front up and does not have what it takes to be the leader. When it does put him in the House he proves that point. As John Armstrong wrote: “When he fronts up he is being slaughtered.” 
The National Party is in desperate trouble. It is no wonder it is in desperate trouble when its leader Don Brash has twice this year gone to Australia to bag his country—to run it down. He did that in March when he told the Australians that New Zealand was not pulling its weight in defence. What about our people in Afghanistan? What about the role we have played in East Timor in Bougainville and in the Solomon Islands? That man should be proud of his country. He should be proud of the servicemen and women who work on behalf of this country—a country that more than pulls its weight in international affairs. Then just last week Don Brash stated in the  
Australian Financial Review 
 that New Zealand is a failed Pacific Island State. It has been some failure! Every country in the world would like to fail in the way that New Zealand has failed in the last 5 years. New Zealand is at the top of the OECD in terms of growth rates. A regional survey by the National Bank shows that our annualised growth rate at the moment is 4.3 percent. We have the second-lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD—4 percent which is down from double figures under the previous National Government. New Zealand is a country that Transparency International has consistently rated in the top three countries in the world in terms of good governance and a lack of corruption. Yet Don Brash when talking to a business audience tried to lower confidence in this country thereby betraying and undermining his country. 
New Zealanders will not tolerate behaviour of that nature. It is no wonder that the National MPs sit silently with their heads down because they have a leader whom they are deeply ashamed of. I tell John Key he should not wait until after National has lost the election but should claim the leadership now. The numbers are there. There is no confidence in Don Brash as leader of the National Party or as a potential leader of this country.